Wordpress - Where do i begin??

Mattdbryce

Member
Hi guys,

I've set myself, what seems like, quite an ambitious task. Three friends of mine have recently come to me and asked me to build their websites, i said "YES OF COURSE" before i even thought! I want to use Wordpress to build their sites, and I thought I would just need to follow a quick and simple tutorial for this, but i'm just not finding the right one. I get so far with one tutorial and the tutor starts presuming that i know stuff that i quite simply, don't. I think I need a really dumbed down, step by step tutorial that will get me to a good level of understanding of wordpress.org.

I have basic HTML and CSS understanding and i can design a good looking homepage, should i look into PHP before i start or can i carry on with this level of knowledge? So one of my friends has asked me to build a e-commerce website through Wordpress for her by the end of November. Do you guys think this is a little optimistic of me as my knowledge is quite basic, or can i pick it up as i go?

Basically i'm asking does anyone know of a brilliant Wordpress tutorial? Or can anyone recommend to me a route to take to get me to a decent understanding of Wordpress design.

Many thanks in advance for your help,

Matt
 
If you're set on using WP, you might be better off starting with editing templates rather than trying to build a theme! As for Ecommerce, you could use woocommerce (its a WP plugin).


Alternatively if youre wanting to build your sites from scratch have a look at ModX as a CMS alternative to WP. I wouldn't try building an E-com site from scratch though! theres too much that could go wrong.
 
Hi Wordpress is the best cms to start with, its quite straight forward once you get to grips with the theme hooks. I started using a skeleton theme called bones. This is a wordpress theme stripped down to minimum and allows you to start a fresh but still have a basic theme to build upon, then tweak the css and you have your own theme.
Bones - The HTML5 Wordpress Starter Theme
 
Hi Wordpress is the best cms to start with

That's a big statement ;)

I love Wordpress, but now I've been building and developing with it for nearly 2 (perhaps 3, I lose track) years and can get it to do pretty much what I want it do all the time. You've got to have the basic web design knowledge and a little PHP won't go amiss when dealing in WP either.

Contrary to BigDave's post, if you have the knowledge to build a HTML/CSS site, then you can use any CMS to plug it into. Some might be easier than others. I've done WP from scratch, but then I know Toby (Corrosive) swears by ModX. I guess it's what you're comfortable with and what you want for your end user.
 
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