templates = rapid food?

[helenp]

Hi,
Not sure this is the correct place to post, if not please move to a more appropiate place.

I ever worked with templates,
I have been working with a website for more than 10 years and I keep working adding content and improvements.

I am being asked for working for others and they are asking for templates, in order to have a better price.

And I dont know if it is more complicated to understand a script somebody else did, and whats more important:
Can we compare the templates with quick food?
Its accesibable for most pockts but there is not much value for the money?

Thanks for your opinions.

Also I am seriously considering doing my homemade CMS a template and sell it, I consider it can be very good doing some small changes to make it a template.
thanks

[ergophobe]

I feel like if there's a template that meets your need, there's no reason to start from scratch.

If the template is a bad fit for your site, it's a bad value at any price.

[lucy24]

rapid food, quick food, fast food ... Hm, interesting analogy. The main selling point of fast food is that, while it's never exceptionally good, it should at least be uniformly adequate. One size fits all.

But fast-food chains never, ever divulge their proprietary formulas. How many of the major CMS are open source?

[helenp]

ergophobe:
I understand what you mean, but I suppose if you are a good programmer you can change the template so it fits your needs and upgrade it.

Lucy24: yes you are right, they are open source.
What I seen from sites that uses templates, a lot of code on pages, to many requests, takes ages to download a page, bad code.
Suppose that is due to persons not being good programmer has access and works as programmer doing fantastic pages using templates.
But, if you look under the carpet, there is a lot of dust under it.

As I said I have ever worked with any, and I get publicity from sites selling templates similar as mine or charging commision on the sales, so if the market is "quick food thats fits for most so all can have good content for little money", well maybe one should consider selling the CMS, not as an open source of course.

Think the comparision with fast food was not the best, a better would be cheap factory cloth and expensive hanmade cloth done just for you.

[ergophobe]

if you are a good programmer you can change the template

Oh, absolutely. Personally, after my first few web pages, I learned how to use PHP and MySQL and built everything of some sort of template.

I was thinking of buying a template versus creating one of your own.

So let me rephrase that. I find that I can waste more time hunting for a template than to start with a framework that I know and like and then creating my own template from there.

But if I see an off-the-shelf template that meets me needs, then I think it's worth it to spend a little money and save many hours of work.

[lorax]

Templates are a good idea in general but be aware. It may take a bit of trial and error to find one that suits the situation. For me, the normal process is to download the template and implement a site with it. Then I learn all of the gotchas that I didn't think of beforehand and I see the limitations that I should have thought of.

I kind of like the fast food analogy - but it's making me hungry...

[explorador]

Like Sting said: Too proud to beg too dumb to steal. Not to take offense, I find this funny and it suites me.

I write all my designs into html from scratch, no templates. I build the fastest stuff for the case, sure some templates can be useful and a time saver, I just don't like it. If anyone asks me, even a company offering me a job I'm more than happy to say "all made by me". Funny, some don't believe this so that's how useful has been.

Anyway back to the topic, I believe templates are good, useful. Most of the times they are general purpose so, there you go, if you have an specific project you will feel the lack of this and that. There was an old thread about finding your own design on other websites due to template use, I would hate to see that happening, another reason why I don't use them. Perhaps the web is too big now for anyone to notice it (same designs), I don't know.

I am being asked for working for others and they are asking for templates, in order to have a better price.

If you are fine with it, then do it, it will save you time. If the templates are templates-code, then take your time to check for vulnerabilities (such as WP cases)

Its accesibable for most pockts but there is not much value for the money?

If the client asks for a template, then is just a request like asking for jquery or asp instead of php, it's up to what they want and what you can provide. Sure I wouldn't feel good doing it but it's personal. At the end is a personal interpretation, is different when they just ask you "put this data into that template, that's what I want".

Also I am seriously considering doing my homemade CMS a template and sell it, I consider it can be very good doing some small changes to make it a template.

If you feel like doing it, do it. It's a good idea. I'm on my 4th CMS right now and is working fine, but the problem is giving away your CMS, like building a site for a client and then they ask you for the keys to hire someone else to take charge... it gets complicated to deliver the code and training someone to deal with a custom CMS template even if it's a piece of cake.

I often build on WP and Drupal (mostly drupal) because it makes it easier to give the site to someone else when you are done, like building and then they maintain it.

[helenp]

If you feel like doing it, do it. It's a good idea. I'm on my 4th CMS right now and is working fine, but the problem is giving away your CMS, like building a site for a client and then they ask you for the keys to hire someone else to take charge... it gets complicated to deliver the code and training someone to deal with a custom CMS template even if it's a piece of cake.

I often build on WP and Drupal (mostly drupal) because it makes it easier to give the site to someone else when you are done, like building and then they maintain it.

Thanks,
Not sure I understand this.
What do you mean give the site to someone else to maintain it?
Do you mean to update the content on the web using the CMS, wich would be done by the client or hiring a programmer to do updates for vulnerabilities?

[helenp]

I often build on WP and Drupal (mostly drupal) because it makes it easier to give the site to someone else when you are done, like building and then they maintain it.

What do you mean build on?
Sorry as I ever used any.
You mean yo do the template using wp and drupals extensions or whatever they are called?

Looks like most uses templates or software nowadays as I always get comments such as: wich software do you use, your joomla may not work etc. etc. and I always have to say, no I dont use any.

[ergophobe]

Explorador just means that's what he uses, what he starts with, building out the features he needs based on those platforms which, along with Joomla, would be the most popular open-source content management systems as far as I know.

Terminology. This is not cut and dried, but in general
- Themes (WP and Drupal) control the look of a site
- Plugins (WP) and modules (Drupal) control the function

Most people will start with some theme and customize it. The default themes that ship with both are either already pretty good (full responsive as of WP 3.8) or will be pretty good soon (full responsive as of Drupal 8).

When you say you don't use software, do you mean all sites are hand-coded HTML coded one page at a time?

I guess it's maybe because I came to the web with a programming background, rather than a design background, but I would rather spend 20 hours automating something I could do manually in 10 than spend the 10 doing it manually. Just right now I decided to give in and NOT write a script to do something because I realized that I only have to change text on five pages... but part of me wants to write some sort of script to do it anyway.

[ergophobe]

Do you mean to update the content on the web using the CMS, wich would be done by the client or hiring a programmer to do updates for vulnerabilities?

I think both are relevant. If I create something with WP or Drupal (or any other hugely popular app), I don't have to create a hundred hours of training video for the client. Lynda.com has already done that for me. And I also don't have to document an entire API. Wordpress or Drupal docs have already done that for me.

So that makes things much easier to hand to a client, webmaster or developer than if I have created something from scratch.

The flip side is that I am also bringing with it a million features they may never use. So in some cases, custom may be the way to go.

[helenp]

When you say you don't use software, do you mean all sites are hand-coded HTML coded one page at a time?

Really I have only done one, starting from scratch, and its my company, and its more than 10 years old, and to start with was all static, then getting dynamic with my own CMS wich includes, bookings online, accounting etc. So I think its rather complete.
Some pages are hand-coded and others are done by the CMS and mysql.

I seen sites offering less complete software, and
I was just wondering as I am being asked to do websites,
and some asks for templates, and I feel its easier to do the pages than to use a template, suppose to old to learn lol.

I dont know, I looked once at those programs, and didnīt like very much, and the risk for being hacked.

[explorador]

Exactly what ergophobe said.

I posted some stuff because of this:

Also I am seriously considering doing my homemade CMS a template and sell it

#1. Working with worldwide used CMS makes it easier to find templates and also creating websites for yourself and for others, including websites for you that you end up selling or giving away.

#2. Working with your own CMS makes it easier for you, specific, but kinda harder to sell to someone else or giving the site away for other people to use it. Per example lots of people can learn how to create templates for WP just by searching info on the web but if you have your own CMS you have to teach people how it works.

some asks for templates, and I feel its easier to do the pages than to use a template, suppose to old to learn lol.

I feel like that to but I get the feeling is more a personal choice than being too old to learn.

[helenp]

So if I decide to give it a try, wich is is the easiest to understand, once just for curiosity I installed them to try, and I thought the interface were complicated, maybe because was in english, so I lost the interest.
So wich do you recomend to start with?
Thanks