usual cost of a custom web design

[primorudy]

what do yall think is the cost of a usual custom web design these days - this company looks a bit expensive:

http://www.imageworksstudio.com/custom-web-design

I hardly believe a website can cost that much these days - am I missing something?

 

[audiopro]

Back to CMS again.
Is there a management interface which gives a client limited access to their site so that they can edit the content? The reason I ask this is that I know what reaction I would get if I presented some of my clients anything more complicated than a single edit window and an upload button.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[ChrisHunt]

Back to CMS again.
Is there a management interface which gives a client limited access to their site so that they can edit the content?

Yes there is. In fact that's one of the main points in having one.

I'll leave spamjim to talk about Drupal, but Wordpress has quite a sophisticated management interface where you can give different users different levels of access. So you can give your clients sign-ons that'll let them edit pages but not do anything more dangerous.

I've done Wordpress-based sites for very non-techie clients which they're delighted to be able to maintain, with barely any involvement by me.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[audiopro]

I have set up a basic site in Drupal but as I haven't got a clue how to use it, the process has taken ages to get to a point which would take me a few hours doing it 'the old way'.
I know there are plenty of instructions, tutorials and forums around but I tend to be able to learn much quicker by doing rather than reading about it.

There is no point asking which is the best CMS out ther as everyone will just have their favourite rather than give a definitive answer.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[spamjim]

Back to CMS again.
Is there a management interface which gives a client limited access to their site so that they can edit the content?

All major CMS's have this ability. Depending on the CMS, you can further limit what type of content they can add (calendar event, page article, menu item, etc). You can also limit whether or not they can add full HTML or sanitized HTML (without dangerous JS or lousy MSWord markup).

In just one of many scenarios, you can set up user groups that can create content but cannot edit it. From there, an editor group can review/edit that content and promote it to be published.

On a multi-lingual site, you could limit a user or group to have access to create/edit pages for their language, without giving them control of content for any other language.

 

[ChrisHirst]

You have just defined a CMS as a database.

How????

A CMS application is a collection of scripts. It has no data within it's structure. It has to connect to an data source that is from an external provider.

Does Joomla! come complete with all the data you want already available??

Are you going to tell me next that a Forum is also a "database"?

'Blogging' software, forum software and CMS software are applications that provide a means of collecting and storing data to, and retrieving and displaying data from a data storage system.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[ChrisHirst]

Back to content managment system
With the release of Joomla! 2.5 I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone, it really is much more end user friendly than earlier incarnations, though I do recommend changing the default editor to CKEditor, and disabling CodeMirror if you use Firefox.

I haven't "test driven" Drupal in a long while, but one can only hope that it too has improved on the "Built by geeks for geeks" earlier versions.

Wordpress 3.x is Ok but be aware of it's colendar like status on a default installation.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[spamjim]

Chris, the semantics nonsense over the word 'database' is tiring. Words are being pulled out of context for some pointless and entirely unproductive debate. It was recognized by all that a database is part of a CMS. A CMS alone does not equal a database. A CMS is a system that can hold multiple parts, including database tables. That is how a CMS is a database.

When you go to your doctor because your arm hurts, I doubt that your doctor corrects you by saying: "No, you are wrong. It is not your arm that hurts. It is your fractured humerus. Your arm is something different."

You've been pointlessly arguing the word "database" when you really seem to have trouble understanding the word "system".

 

[darryncooke]

So have we come to a consensus on the definition of a database or do I need to call up Bill Gates and get his $.02?

Darryn Cooke

http://www.darryncooke.com

| Marketing and Creative Services

 

[apepp]

...this thread certainly grew! No mention of modx cms though so I have put this on the table. The cms I use most these days:

http://modx.com/

Andrew
==============

http://www.apepp.info

- Graphic Design and Web Design, Exeter, Devon, UK.
==============

 

[RGShack]

I have really enjoyed this thread, thanks to you all. I started out with PHPNuke, then to Mambo, over to Joomla next because of how some of the guys were treated when Mambo started to outgrow it's Open source terminology. I took a close look at Drupal but could not get that name out of my head, if you get my drift. Still a good Content management system. They all have their pro's and cons. I tried a management system without the database but that's all it was, a bunch of files without a way to store content or data. Heck, I can do that by myself with just plain pages.

Your data is stored in a MySql (Joomla and Nuke) database which most of you know already and these are managed by the user interface (system) so you can't hardly have a good CMS without a database.

I looked at mmerlinn's site and to me it looked like you can serve yourself better if you loaded all your data into a well constructed database, wrote some queries, and designed some pages to display your results. What you have there seems like the same thing could have been placed on simple HTML pages.

I always thought the reason for making it hard to use tables for anything besides data was to make it hard for cowboy coders to build all those websites, thus, taking jobs away from people who attended schools to do just that and I must say, job well done. I have talked to hundreds of these builders that have given up, just because they do not get CSS. That one move to use CSS probably wrecked 1000's of backyard page builders abilities to build pages so they give up.

 

[spamjim]

Tables were never intended for graphic design. The original HTML specifications show that they were only intended for tabular data. Tables were just used by designers that had no other option for graphic design at the time. I would probably give up if I had to move from CSS back to table design.

I've also encountered many who have dropped out of the web design game because they were forced to change their methods. It seems like a silly reason. Web design is so young and its technology is so impermanent that you can't really be tied to a singular design technique.

 

[apepp]

...sure...it's hard to keep up with it all moving so faster towards something more consistent, it's taking a while, they've been trying for years...now with mobile devices the landscape is even bigger these days...do a fixed width site the same cost as a responsive one? I know i wouldn't price them the same...depending on the project i guess, but in some circumstances it can be more cost effective to go straight for responsive perhaps...

Andrew
==============

http://www.apepp.info

- Graphic Design and Web Design, Exeter, Devon, UK.
==============