Finally I’m getting stuck into my software project and have now made a project page for it on this blog. This post covers a bit of a technical subject but if you currently use WordPress for your website and you’re considering building something more substantial into it, such as a membership area then read on as this post will explain some of the implications.
What WordPress Can & Cannot Do
WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) which is a fancy way of saying that it’s a piece of software that allows you to build websites with a nice simple interface without you having to delve into the murky waters of HTML & CSS unless you really want to. As long as you can figure out how to use an FTP program to upload themes and plugins, almost all of the functionality you could want is available with just a few clicks.
However, what if you want to build in some custom-code to your site? Now even if you’re not a programmer this is still very much a viable option because of how easy it is to get programming services at sites such as Elance and RentACoder. If you have the idea and a little cash then you can just pay for somebody to write the software for you. However, the difficulty is integrating that software into your site.
WordPress is designed primarily for blogs but as I have shown in my ebook it can also be used for building static sites too. However, if you look at the HTML editor of a page or blog post, you are limited in what you can do. You cannot insert programming code such as PHP snippets in there.
Now I figured out how to get a WordPress page (not a blog post) to use my own custom code and I can post a tutorial on how to do that if anybody is interested. However, it’s fiddly and somewhat inflexible and if you were ever to move your site to a non-WordPress platform you’d have to change all your files. Plus, the technique works okay for small, simple files but I don’t know how it would scale up to larger applications.
Alternative CMS’s
WordPress is just one of many CMS’s. There are several others that are primarily designed for blogging such as Typepad but there are also others which are more general purpose and allow for application development which is what I want to do.
So I have been looking into these alternative CMS’s to see what might be more suitable for my needs. As well as application support allowing me to write my own code, there are other considerations too:
- aMember Integration - I’m building a subscription-based membership site so I need something a little stronger than a generic password to manage it. I will be using the aMember software to manage this so I need to ensure that it can integrate with that.
- WebHost Support - I need to install the CMS software on the web server. I am not going to be using a dedicated server which means that my webhost (currently BlueHost) needs to have in-built support for whatever I choose. As my ebook shows, they allow you to install software such as WordPress with just a few clicks so it would be very nice if I could do that with the new CMS.
- Theme Support - one of the things I love about WordPress is that I can use a custom made theme to manage the look and feel of the website. I have only the most rudimentary knowledge of CSS and I may be technical, but I am not a web designer. Graphics and design are not my thing so ideally I want my chosen CMS to support something similar so I can get somebody else to do my design whilst I worry about the code.
- Widgets - I’m going to want lots of standard features on my site such as a blog, a forum, streaming video, a downloads area, a helpdesk and so on. Now I could write those myself but why waste the time re-inventing the wheel? I would much prefer it if I can just drop in some kind of plugin that provides that functionality whilst leaving me to concentrate on my own software.
- Developer Support - I don’t like having to figure things out on my own, I much prefer to be able to study from a book or read a tutorial so ideally I want to use a popular, well-established CMS that has plenty of support available so that I don’t get stuck somewhere down the line.
- Free? - Okay this one is not essential. If it has all of the above then I don’t mind paying for it but sometimes you find that the best software is actually open source and available at no monetary cost so of course this would be a bonus.
Joomla & Drupal
After a little googling, browsing some PHP forums and asking my ever-faithful Twitter followers, I found that there were two strong contenders that met ALL of my requirements listed above. They are Joomla and Drupal. Both are supported by BlueHost and aMember, they’re both open source and free, they both have support for themes (or something similar) and extensions that work like WordPress plugins and furthermore, both of them are supported by numerous print books that I could buy to help me out.
Which is best? I’m not sure. I found a really cool CMS matrix that compares all of the major CMS systems side by side but to be honest many of the technical features went over my head. As far as I can see, both Joomla and Drupal will do everything that I need. So, based on the look of the websites and the books / tutorials that are available I decided to go with Joomla because I just like the look of it better.
BlueHost supports Joomla via their SimpleScripts software and enabled me to install it in literally 2 clicks just like a WordPress install so it’s off to a great start.