How can I make a webpage open only during certain hours of the day in a given timezone? I'm using Wix, as I am not smart enough to learn any kind of legitimate programming.
I wouldn't think that's possible with something like Wix since they usually have set-in-stone templates. Most website creation sites I know don't allow you to add custom code, and as a matter of fact it might be taken literally as part of their motto:
"Easy to customize. No coding."
Also, just to clarify I signed up for Wix and checked it out...
In short, I don't think that's possible. You'd need something like Javascript/PHP to accomplish that. You wouldn't be able to use HTML blocks or a Flash file (.swf) and those are the closest kinds of customizations (drag and drop blocks) they offer for your site that would get you there.
I would look into hiring someone to design it or buying a program like Rapidweaver (which is what I use) to create a website on a domain you already own.
Wordpress kind of sets the standard for great interfaces for end-users. Drupal is a little more mixed: it is a great experience if the developer updates the UX when they update the site functionality. Concrete5 and other CMSs basically exist soley on the merit of their end-user experience.
Where does ExpressionEngine fall into the mix? How much control does a non-developer admin have with EE, and how pleasant is that interaction for them?
That's really up to you. The backend of EE is completely customizable. It's a blank canvas by default, so you get to build your own backend that is fully customized to fit the exact needs of the client. You can give them more or less control as needed, and you can create different user groups that see different things (including different modules, different menu items, different channels, even different fields within a channel, etc.)
If I'm working with a client that needs a fairly straightforward site (read: brochure site/portfolio site with or w/o blog) and they're not terribly computer savvy, I almost always go with EE because I know I can make it dead simple for them to update their content. For users with a little more knowledge, I tend to give a little more flexibility. It's really up to you how you set it up for them.
I've never had a client complain that EE was difficult to use, and most are actually really surprised at how easy (and some use the word "fun") it actually is.. great confidence boost for people who have always had difficulty updating their site in the past or had to rely on others to do it for them.
Hope that helps :)
I'm working on a travel site and am interested in adding some functionality so that visitors can easily click on a travel destination and add it in a "bag", pretty much like a shopping cart on traditional e-commerce websites. When a few destinations are added the customer should be able to type their own text along with the picked destinations and then send an offer by clicking a button.
A travel guide will then receive the form data to customize a trip for the potential customer.
Every destination in Joomla has its own article and therefore need some sort of button that the user can click to add trip to the "bag". If this functionality is inserted in the article by some piece of code or if it's a module in the sidebar doesn't really matter.
I have tried using "SimpleCaddy" for Joomla. I have modified it but I find it really hard to turn it into something useful.
I would like to know how to best proceed? Are there perhaps any extensions, (commercial or non-commercial doesn't matter), that can get the job done?
Most definitley there are. You tagged you're using joomla 1.5, Virtuemart is a great e-commerce solution for that version. Hugely popular, well supported, large community extremely customizable... the downside is that it can be very complex if you're not sure what's going on. Simple Caddy is a great one for something really lightweight and easy to get up and running quickly - but it lacks any sort of advanced features.
Unfortunately in my experience finding one that blends between 'lightweight and easy', and 'full featured and complex' is very difficult. you may also want to try JoomShopping however - I've recently installed it on a site and had great success with it. It was really straight forward, setup was not too bad and getting it configured just took a bit of trial and error (unfortunately there are no real good tool-tips or anything to help you figure out exactly what does what on the back-end).
Those are my two recommendations; Virtuemart or Joomshopping. They both have shoppingcart features which I'm sure you could easily modify to be the users 'bag'. Both seem to have a pretty good/proven track record and a well rounded community. I think either way you'll be satisfied, but it does sound like SimpleCaddy may come up 'just short' of what you're needing.
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I want to find an ecommerce solution for my little shop. My friend tells me that Prestashop is very easy to use and develop modules for, but some say Magento is better. Can anybody tell me which is better for developing modules and why?
Having looked under the covers of both of these beasts I can't say that I actually like either of them as they're both rather ugly when you pop the bonnet and something like OpenCart is actually a much nice and easier to work with solution. However, from a feature perspective OpenCart is nowhere near either Magento or PrestaShop and unlike PrestaShop it doesn't have a team of developers behind it. However having said that it is much easier to understand and modify for anyone with a basic knowledge of OO PHP. It is much better structured. PrestaShop is actually a bit ugly under the covers and CSCart (which is an open source, but not free alternative) may also be a viable solution as it only costs like $300 so not that much. I'd have to say I'd personally go for either PrestaShop or CSCart as they do have a lot more features than OpenCart and at the same time also don't cost anywhere near Magento to setup and run. Magento is an absolute nightmare if you're looking to change anything even if you really know what you're doing... Too many layers.
Another cart I would suggest to anyone who isn't fussed about technology is nopCommerce. It's a ASP.NET based shopping cart and it's very well architected and full of features. It is also very easy to modify for anyone with ASP.NET experience.
I fully agree with the opinion that MAGENTO is to "heavy" and consumes too much CPU and memory. If you have your own dedicated server you may try MAGENTO.
But if you can afford shared hosting only use lightweight PRESTASHOP. Much shoppers do not need complicated functionalities provided by MAGENTO and therefore don't like it. More doesn't always mean better - sometimes simpler means better.
Moreover there is large set of PRESTASHOP extensions available free and commercial ones. so every shop owner may choose what he needs and wants. Every potential market gap is filled immediately e.g. if somebody noticed there is no fast checkout option in the guest mode buying. This kind of extension appears immediately on the market.
I haven't used Prestashop but I have recently deployed a Magento store. As others have said, I wouldn't suggest it for small, simple stores. Also, if you are on an economy server, you're likely to have sluggish page loads.
The good news is that (after a steep learning curve), it's incredibly flexible and powerful. I personally think the templating system is great.
Magento is S L O W. It has a very specific list of server requirements that have to be met, and even then it may not work 100%.
Also, using Magento on a shared hosting environment can be VERY insecure as Magento likes to have things writable on the file system. If your hosting company does not have iron clad security another user on that system can make changes in those writeable areas.
As far as code quality, I'd say it's pretty good. It's also more complicated than it needs to be. They completely ignored the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple, Silly).
To sum up, Magento is good if you are interested in an expensive server and complex development. If you want straight forward, it's not for you.
Magento is more polished, but also a beast to modify, in my experience. After using Magento for a few shops, we switched to Prestashop and are much happier. It took a bit more customization up front (French-based development left some quirks in the address forms, for example), but it is much, much simpler to wrap your brain around and to develop custom modules.
I am not a programmer, so I am confined to noob-like needs. At first I tried Magento, and found it to be difficult. It also "crashed" (not sure what word to use) a couple times, the last time beyond something I could figure out. I began to wonder if the entire thing was created just to get me to get in so deep that I'd need pro support to fix it when in a pinch.
So as I searched the internet looking for a decent alternative, I stumbled upon PrestaShop. I gave it a shot, since my Magento site was still RIP. Found it to be much easier to use, and I had a shop up and running (STILL up and running) in a day.
So I'm not sure what it all means, but hands down I liked PrestaShop better. I did like the options to create multiple shopping experiences within Magento, but I figure I can just use multiple PrestaShop installs to accomplish the same thing. Either way I'd have to customize 'em, anyway.
So that's my two cents, for what it's worth. Hope it helps someone.
Magento is a very complex solution for large shops that require good hardware base to handle more than 500 products. Although even though there is a lot of resources to start with Magento.
I have personally found out that building themes is really easy once you find your way around few annoying things like XML layout dependencies (there is barely anything documented on XML, which is the base for making good themes for Magento) and objects in PHP (some functions and data is not accessible from certain parts of the template just because).
I'm very comfortable with working and writing my own apps in OO PHP but stuff that Magento pulls off sometimes is really annoying and also directory structure and the way themes are being handled is awkward...
On the other hand, PrestaShop is fast (after few tweaks), but still requires some work in the back-end. I am developing a lot of back-end modules to help people get the most out of this system as it's worth it. Plus the community is growing and developers are fixing everything they can.
One more thing: writing both, back-end and front-end modules for Prestashop is incredibly easy, plus using SMARTY for templates is a good choice.
Edit: Magento is very easy to break during or after deployment (especially between localhost and a hosted space) and maintenance in SVN might be a pain for inexperienced devs.
I tried both, first I use magento, which is powerful but also very require a good php setting for the server.
prestashop is more easy to use, if you are small store you may choose prestashop.
Magento is a very complete solution in order to have a big shop, with more than 500 products.
But, for newbies, it's very difficult to load and modify it.
Today, I have a website on magento with more than 20,000 products, and we still have issues.
It very difficult to configure it, and without a nice optimization, you will have very slowly website.
I advise you less than 300 products to use prestashop.
Like you, i am NOT a programmer but a store owner. So i hope my view point helps you, i have used both PrestaShop and Magento.
Magento i didn't like, boat ware!
Prestashop is good, pretty templates but the good modules are not free and to get an online shop with the features you need can end up costing 1000s
I also use Zen Cart, while it has the worlds ugliest standard template, if your CSS knowledge is average you can make it look pretty much like anything you want. It has more features built in than the Magento £11k pa has and all modules on the site are free and also a better community too as the forums are open source focused.
Hope it helps.
PrestaShop is your best bet. The only problem with PrestaShop is that uses smarty template engine and rather than write clean PHP without the need of loops etc, in smarty they have made it a very great deal of effort for the average person to theme.
I will stand behind PrestaShop 100 percent if they get rid of smarty and implement a simpler templating system such as a main html file with includes that you can just embed PHP template tags into.
If it is for a 'little' shop don't bother using magento.
It's now getting to the point that PrestaShop has a lot more features than the free version of Magento, so I would if you want to spend thousands a year to get the best, get Magento. If you want a great community which releases all sorts of modules and themes for free (along with a bunch of great paid ones), PrestaShop is the way to go.
One big thing that I want to do is give people vouchers/coupons, so if I meet them or sell them something, they can use the coupon on another purchase. It's built into PrestaShop, but with Magento you need to give them a lot of money in order to use that feature. Albeit you get a lot of features for a lot of money, but for a lot of small businesses, it is a lot cheaper to use PrestaShop and pay professionals to work on it and pay for some modules than shell out a lot of money every single year to Magento.
Oh yeah, when you pay for Magento, you are only getting a one-year license. I was really into Magento until I found this out, now I don't give a damn about the company or it's faux open-source project that they have swept underneath the carpet.
I used Prestashop, it is really good one. As an programmer can customize and make required changes in it. Also Prestashop having good modules which are available for free.
I want to add a "Community" section (Bulletin Board) to my website so everyone can communicate, but I don't know what I'm doing.
How would I go about adding this and which one offers the most documentation and support?
Whatever you do, make certain that you read the instructions on configuring your discussion software to protect you and your community for the worst parts of the internet: spam, spoofing, and abuse.
Make certain that you immediately change the admin password from the one that comes with the installation.
If you leave your communities wide open to all kinds of posting, harvesting, and general mis-use, you'll spend your days playing whack-a-mole with thousands of idiots. Develop your acceptable use policy, configure your boards to support it, then enforce it.
And if the software you are looking at doesn't support things like e-mail verification, moderation, abuse reporting, anti-spamming controls, etc., just keep looking.
Be prepared to spend time managing your community so that it doesn't become another one of the millions of web forums out there full of off topic posts that drive people away from your website.
I think what you needed is a forum software, there are tones of free and open source ones available on the net. DotNetNuke is a .NET one but can be expensive to host and phpBB is another popular choice and there are a lot of cheap hosting solutions.
is your site based on php/mysql or asp/sql? Chances are if you do not know where to even find tables, that you are not able to what you actually want.
HOWEVER, if it's php/mysql, i recommend Cool Php Scripts book. It covers creating sort of a community forum/message board.
As i said again, you are probably not going to do it alone, at least, without a long frustrating learning curve.
You can always post a job and someone would be more than willing to bid on it at elance or rentacoder or any other site of your choice
Wikipedia has a big honking list of forum software. Pick the one that best matches the programming language(s) you're familiar with, the features you need, etc.
This is what you need.
Edit: They don't offer a hosted version there. You can use this instead. It's hosted on it's own site, free, and doesn't require a download.
I find Vanilla to be a much better forum application that phpBB for reasons of aesthetics as well as extensibility. I have not seen/used it in a situation where many sub-forums were required, so depending on your scope it may not be the right choice, but for small-to-medium sized forums I'd suggest trying it first.
First, you need to choose a forum software that matchs your requirements.
Then, just follow the Installation Guide provided by the software you have choosen.
More information at Forum Software Reviews