Build A Web Site On Your Mac. Tips From A to Z.

Continued from Page 2…

Commercial CMS. Excellent Tools. Low Price.
So far, the expense required to create a web site ranges from zero to a few hundred dollars (the cost of Dreamweaver). For zero dollars you get remarkable capability in web site construction, design, organization, and management.

Did I mention customization? What if you don’t like the themes in Rapidweaver or WordPress? What if you don’t like the templates in Mambo or Joomla?

What if the tools, components, and layout are becoming restrictive as your needs grow?

Customizing WordPress or Mambo/Joomla can be a daunting task which often breaks with the next update.

What if you want add an integrated photo gallery? Or an integrated forums module? Or spam control? Or enhanced security? Or unlimited sections and menus?

The price for such capability also ranges from zero to about the cost of Dreamweaver. Enter pMachine’s Expression Engine.

As with WordPress, pMachine started life as a low cost blogging tool which matured to a full fledged, highly capable, content management system called Expression Engine which rivals CMS applications that cost $10,000 to $100,000.

How is that possible? Expression Engine features an elegantly design “template system” which can produce remarkably complex and powerful web sites, or a simple blog. You choose. The tools are there.

EE uses PHP and MySQL so power doesn’t come at great cost. In fact, there’s a free version of EE called Expression Engine core that helps get you started.

Take all of the cool things from web site construction and they’re carefully poured into EE.

Multiple web sites from a single installation? No problem. Custom entry fields? A piece of cake.

Built in automatic RSS syndication? Click. Multiple sections? Multiple sites? Multiple categories? Multiple custom entry fields? Click, click, click.

The list of features is stunning. Highly developed caching system to optimize performance and page loading? Preggo. It’s in there.

Reader comments is a funky add-on component in Joomla or Mambo. It’s built in to EE. Complex pagination? Got it.

There’s also an integrated Forums module for the commercial version of EE, and different pricing for a “personal” web site vs. a “commercial” web site.

Support for the open source CMS tools is handled via forums and may take awhile. pMachine’s support forums are recognized as among the best in the industry.

What’s not to like? Everything you need is there, right? Almost. Since Expression Engine is highly configurable and can become almost any site you can think of, you have to think of it first.

Design is left up to you. The template system is not difficult, but it’s not point and click. You’re back to using a text editor to build the pieces of site’s design.

Expression Engine requires “expressions,“ strings of code, to be entered into your XHTML pages and templates to function. You get to do that.

Summary, Conclusion, Adnauseum
Apple’s iWeb made attractive web design easy. Rapidweaver does attractive, but has more tools for managing more pages.

Dreamweaver lets you build more complex pages, manage more complex sites, but doesn’t help much with design unless you buy other tools, such as Fireworks.

More money, more capability, more complexity.

WordPress and Joomla add more capability, a solution to some of the complexity, more features in components, yet make it skinable and easy to build and manage a more complex web site, that maintains a professional and attractive look.

pMachine’s Expression Engine gives you almost everything you could ask for in a web site construction kit, except for the select-a-design element. You’re on your own.

The List of Links.
Click Here for a look at Apple’s iWeb. Click Here for a look at Rapidweaver’s features and the download link. For all the details on Macromedia’s (Adobe) Dreamweaver, Click Here.

To learn about open source solutions, Click Here for WordPress, and Click Here for Joomla. Click Here for the Mambo site. Finally, look at pMachine’s Expression Engine when you Click Here.

Yes, there are dozens of other tools that will build web pages and web sites. These are among the best, though they range dramatically in capability.

More information and assistance is available in the Mac360 Forums. Click Here to get started…

Off Topic Note: I’ve updated the Mac360 Store with over 100 new categories—More Macs, more iPods, more Mac books, more software. Click Here and select any category for more detail, or use the handy search function. Whenever you buy from Amazon through the Mac360 Store you help support Mac360. Have you ever noticed how much Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” television commercials remind you of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote? Seriously.