As the title says, I'm new to Umbraco and have a load of questions to ask, so please stick with me, or tell me to sling my hook if I'm in the wrong place.
I have a starter site with 7.1.8 loaded and so far, its easy for a novice like me, but ....
I want to add some extra stuff, like a better text editor, a simple gallery (ideally with shadow box display) and a blog.
Non of the above needs to be complicated, simple is the key word here!
Can you point me in the right direction please?
Please also remember I am a novice and very new to this. My site is hosted by Web Wiz, who have been very helpful and tollerent with me!
I look forward to reading your advice and guidance.
I was told many years ago that there is as much value in asking questions on this forum as there is in answering them. Great to have you here and welcome to the friendly CMS :) Also webwhiz that's a great tip! They look very good.
Ok, its good to know where you're at, as it does affect your own choices and the help I can give.
First things first, Umbraco is better suited to web developers & designers than end-users and so for that reason you may quickly find it difficult to get things done without getting your hands dirty (so to speak!). But you can still get quite a lot done out of the box and with starter kits and third party packages.
So let's help you move beyond a starter kit.
1. There are literally tons of package extensions for Umbraco and these will help novices and experts alike improve their sites. Forums, Blogs, Slideshows, you'll find plenty to choose from, browse for them under projects. A good example is the Umbraco forms builder which requires little or no programming experience.
2. Try and get into "tinkering" with your templates as soon as possible, U7 has a great interface for selecting properties and now offers a nice query builder tool for novices. Then learn HTML and Microsoft's Razor syntax which is the language (based on C#) used to write templates and build in logic. You might need to brush with a little JavaScipt although you'll find it easier starting with JQuery.
4. The backoffice RTE can be configured to offer as much or as little as you want your end users to have access to, but I dont know of any replacement RTEs for the Umbraco back office. The Umbraco RTE should be more than enough for the needs of most.
In all honesty if you do not have any interest in programming on Microsoft platform or any specific reason to use Microsoft environment then you will be much better off with wordpress. It is much better for people who just want to click to install something and for it to work right off the bat.
Umbraco has a ton of benefits like security, customizability and an easy way to port a site to a mobile app but if none of those apply to you then your life will be a lot easier with wordpress.
If you want to learn though stick around as umbraco is great to work with once you know a little code.
Hello, I'm new to Umbraco
Hello,
As the title says, I'm new to Umbraco and have a load of questions to ask, so please stick with me, or tell me to sling my hook if I'm in the wrong place.
I have a starter site with 7.1.8 loaded and so far, its easy for a novice like me, but ....
I want to add some extra stuff, like a better text editor, a simple gallery (ideally with shadow box display) and a blog.
Non of the above needs to be complicated, simple is the key word here!
Can you point me in the right direction please?
Please also remember I am a novice and very new to this. My site is hosted by Web Wiz, who have been very helpful and tollerent with me!
I look forward to reading your advice and guidance.
Cheers
Chris.
Hello Chris
Welcome to the world of Umbraco! First off can I the question...Do you have any kind of computer programming or scripting background?
Kind regards
Martin
Martin (et-al),
Fallen at the first jump! No.
As I say, I am a novice, but I am keen to 'have a go' at anything; after all, you don't know what you can do until you try!
Chris.
I was told many years ago that there is as much value in asking questions on this forum as there is in answering them. Great to have you here and welcome to the friendly CMS :) Also webwhiz that's a great tip! They look very good.
John,
Thanks for your reply, it's great to know.
Web Wiz have been excellent with me - highly recommended.
Hi Chris
Ok, its good to know where you're at, as it does affect your own choices and the help I can give.
First things first, Umbraco is better suited to web developers & designers than end-users and so for that reason you may quickly find it difficult to get things done without getting your hands dirty (so to speak!). But you can still get quite a lot done out of the box and with starter kits and third party packages.
So let's help you move beyond a starter kit.
1. There are literally tons of package extensions for Umbraco and these will help novices and experts alike improve their sites. Forums, Blogs, Slideshows, you'll find plenty to choose from, browse for them under projects. A good example is the Umbraco forms builder which requires little or no programming experience.
2. Try and get into "tinkering" with your templates as soon as possible, U7 has a great interface for selecting properties and now offers a nice query builder tool for novices. Then learn HTML and Microsoft's Razor syntax which is the language (based on C#) used to write templates and build in logic. You might need to brush with a little JavaScipt although you'll find it easier starting with JQuery.
4. The backoffice RTE can be configured to offer as much or as little as you want your end users to have access to, but I dont know of any replacement RTEs for the Umbraco back office. The Umbraco RTE should be more than enough for the needs of most.
I hope this helps
Martin.
Hi Chris and welcome to our :)
For starters I think this guide https://our.umbraco.org/documentation/Using-Umbraco/Creating-Basic-Site/ and this article http://24days.in/umbraco/2014/how-to-set-up-an-umbraco-site/ are good starting points. You can find many more articles on the 24days site as well btw.
Also it might be worth considering signing up for http://umbraco.tv where all concepts in Umbraco are explained.
And then for general web learning http://codeschool.com might be a good starting point as well.
/Jan
Thanks to everyone for your messages.
I will put my thinking hat on and see if U7 is really the CMS that suits best ...
Cheers,
Chris.
In all honesty if you do not have any interest in programming on Microsoft platform or any specific reason to use Microsoft environment then you will be much better off with wordpress. It is much better for people who just want to click to install something and for it to work right off the bat.
Umbraco has a ton of benefits like security, customizability and an easy way to port a site to a mobile app but if none of those apply to you then your life will be a lot easier with wordpress.
If you want to learn though stick around as umbraco is great to work with once you know a little code.
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