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Filipe Ribeiro Paiva
2,481 PointsPlease, I need urgent help with stuff regarding Wordpress website development. I'm starting as a freelance developer...
My client already have a poorly made website on wordpress and they want me to make a new one also on wordpress. I'm still a little confused with how wordpress works:
1 - Every website you make is a new instalation? Or wordpress is like dreamweaver? A software where you design websites and then just put them on a host?
2 - The Learn Wordpress track says I need DesktopServer for Wordpress to work. If each instalation is one website, I can only develop three websites with the DesktopServer free? After that, I would have to get the premium version to keep developing?
3 - I don't want to log in into their admin area and change their existing website, so can I create a new website separately(instead of just changing the one they have) and then just swap sites(put the new one, take out the old one) in their host account, with the same domain?
4 - I'm nearly finished with the Web Design track, I have enough knowledge to make the website they want with HTML, CSS and JS(static). Do I need to learn PHP to build a website on wordpress from scratch?
Sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker. And thank you so much!
1 Answer
Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsI'll answer your questions, but a question you should answer for yourself, is are you the right developer for this client? It sounds to me like what they want is not a skillset you have, which is okay, nothing wrong with that, but don't lead on the client that you're going to be able to deliver what they want, if you don't think you can.
With that said,
Each website is a new installation, well, kinda. Generally yes, however wordpress has a feature called "multi-site" where you can create separate (but often similar sites, since they'll share a lot of the same code base) using one base installation. Multi-site is not enabled by default, so count on one installation being one site. It's nothing like dreamweaver. Wordpress is a CMS, dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG text editor.
You don't need desktop server, it's just one tool you can use. I use XAMPP or MAMP when I built wordpress sites. Really all you need is MySQL and PHP installed, and you're ready to go with as many sites as your hard drive can hold.
Yes, you can build a new one from scratch, and than just take the old one down, and put your new wordpress site in, on their host, and their domain, that's certainly doable. Just make sure you have a way to deal with the data stored in the database of the old site. Are you going to reuse the existing database, or are you going to try to import/export the data to your new database, or are you going to enter in all of their data again from scratch? If you do plan to reuse the exiting data, have a plan to either import/export the data, or make sure your new theme will work with the existing structure of the database.
Do you need to know PHP to build a theme from scratch, yes, absolutely, there is no way around this. Wordpress runs on PHP, and to build from scratch, you're going to need a decent understanding of PHP. Wordpress has a lot of functions pre-built for your use in your theme to make things easier, but you'll still need an underlying understanding of what you're doing. With HTML, CSS, and JS you could take an existing theme, with the feature/functions you want, or add in plug-ins that give you those features, and than modify the theme someone else wrote to your liking.
Hope that helps, and good luck on your project
Filipe Ribeiro Paiva
2,481 PointsFilipe Ribeiro Paiva
2,481 PointsThank you very much for your answers and advice! They know I'm a beginner and still learning. They are actually giving me a chance to make their site as a portfolio starter for me. Its just a portfolio website for a small architecture company, nothing complex. Like I said, I could do it static no bother. It got complicated because they asked it to be WP powered. Again, thank you very much for your help!
Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsKevin Korte
28,149 PointsExcellent, and like i said, that's great news! As long as they have reasonable expectations of your skill, than this sounds like a great experience for you, and hopefully a good portfolio piece!