Struggling with Wordpress, to put it lightly.
February 23, 2010 3:43 PM   Subscribe

Struggling with Wordpress, to put it lightly.

I took a break from web development for a couple of years. Recently, I agreed to create a website for an entertainment client who wants a news section, a video section, a photo section -- all of these sections needing to be managed by a backend. I need the client to be able to log into an admin section, boom, add a video, boom, add a news story, boom, upload a photo, log out and call it a day.

I thought Wordpress was an appropriate platform on which I could deliver said result. I thought that this would be a relatively simple task - now I'm starting to think I'm wrong. I'm struggling to wrap my mind around certain conceptual issues. Forgive me if this is basic stuff, but I'm having trouble Googling this and would like it cleared up as I'm working on a deadline (and frankly, I'm flabbergasted). So here goes.

The situation: A news story post will consist of say, three fields. A pic, a blurb and a link. A video post will consist of different fields: like, a video link, a rating perhaps, duration length, description, etc. Photo posts, in turn, will have its own unique parameters.

The problem: I can create category-specific styles on the front end to control and differentiate the presentation of news posts vs. video posts vs. photo posts, but I noticed that I do not have that option on the backend, i.e. I can tag a post as belonging to a particular category, but I cannot issue category-specific custom fields, or in other words, I cannot see how the client would be able to create category-specific posts.

The question: I'm tripped up by the fact that I could have sworn I was doing this kind of work using some kind of CMS a couple of years ago, without having to hack in the admin panel. which frankly, I'm wary of doing. I can handle my shit when it comes to the wp-content folder, but I have never dipped into the wp-admin folder. (I mean, I'm saying this and I already feel like I'm barking up the wrong tree.) Is WordPress the right platform to be doing this kind of work?

The other issue is that this work is for a client, and that further down the line I want to do this work some other people as well, perhaps go into business doing this sort of thing. So if Wordpress is capable of creating these kinds of results, but requires a delicate combination of third party hacks to achieve said results, I feel incredibly uncomfortable with that. (I also don't want to do something ridiculous like set up 3 blogs and ask the client to log in to 3 separate panels to update their site. I would like to avoid recommendations of this nature.)

I'm convinced I'm missing the forest for the trees on this one. I'm burned out looking for the answer. Is this a known limitation, am I missing an obvious plugin, or am I just plain being retarded? Is there a different CMS I should be looking at? Can somebody put me back on the right track?
posted by phaedon to Computers & Internet (13 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
MODx does this with Template Variables. You edit some content, and the editing pane might show several different types of data you can upload/edit, rather than just a single WYSIWYG editor like other CMSes do.
posted by circular at 4:02 PM on February 23, 2010


BTW, you hear a lot about Wordpress from people who have only worked with Wordpress. While it does have some fantastic advantages, I've worked with around 20-40 different CMS packages and I'm constantly evaluating new ones, and there are many, many projects for which Wordpress is going to be a mess.

If you are planning on doing CMS work like this further down the line, you should look at trying out as many of them as possible. You can deploy them on a home LAN pretty easily, or on a typical web host. There are also sites that offer previews of popular CMSes.

Memail me if you want to connect, since I'm always looking for people to work with in CMS implementations.
posted by circular at 4:09 PM on February 23, 2010


Why is not having category specific custom fields a big deal? Don't use the ones that aren't applicable.

I'm also not sure why news would need "3 sections" .. why not just use the title field, or strong tag (bold), and upload an image in that? You can use CSS and rearrange template tags as needed.

I would definitely agree that different systems are more or less suited to different tasks; however, news and vlogging are certainly well-covered by WP's capabilities.
posted by shownomercy at 4:30 PM on February 23, 2010


You can add any custom field to any post you like, and only use that information in a template when it's needed there.

And if you want every single post in a template according to its category, there is a simple plug-in for that, or you use an IF statement in the php coding of the template, splitting the posts according to category.
posted by ijsbrand at 4:57 PM on February 23, 2010


Response by poster: I am looking for something more elegant than "don't use the custom fields that aren't applicable" because this site is going to be maintained by a client who is bound to get confused. Hell, even I find the idea irritating.

I just found Flutter which seems to do what I'm looking for - that is, "create custom write panels" in the admin window. I'll give it a go. Documentation is here in case anyone's interested.
posted by phaedon at 5:23 PM on February 23, 2010


Yeah, that's been a recurring problem for me in Wordpress. It can do almost everything, but can it do everything and still be a smooth experience for a newbie client?
posted by thelastenglishmajor at 5:33 PM on February 23, 2010


Something like Drupal might be better for this...

On the other hand, I wouldn't just assume that it is confusing for the client to have all admin be the same - I've found that some people on the lower end of the computer skill spectrum prefer being able to edit each section exactly the same way, rather than having to learn how to enter a video, a photo, and a post.

To be more specific, when I've developed something in which a client can only enter a video, they inevitably ask how to put a photo and text next to the video, and I end up reverse engineering the system to work just like a Wordpress-based CMS would have worked in the first place.
posted by beyond_pink at 5:42 PM on February 23, 2010


I think of Wordpress as purely blogging software. For something like this where you have different panel needs etc., I think that's more of a Drupal/Joomla thing.
posted by GilloD at 5:52 PM on February 23, 2010


I cannot see how the client would be able to create category-specific posts.

When creating the post, the end user simply has to check the box in the Category panel indicating whether or not the post is in the News, Video, or Photo category. Your Wordpress theme should take care of the rest by presenting the contents according to category. I agree with beyond_pink - Wordpress is certainly capable of this and I think you're overestimating the level of complexity for the end user here.
posted by oulipian at 10:46 AM on February 24, 2010


I know it's been mentioned before but the most dead simple way of doing this is with custom fields and categories (the news category sounds like a straight up blog post though). Maybe with a simple explanatory note hooked into the new post page or your own custom meta box for those custom fields.

A little extra UI work on a custom meta box could go a long way towards making things pretty easy to use.

And there's another avenue for you to explore. Custom post types were introduced in WordPress 2.9. They're super cool and are only getting easier to use in 3.0. You can start reading about them here and here.

Good luck!
posted by ianstewart at 11:28 AM on February 24, 2010


Have you seen this guide? The functions.php file in a theme can override and repopulate the custom fields section with a custom form. It's still hacking the admin section, but it's hacking it in a way that plays nice with WP. The photo/news/video would go in the regular wordpress post box and then your client could fill out one part of a three-part form for whatever extra metadata you want. Use javascript to hide/show the different parts of the form.

The author of that guide also endorses a few plugins, Flutter included.
posted by cowbellemoo at 11:58 AM on February 24, 2010


That new feature is freaking awesome, ianstewart!
posted by cowbellemoo at 12:08 PM on February 24, 2010


You might want to look at the Magic Fields plug-in. It's a fork from Flutter and might be worth a look. I was going to go the flutter/magic fields route, but I decided to dig in and create my own taxonomies and meta boxes, similar to what ianstewart posted above. I used this site as a reference.
posted by pipco at 1:16 PM on February 24, 2010


« Older How can I use .htaccess to shorten URLs?   |   Momofuku Milk Bar Cookie Recipe Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.