How WordPress Could Become Even Better
November 9th, 2005
While WordPress has become my CMS of choice, there is one major hurdle that it needs to clear before I can deploy it as broadly as I would like. WordPress is still a Web log.
WordPress is structured around a blog engine and though it can be hacked and suppressed, the work is not justified for Web sites where blogging is not required.
This is not a problem for most small E-tailers since blogging is an effective way to meet a niche’’s need for information and community.
What’s the next step for WordPress? Make the blog behavior optional just as pages are currently. If I choose not to add pages to a WordPress blog, everything works seamlessly. If I choose not to add posts, the core of WordPress needs to be bypassed.
Is this changing in version 2.0?
For anyone interested in WordPress development, the beta of WordPress 2.0 is now available.
Entry Filed under: WordPress
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8 Comments
1. Lisa | November 14th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
Interestingly, I’ve built quite a few websites using WordPress as the CMS of choice. These sites do not have a blog on them, nor do they ever plan on placing a blog on their site, however, WordPress makes it incredibly easy for the end-user to manage their content without worrying about having to build static web pages. A few examples of sites we’ve built with Wordpress that are non-blogging sites:
Mosaic Consulting
Ivy Manor
I am looking forward to version 1.6, though!
2. Harvey Ramer | November 14th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Lisa, I’ve been under the impression that I need to suppress the blog in order to work with Wordpress as a CMS without a blog.
I suppose, however, that I could simply call pages as I need them and never point a user to the WordPress core. This would avoid the need for any hacking. Is that how you handle it?
3. Lisa | November 14th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
You don’t really need to supress the ‘blog’ portion at all. If you stop thinking of WP as a ‘blogging platform’ and start thinking of it in terms of JUST a CMS - with the extra ability to add a blog, if you want to.
It’s kind of like reversing your thinking on the whole thing, at least that’s what I needed to do.
When my client at Mosaic came to me with what they wanted - I really wasn’t sure how I was going to do it via WP.
But, I didn’t ’supress the blog’ - - if you look at Mosaic’s site - their front page is their first and only WordPress post - with the Option set to view only the last 1 post of the ‘blog’. All the rest of the content are pages - using WP’s page template feature.
I did develop different page templates for the different sections of the site - but once that was done, it was sure easier than presenting my client with a mess of static html pages for them to figure out how to update without screwing anything up
4. Harvey Ramer | November 27th, 2005 at 3:02 pm
I just launched my first publicly released Web site that is completely built around WordPress. I used the posts as everything from recipes to products. I also developed a Mal’s eCommerce theme that integrates fairly well with that online shopping cart.
I’m proud of the results and so thought I would continue our conversation by sharing it here. The site is for Lewis County New York maple producer and retailer, Golden Maple Shanty.
5. Petit | December 6th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
Harvey: Very nice job on the Golden Maple Shanty! Lisa: Good advice!
It’s really interesting to see the WordPress blog publishing software used as a dynamic web site engine ( or CMS if you prefer ). It’s a one author at a time engine of course, since it lacks log in/log out functionality, but nevertheless you’ll have stability and easy editing on a system like this.
I’m running a small static web site and I’m working to get my blog fit for launching. I’ve thought of making the whole thing dynamic. New to WordPress as I am, I didn’t think it was suitable for “normal” web site part.
Now I’m certainly going to think again.
Thanks to both of you!
6. Harvey Ramer | December 6th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Petit: All the flexibility you need for a relatively small Web site (under 15 pages or so) is contained in the templates that the default wordpress theme (Kubrick) contains.
On the Golden Maple Shanty project, I also used page templates. These allow you to design as many page templates and post loop variations as you need and then easily reuse them.
7. Petit | December 6th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
I’ll have to lean over that for a while. It will be a lot more than 15 pages, and I’ll get back to the question when I get the blog working.
Thanks a lot for your advice!
8. Harvey Ramer | December 6th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
The limitation is chiefly with navigation design at this point. You can have an unlimited number of posts easily. Sometimes people use pages when they should use posts.
WordPress makes it difficult to set up large Web sites quickly with graceful navigation. At least in my opinion. I keep learning ways around things though.
Food for thought anyway. Thanks for dropping by.