Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Blog solution help.

R

rema

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 16, 2006
163
0
Hey everyone im a graphics student building an online portfolio of my work and wanted to have a blog on my site as well, but im not sure the best way to do this, as I want the blog to look like the rest of my site colours and background, and with the blog sites ive seen you cant really customise the look that much, I tried down loading the wordpress program but its totally confusing and I don’t know php or css just getting to grips with dreamwaver

So basically is want a blog:

one I can have on my site so www.mysitename.com/blog
one that I can customise easily (change text colour, add bacground image)
one that’s I can update like a normal blog

any help or suggestions will be appriaciated

yours rema
 
Well I was going to say wordpress until I got to the last line.

The templates aren't that difficult to customise/create.

If you are using Dreamweaver then what about using Contribute?

Also, can we have a look at your current site?
 
The very definition of customizing the look of a website is using CSS, so if you want to customize a site then you'd better start getting your hands dirty -- or use iWeb. However, Wordpress for the most part is an excellent personal content management system. There are literally thousands of Wordpress themes out there, and if you know even the slightest bit of CSS you can change the way they look. My advice is to find one that's close to what you want, and then start playing around with the CSS. Look up some intro to CSS tutorials and such. That will take less time than forcing yourself into some sort of system like Contribute, which you'll just regret later.
 
I second the WordPress suggestion. If you need help, they have good support forums. Once set up it is easy to get used to.
 
If you're looking for something a little lighter weight than WordPress, I've really been enjoying Tumblr lately. Definitely fewer feature than WordPress, but I've found it to be very customizable, easy to use, quick to get up and going, and dare I say fun. ;) Plus, the bookmarklet they provide makes posting painfully simple.

There's a link to my tumblelog in my sig if you care to check it out. Also, this link will give you links to a number of other tumblelogs.
 
Just to say thanks everyone for your replies, I think I am going to go with wordpress and I used to have a blog on there before so I am used to the system slightly, I’ve downloaded the wordpress 2.1 but don’t really know what to do as I thought it was a application. Could someone possibly explain how this side of wordpress works, typing and publishing posts, is it the same as having a wordpress hosted blog I log into to wordpress?

I also wondered if the CSS involved in changing the look of my blog was like that used for editing a myspace page. I am currently looking through exiting templates in the hope that I will find one with the structure and elements I want and then edit the background, left align it and change font colours, could some explain how I would go about this not exactly the specifics of each aspect but a general overview would really help as I’m rather lost,

Thanks again for advice and suggestions
 
Rema,

I'm not sure what you mean by you thought it was an "application" -- it's web blog software, meaning it runs on a web server. The best thing for you to do now is to read the instructions that come with Wordpress on how to install and configure it. There's tons of information at the Wordpress web site, and it would do no one any good to try and re-write a tutorial here. The idea is that you try to get it running, and if you run into some specific problem we will be happy to help.

As far as editing it...CSS is CSS. How it's applied is going to vary by web site. I'm not sure how to make a comparison to MySpace other than to say that...it's still CSS. ;)

Good luck, and if you need help please try to be as specific as possible. I've hacked Wordpress to hell and back, so I can probably help you with anything you need.
 
rema said:
I thought it was a application.
Click to expand...

not sure if this will help or further confuse, but...

as mentioned, wordpress "runs" on a webserver. only it doesn't really run -- when a page from the site is requested, the webserver loads up the relevant php code, interprets it, renders the page that results, and returns that to the requestor.

so wordpress never really runs, at least not like a webserver and mysql do (which are always running on the machine).

once you've got your site up on a webserver (even the initial site), you'll interact with WP through its admin area, which you'll access through a special URL. there you can create categories, write posts, swap out templates, etc.

when you decide to edit an existing template, you'll first install it through WP. but when you make edits to it, you'll likely do that not using WP, then copy/ftp the file you edited up to the webserver so you can check your changes.
 
Alternative to Wordpress is Textpattern.

I did a quick install and evaluation of both couple of weeks ago when deciding on CMS for my site. Wordpress is definitely less complex in terms of learning curve but I ended up choosing Textpattern. Mostly because it seemed more customizable and more natural in a way things are organized. Using it now for the last 2 months with no regrets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back