Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and feel of this website?

Re:Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and ... by reilly3000 on Monday December 17, 2018 @12:48PM (#18700585)

It looks like you have put together the content and navigation well. Wordpress' solution for your challenge is to use 'themes'. A Wordpress theme is a unified package of predesigned and optimized HTML, CSS, JS, and images. There are thousands of free and low cost themes to match every look and feel you may want to achieve. Themes rarely are 100% perfect for your needs; some themes provide customization tools that don't require any code, others may need some HTML/CSS work. It is highly recommended that you first get yourself a local development copy of Wordpress, that way you can make changes on your computer and test them before pushing those changes to GoDaddy and the rest of the internet.

I recommend this is a good place to get started with a local development system: https://local.getflywheel.com/ Once that is in place, start looking for themes on here: https://wordpress.org/themes/ - These should all be free. If nothing works there I would head over to ThemeForest.net for commercial themes which are more fully featured.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and ... by godelmachine on Monday December 17, 2018 @01:52PM (#18701083)

Hey Reilly,

Thanks for taking interest in my question.

Yes, I am already using a theme called Ascension. I also got in touch with the developers on GitHub whenever I wanted to make any changes, but they could do only so much.

I am looking to achieve something on the lines of https://drexel.edu/

Merci beaucoup! :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and ... by reilly3000 on Monday December 17, 2018 @02:30PM (#18701414)

That is a beautiful site with really excellent photography. You could achieve a similar effect with a plugin like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/unlimited-background-slider/ I would recommend careful selection of photos if you are going to make them large background images so their colors work against the text that it is behind, and that they look good at all resolutions otherwise it is more distracting than its worth.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and ... by godelmachine on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:27PM (#18701869)

Thanks for the plugin, matey :)

Please don't mind if I ask you two small, opinion based questions.

1) Is WordPress based development all about using the right plugins?

2) Is it possible to make a website like Drexel Univ's purely using WordPress?

Many thanks for you response _/\_

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Web dev learner here. How can I improve look and ... by reilly3000 on Monday December 17, 2018 @08:40PM (#18703900)

1. Plugins are risky in the long run, each one is maintained at varying levels of security and upkeep. I would recommend sticking with plugins that have a large community and have been recently updated.

2. There is nothing that you can't achieve with Wordpress with the right amount of time and investment. For a site like Drexel.edu there is possibly dozens of people working on design, coding, photography, testing, etc. Being able to make a fully custom WordPress site relies upon skill in HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP, as well as WordPress internals. With those skills, some of the largest companies in the world have used WordPress to power their blogs or entire sites: https://humanmade.com/ has some great examples.

There is no easy solution to having a highly-customized WordPress site- either find a theme that can customize everything for you without code, or find an experienced developer that can help realize your vision (perhaps for free, probably not!), or become an experienced WordPress developer, which is not an easy road but a rewarding one.

[ Parent | on HN ]