Seeking Advice on site organization. ^_^

[shadow cup]

Good morning/ afternoon/ evening (depends on your zone. ^_^;;; )

I'm contemplating making a move of data from the old site through to the new one but would like to take the opportunity to take steps forward in design (no, not the design of the site itself (I hope to try to deal with that aspect myself within the limits of my ability to manipulate freeware templates and such. ;c)) but rather the site design from the builder's perspective. :c)

To give a bit of background I have high hopes for a start-up process that I'm hoping to tie into a domain with several topically-homogenous sections.

I had already taken a step towards this by setting up an ideological-political-philosophical (I have yet to truly decide what it is going to be) blog on Wordpress on another host that had "slight" up-time reliability issues (though decent service otherwise - whats fair is fair). So I kinda have something to work upon but I foresee that I'd like to go beyond a blog at some point - plus the blog layout itself tended to get front-blog-page hits but little follow-up.

So the following is what I'm considering (and no the list does not mean that I am not looking for advice ^_^):

Main) A user-friendly front page that would introduce visitors to the site and sow seeds of interest within them, as well as including most relevant links and news and such.

Blog) - For regular deposition of content (I really only had a couple of dozen contributions anyway... perhaps I should consider just reposting them and modifying the blog theme features to be more user-friendly and navigable)

Forum) - Also desired for the sake of encouraging debates on various issues. I attempted to set one up on Wordpress the other time but that did not go too well (Wordpress can be very unforgiving. ^_^;;; )

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Those are the main building blocks that I am considering right now, though I'd like to include a section dedicated to online surveys and the sort. :c)

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On a side-note... I am unfamiliar with phpadmin - I shall look it up on the forums here but any pointer to a guide would be appreciated. ^_^;;;

Thanks in advance :cP

[shadow cup]

By the way, would each (blog, forum, etc.) count as a sub-domain?

[Andan]

Well overall you have the plan and makings of a informative and intuitive layout and website overall.

Have you thought about using vB, or phpBB (or another forum software) to do you forum instead of trying to set one up within Wordpress? It would be easier, and more templates would be available for you to customize and such.

Depending on the blog/forum software, each one might become a seperate sub domain, although it may not have to.

[shadow cup]

Thank you for the encouraging feedback on planning concept. :c)

'grins' I am actually trying to get my head around EvrSoft First Page 2006 in order to set up a decent main front page for the rest to link from. ^_^;;;

Its going reasonably... okish. It offers WYSIWYG tracking of changes so... not too bad - I get to watch my basic errors in real time :cP

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As regards to the forum (which is a definite "not yet" until I get the front page and blog sections up) I am planning to take a closer look at phpBB as I heard some good things about it.

As for structure (re: sub domains i.e.) it is my intention to go for something similar to the following:

Main Page = domain.com
Blog Page = domain.com/blog (ok not creative but it seems I'll have some time to ponder on it while I figuratively swear at the front page. ;cP)
Forum Page = domain.com/forum (no it won't be wordpress ^_^)
etc.

Something like that...

[shadow cup]

No more swearing..... I'm trying my luck with the sitebuilder. ^_^;;

Nice themes but it would be nice if there were non-themed themes ready for customization like some WP theme templates... ^_^

As it is it looks like I'm going to have to edit the aftermath of a music template. ;cP

(sorry for ranting - I find it to be a healthy process preserving of sanity)

[Andan]

Ah, I personally do not like the "sitebuilders" out there. I like to do the work myself. The way I see it, I'll spend double the time trying to modify the given template/theme into what I want.

[shadow cup]

Originally Posted by Andan

Ah, I personally do not like the "sitebuilders" out there. I like to do the work myself. The way I see it, I'll spend double the time trying to modify the given template/theme into what I want.

What tools do you use to build your site? MS Word? :c)

[Andan]

I hand code each and every page and then go through and view it in IE7, FF2, and Opera9.

And I use Dreamweaver 8 for it's built in preview and it's auto pop-up of additional attributes that I haven't committed to memory.

[shadow cup]

Sure...
Go ahead...
Make me feel more inadequate... ;cP

[Andan]

Heh, sorry lol.

I just feel that I'm not very good at the graphics part of design. I just never seem to find enough time to sit there and create a nice image/graphic. And all my sites use static images too.


From what I hear and have seen, if you own FrontPage or Dreamweaver, you can use their GUI to create your website and make it look pretty (provided you have the graphic work done or will be done).


Oh forgot to ask, what is the web address for your website? I want to see.

[shadow cup]

www.pathforger.com

But there seriously is 'nothing' there. ^_^ I am looking into a cop-out (looking into getting somebody more competent than myself in this regards) for the design of the main page. :cP

[Andan]

Ah, perhaps I can help

What is the target audience?
What is the purpose of the organization?

[shadow cup]

That would be interesting - I'm still looking. :c)

Target audience:
- Range: 15+, Both genders, non-race/faith-specific (but targeted mainly towards europe/ america)

Organization purpose: I don't know if one person counts as an organization per se... but anyway. ^_~ What I initially intend is to have it set up as a site dealing with the issues and imperfections of this world (of which there are many) while also developing an ideological perspective and the attempted application of that perspective towards proposing potential solutions to said problems.

I had already set up a blog in the same name but learnt from that experience that a blog environment (although admittedly with a content approach that was too slowly shared (being a wage slave and a student doesn't help flow)) produced too many main page hit-and-runs.

Which is why I would like to set up a front page this time around that not only works up a little interest (without going overboard ^_~) but also allows site modules to be included in the long term. I'd like to eventually explore commercial applications of the site (though probably not before mid-2008 (summer break)).

Yes I am a confessed idealist - but why not? ^_~

[Andan]

Ah in that case, I am not much help to you. Look at a php portal like: php nuke, php portal, mambo, e107, etc.

Those will be more suitable for what you desire.

[shadow cup]

That is ok - thank you for your interest anyway. :c) I'll look into them.