Web novice thinking about using Freeway to build a NON-dynamic, online business membership directory. There will be 300 businesses listed, each member getting a page to describe itself. (which we might let them edit via a CMS). There is no shopping cart, or visitor interaction, or news updates–just a basic listing.
My question: Is Freeway appropriate for this type of static directory site? Do I have to learn Joomla or Drupal?
Basically that IS dynamic by definition. A CMS of some sort is really the only way to do that. Freeway on it’s own has no way to do that, but there are relative easy ways to add that functionality to a web site. WebYep is popular and easy CMS to manage within FW if you buy the separate action suite that Max provides. http://www.max-izzat.co.uk/
It depends on what you are trying to accomplish here, and how complex your goals may become. Freeway + a simple CMS like WebYep or Perch will do a lot of what you could accomplish visually in Joomla! or Drupal, without nearly the learning curve. Further, the administration through these systems is lightweight, easy for a client to learn to use, and customizable. No matter which way you go, you will be building a template page or three, not 300 identical static pages, and populating a database with the unique content for each page.
There are things you can add to J and D by way of plug-ins, where you won’t have to write any code, and you’ll get some cool membership feature that you didn’t know you wanted or needed. That said, the learning curve for either of them is near-vertical in places, and the jump from direct manipulation of your design (Freeway) to building a ship in a bottle while wearing boxing gloves (CSS and PHP templates) will reduce your spending on haircuts, but will possibly take as long as building the site long-hand, depending on your experience level and ability to pick up new concepts. If you can find a template that you like (maybe even love) then either of them will work right out of the box, and many of the things you want to do may be included.
Walter
On Mar 2, 2012, at 11:56 PM, Dave Meyer wrote:
Web novice thinking about using Freeway to build a NON-dynamic, online business membership directory. There will be 300 businesses listed, each member getting a page to describe itself. (which we might let them edit via a CMS). There is no shopping cart, or visitor interaction, or news updates–just a basic listing.
My question: Is Freeway appropriate for this type of static directory site? Do I have to learn Joomla or Drupal?