Software for producing websites - to replace Serif WebPlus

[Chris Ashdown]

Are you all just looking at it far to deep, Most users just want a rather simple basic software package that they can run after filling in a few hours work

Some take the basic packages of all software; and expand it far beyond the makers dreams' and then complain its a bloated unpredictable load of crap, whilst at the same time many use it every day without problem

A shop is a simple process these days, it offers a way to buy products plus a shop window to wow the customers in, be it bricks and mortar or e-commerce, try and make it a PLC web shop costing many thousands of pounds and that is not what it's designed to do and every add on will effect it to a extent

 

[ffox]

Paul, the more I read of this thread, the more I want to say - load your pages into Dreamweaver, which you already own, and see what you can do with it. From the above it would seem that you have a learning curve to follow whichever way you go. Why not start with what you already have?

 

[The Byre]

Well - realistically, all the lighting controls need serious continual updating now and the emphasis seems to be plenty of work before the shows, and perhaps a bit less once you are running.

It really is 28.7-times easier to just have one fader-per-channel, rather than have to look up a list of 50 different snap-shots, when it comes to running PAR-cans. We have 20 channels of analogue and 16 channels of DMX dimmers. This is all packed into one flightcase and allows me to react immediately to any changes.

So far, so good. We also have six scanners ranging from 2kW to 500 Watts and a DMX controller that is totally unfathomable. I need a simple controller just for the scanners, that allows me to change things on the fly, follow a toggle and above all, is easy to use and understandable. Any suggestions?

 

[fisicx]

Think you can create a folder and move a page from one folder to another? Computer says no. Seriously! No folders in WP

Because it's a CMS and database driven. There are are no 'pages' there are just rows in a database table.

Think you can move your pages from a folder to root or move your whole blog from www to non www? Computer says no.

Duh! It's a CMS there are no pages to move.

Change theURL here from mysite.com to mysite.com/blog and voila ... but er, you've just broken the whole bloody site!

Same for any CMS. But you can move the whole site to a subfolder or sub-domain. Takes less than a minute.

Think you can make a couple of simple edits to your htaccess? Computer says no (not unless you want to crash WP).

That's got nothing to do with WP. A mistake in htaccess will break any website.

Think you can work on a page offline and then FTP it to your site when you're done? Computer says no.

Of course not. You can't FTP to a database. But you can create content offline is import to the database. Wordpress has a built in tool that does this.

Don't like that link to the theme's creator in your footer and think you can delete it? Computer says no.

Choose a different theme. Or go to footer.php and remove the line. Just like every other CMS and site builder.

But you're determined to remove that footer so you go learn a bit about editing php files, hooks and all kinds of other jazz; find which of the million WP files has this link; and remove the bloomin' thing (keeping your fingers crossed that you haven't messed up the PHP code on that page).

See above, you don't need to do any of that.

And the course that WP was designed for is blogs - regular posts, with categories and tags and all the other Web 2.0 BS ... and with options for visitors to add comments etc.

It's moved on a lot since then. You don't need to do any of that.

@Clinton I doubt we will ever agree but I work with clients everyday who all use wordpress (who began with no knowledge at all) and nobody ever encounters the problems you have posted about.

 

[Clinton]

It's a CMS...

That's a poor excuse for it doing what it wants to do rather than what I want it to do

Listen, WP is great for some things, not great if you want to, for example, create static pages on your home PC and upload them to your hosting account. Not great for people like the OP.

 

[The Byre]

Is this the five minute argument?

Or have we gone over to the full half-hour?

 

[fisicx]

That's a poor excuse for it doing what it wants to do rather than what I want it to do

I agree. But if you want to use a CMS you can't do what you want do do. So to say WP is rubbish because you can't create folders is like saying a fork is useless for eating soup. You are usung the wrong tool.

But a CMS can make building even the most simple site so much easier. Even your idea of building static pages and uploading can be made simpler using a CMS one you get your head round how it works.

 

[The Byre]

The full half-hour it is then!

 

[fisicx]

No it isn't

 

[Alan]

Listen, WP is great for some things, not great if you want to, for example, create static pages on your home PC and upload them to your hosting account. Not great for people like the OP.

Despite mainly specialising in WordPress myself, I do agree to some extent. Being database driven, WordPress by its very nature needs server side code to operate and that in its own right creates potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited when a WP site isn't maintained.

A straight HTML site loads quicker, runs faster, needs less expensive hosting and is inherently unhackable ( in it own right it doesn't mean though if a sever is hacked it is safe )

If you don't need the database features ( such as multi user access ) but still want 'theme' based 'bog sites', you can do it with static HTML easily enough.

 

[paulears]

I've been pleasantly surprised by Muse - I've had little trouble replicating one of the websites, a few things are done a little oddly - hotspots are done, as far as I can tell by placing a box on the screen with no line, or fill so you cannot see it, which can then have a hyperlink - so pretty much like a hotspot. Not quite got to grip with tables yet = you take a grid from something like excel, then you pop that into an on-line html converter and paste that in as an object. Seems to work fine - but using the hotspot box workaround it falls apart a bit when it resizes, and although I can fix it by preventing resizing, there's a proper way I'm sure somewhere. all in all, the sites are minimal in cleverness, and I can already replicate their functionality. It's also pretty neat at reminding you if you have resized images that require resampling. I think I'm happy - at least in terms of getting things running, and no doubt once I've got a bit better, I'll find some even more clever things I can incorporate. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone - really appreciated. Paul

 

[fisicx]

But.....

Does the site respond to the screen size? If it doesn't then you have taken a retrograde step.

Hotspots in particular should be avoided. Far simpler to do this with a div and some CSS - that way it will always work even if people resize and zoom and whatever. Preventing resizing is a bad move, google even checks to make sure you don't block this sort of functionality.

 

[paulears]

Yes - one of the nice things about Muse appears to be how it can be set to respond. Still working out exactly how the options either allow, disallow or restrict resizing of all the elements work - but the break points when it switches between formats appears very flexible. In particular, some table elements must remain intact as they have click to listen to a clip, and purchase links, and making them smaller doesn't work. I preferred in the past hotspots for 'area clicking' rather than hyperlinks, but as each element to the page has the option to be clicked, and where this doesn't work, adding an invisible element, does seem to do the trick. The text reflowing when the screen gets smaller threw me for a bit - wasn't used to this, but makes more sense now. Div and CSS are fine if you are developing g in that way, but I really do NOT want to type this kind of thing. I can just about manage to work my way around what the code is doing if I need to make sure alignment is 100% precise and accurate, but the visual wysiwyg method seems to be pretty good so far. Considering I'd never even heard of Muse until a few days ago, my progress is reasonably rapid.

 

[paulears]

Just a note to say a big thank you to Graham (fisicx) for spending half an hour on the phone with me trying out his wordpress admin panel, seeing how easy it actually is, rather than reading it and doubting. So many things that I've now seen are nowhere as tricky as I'd imagined. A million thanks. Paul

 

[AllUpHere]

Just a note to say a big thank you to Graham (fisicx) for spending half an hour on the phone with me trying out his wordpress admin panel, seeing how easy it actually is, rather than reading it and doubting. So many things that I've now seen are nowhere as tricky as I'd imagined. A million thanks. Paul

I'll second that. I too have been enlightened by a few mins on the phone with @fisicx

 

[MarkAOrr]

I have had exactly the same problem. I don't want to go the Wordpress route because it is unsecure and unreliable and never quite as easy as it is made out to be.

So, I have done a load of research and looked at Xara, Incomedia Website X5 Pro and WYSIWYG Web Builder 12. The best of those for WebPlus users is probably the last one WYSIWYG. It is responsive and has loads of easy to understand tools. Strangely, when you look on YouTube there aren't that many good tutorial videos. However, WYSIWYG has been licensed to a chap called Greg Hughes and he sells it under the name 90 Second Website Builder. If you watch his tutorial videos you will see how easy and powerful the software is. It only costs $50.

Good luck

 

[pbdesigns]

I could pay an expert, but as my websites aren't really designed to generate business, just be a kind of window I change the content quite frequenctly and really need to be able to do everything myself.

Why bother having a website? What other purpose would it serve other than to help generate business?

 

[paulears]

I want the emails, and I want the URLs. The websites also contain downloadable content clients can access. However, the websites are just a 'hello' - more of a placeholder really. I don't use them to generate income, and this really is a practical thing. what we do is quite niche, and 99% of our income is word of mouth. The websites used to generate traffic, but we'd spend so much time trying to get rid of people who want things we don't wish to do. There are some active client sites now, done on Muse, which now I'm very happy with - music downloads and music samples. Muse does this quite well and is much better than Webplus ever was. Graham's intro to Wordpress never got past the experiment stage - just something I couldn't get to grips with. Very useful info from him that I appreciated very much. At some point I'll replace the current placeholder sites with something nicer, but the last thing I want is domestic customers. I usually recommend other people to them when they contact us.

 

[pbdesigns]

It does sound like you need a pro to assist you.

A decent website is as good at attracting the right clients as it is at putting off the wrong clients.

If your website is earsmedia.co.uk then you absolutely should be considering working with a professional to create your website.

It just surprises me when I see business owners spending so long trying to manage their own website.

 

[paulears]

Sigh! the website is what I said above - it is NOT trying to capture an audience and I'm very content to leave it as it is. I could have a white single page saying Boo! The right clients do not ever Google for people like me. I need to put off the wrong clients, and it works fine. The right clients come via different communication mediums. I don't need a pro to help me, because I've no need or interest in the website - as I said, behind the scenes it's useful for other things.

 

[fisicx]

I still build really simple websites using just HTML and CSS. Granted they are not WYSIWYG or done with drag and drop but because they are simple they are really fast (and popular).

If want links to download you just upload the documents and add a link to the page. Couldn't be simpler. And only 30 lines of CSS and no javascript anywhere.

 

[RichWL]

All useful stuff. I do not think that I have seen anyone mentioning the ability to password-protect some pages as can (could) be done with WebPlus and Serif Web Resources - now ceased. Can this be achieved easily (WYSWYG non-html) with any of these suggested alternatives?

 

[MarkAOrr]

I have been a long term Serif user and Webplus X8 was really good. I have been looking around for something similar and better to replace it. Now I have found the nearest ideal solution for me. It is called WYSIWYG Web Builder 14 and it's incredibly powerful. There is only one thing i can do in Serif that i can't do in WYSIWYG. In serif I can draw a picture frame and then put an image in it as a fill and therefore increase or decrease the size of the picture within that frame. I haven't found a way to do this in WYSIWYG yet.

WYSIWYG is extremely powerful and can do loads of other much more sophisticated things and only costs $50. Here's the link to their home page

wysiwygwebbuilder.com

 

[Raw Rob]

Can this be achieved easily (WYSWYG non-html) with any of these suggested alternatives?

You can easily password protect pages in Wordpress.

 

[fisicx]

Can this be achieved easily (WYSWYG non-html) with any of these suggested alternatives?

WYSIWYG is extremely powerful and can do loads of other much more sophisticated things...

Building websites with WYSIWYG software is a really bad way to do anything. People browse suing a variety of devices so the site needs to be responsive to those devices. You can't build an effective responsive site using WYSIWYG. Far better to use WordPress and an off-the-shelf theme. Wordpress is free and has image resizing and password protection.

 

[MarkAOrr]

Hello RichWL, WYSIWYG web builder is HTML but can also publish PHP pages for forms etc. You can password protect a single page or the whole site. You can easily create individual log ins for people. The code is also good not bad.

It is truly responsive and adaptive to any screen size using up to 25 different view ports if you want to or you can use layout grids and let it respond as it chooses like wordpress. WYSIWYG is also vastly more secure than wordpress, doesn't require as much management, doesn't need a load of plugins to make it work and therefore doesn't have any conflict issues with plug ins. etc.

 

[fisicx]

The code is also good not bad.

No it's not, it's appalling. Which is why google scores the homepage 25/100.

 

[billybob99]

You just can't beat Wordpress. I'm using it with Bootstrap currently. Been using Wordpress in general for 8+ years.

Anyone that says its has a steep learning curve is smoking something funny, it has the easiest learning curve you can imagine.

You can easily change the URL for the login to yourdomain/whateveryouwant.php - irony is, the guys saying this stuff haven't quite managed to get a proper SSL cert on their own site and fixed their own security issues.

 

[billybob99]

I have been a long term Serif user and Webplus X8 was really good. I have been looking around for something similar and better to replace it. Now I have found the nearest ideal solution for me. It is called WYSIWYG Web Builder 14 and it's incredibly powerful. There is only one thing i can do in Serif that i can't do in WYSIWYG. In serif I can draw a picture frame and then put an image in it as a fill and therefore increase or decrease the size of the picture within that frame. I haven't found a way to do this in WYSIWYG yet.

WYSIWYG is extremely powerful and can do loads of other much more sophisticated things and only costs $50. Here's the link to their home page

wysiwygwebbuilder.com

Cannot believe anyone would pay for that BS.

 

[Grumpy Old GuyF]

I am coming to the thread a bit late but have a question: Serif Support tells me it is possible to copy the HTML code from Serif WebPlus. Is it possible to then paste it into a WordPress "file" and then execute the code? I do not want to redevelop a whole website with links, a PayPal connection and dynamic page data updates if I can avoid it.
I would appreciate your input recognizing your considerable knowledge of WordPress.. My knowledge is pretty limited.

 

[fisicx]

You can’t copy the html code into Wordpress. It just doesn’t work like that. But if you don’t have a huge number of pages, importing everything and recreating all the links and PayPal and whatever doesn’t take more than a couple of hours. The initial pain will be rewarded many times over as you realise how much more flexible Wordpress over your current site builder.

 

[Raw Rob]

I am coming to the thread a bit late but have a question: Serif Support tells me it is possible to copy the HTML code from Serif WebPlus. Is it possible to then paste it into a WordPress "file" and then execute the code? I do not want to redevelop a whole website with links, a PayPal connection and dynamic page data updates if I can avoid it.
I would appreciate your input recognizing your considerable knowledge of WordPress.. My knowledge is pretty limited.

The HTML code is a "flat" copy of the website, you lose all dynamic aspects of a website by exporting it as HTML. It depends on exactly what the dynamic elements are, but they will almost certainly need re-coding in some way. And it probably won't work from within Wordpress, although you might not even need that, just upload the HTML to a webserver.

 

[paulears]

Had exactly the same problem - tried Wordpress and it is wonderful but doesn't suit my brain. I went with Muse, which Adobe then did a Serif on and it too is on it's last legs. A real bummer.