Sometimes a client wants a level of interactivity that requires more than Dreamweaver and Jscript. If you want to provide an agile site in a timely manner, consider using WordPress. It is no longer just a blog platform. WordPress has grown into useful contact management software which gives designers the utility of Php without requiring them to speak that language.
They have a variety of themes to choose from and with a little time and effort; you can use a minimal template to pretty much call your own shots. What it gives you in return is a quick, effective way to provide blogs, static pages, forums, videos and easy interface with third party software. The amazing thing is that it’s free!
While it may take some effort to feel conversant, it is more intuitive and user friendly than straight HTML and CSS. Practice makes, if not perfect, at least palatable, and there are tons of tutorials and troubleshooting pages that address most anything you may want to know.
Recently I was working on a website which needed to look like a regular website, but include a blog, forum, donation page and gallery. I knew that WordPress would have the answers I needed, and it took only a short time to discover under Reading in Settings, you can make the home page a "static" page and your blog page in blog "loop" format. See the image below.
The forum was provided by a plug-in called Mingle Forum which can be uploaded in zip format to your WordPress site. There is other forum plug-ins out there, but this looked very compatible with WordPress and proved to be so.
The point is, WordPress is a wonderful tool created to be compatible with a world of widgets that make a designer's life so much easier and productive. While I love Dreamweaver, WordPress is earning my respect as a fine content management tool which gives wings to my designs.
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