I want to start my own cooking website but have questions.

As many know on here I love to cook. I also enjoy sharing with others ideas on cooking and everything kitchen related. I love to make things from scratch esp pastas and breads and have wanted to have a site for a while. I started a blog but it wasn't what I wanted and the customizing was limited and it made the page seem more difficult to navigate and boring. This was both on Blogger and Wordpress.

I know nothing of code but am willing to learn. I know what I want and how I want it set up. I don't like sites like Blogger or Wordpress, they don't seem to offer what I want unless they do and I can't figure it out. l would like my site to be on everything about cooking and anything to do with the kitchen. I want to post my recipes as well and how to videos on various homemade items like pasta. I want a recipes section where the recipes are categorized so people can find what they are looking for faster. Example a "pasta" tab that when you click it drops down all my pasta dish recipes. I also want a section on things like what type of cookware to use and when. For example, when using stainless steel is better than aluminum or use a glass dish instead of a clay one. Things of that nature. So basically tips in the kitchen

I have no idea where to start and I know many people on here have knowledge of this kind of stuff. So suggestions are greatly appreciated. I know some sites charge and that is fine as long as it's not too high. I did find one site that has a nice customization section but still not sure if it's what I"m looking for. It's called "Weebly."


Suggestions welcomed.

Hey mblah, I think its great you want to start a site (dont forget to let us know when it gets started), I dont know much about the comouter part, but if you are looking for exposure after getting it started, or at least want to look around you can go to pinterest, its a great site, and people will follow you and share the things you post.
pinterest.com...

Peace, NRE.

I've made a couple of sites with wix.com, its a very easy 'drag and drop' kind of thing with hundreds of templates and lots of customization... and its free

1) Learn HTML
2) Learn CSS

This will probably take you about +/- a month if you start out (also depends how much time you put on it).
There's some great study material here: net.tutsplus.com...

You can also get really a lot of quality premium templates for wordpress at some sites, such as:

themeforest.net

or any other place.. just google "wordpress premium templates".

Video's are a good thing, many people like them as well! There is also a lot of people that look up recipe's and such... ( at some point later, you could also sell a recipe book or w/e )

Wordpress is the easiest thing really, if you want to build a full-fledged website you'd have to learn some coding (probably either _javascript or php) to add some functionality to your site. Wordpress is a much cheaper alternative both time-wise and money-wise and it saves you the hassle of having to code a website from the ground up. (trust me, its really hard if you don't know what to do)

If you do find something on themeforest, make sure it is actually a wordpress theme.. but there are also a LOAD of free wordpress theme's available (google it again..) like "cooking wordpress theme free" or something

I'm still enjoying my break on a tropical island somewhere nice and warm, so don't mind me. After all, I can't be sipping suds and watching the tide roll in while replying here.

Still... Our OP is Asgard, eh? That's worth coming back from break for a minute.

Okay OP.. So you want to build a website and make it a good one. At the same time, you don't want to wind up like the joke punchlines in the web design commercials for those who DIY it and end up months later, buried in books and pulling their hair out.

Well.. I have two paths you can take and look like you know what you're doing. long before you feel that way with any confidence.

#1. Site in a Can ..or.. CMS....or specifically, Joomla 3.

UPSIDES:

I've run and/or been involved with building several sites on the Joomla structure. It's advantages are that you can start out building a quality, interactive web site without any serious troubles. It's modular, like Wordpress and others ...with extensions. It's different though, in that User Access Control. Administration and general framework/infrastructure IS the package.....and not a side effect of it, to make your gadgets run.

Joomla can be a 5 page business card site or....One of MTV's major online properties runs on a version of it. Other sites one may never suspect ...run Joomla. (I made this CMS the topic of a term project/presentation in my Networking 101 course awhile back, for how I picked up the trivia) It can be that 5 page simple thing, or it can be a monument to time spent, coding learned and great online things created. They aren't mutually exlusive and you can start small while seamlessly working up to something much larger.

DOWNSIDES:

Joomla is a software package. Not a site builder. It requires installation and leaves quite a footprint for all it's doing to run the site with near idiot proof levels of automation, as desired. That means it has server overhead. I.E. LAG... and in layman's terms. It's slow. It's not Dial up slow, of course. After all, Joomla is one of the most successful free (open source) software packages out there right now for high interactive design in it's class. Expect a 1-1.5 second speed penalty for the load/creation of pages on the fly, as Joomla does.

Joomla is also NOT portable the way other solutions are. If you need the MAJOR infrastructure and raw power Joomla brings to the table, none of the downsides will outweigh that need. I still use it myself on some things. If you do not need the power though? It can be more a pain than any help for a site where it's total overkill.

#2. It's a Site Maker without coding...and it WORKS! WYSIWYG Web Builder 8

Now this suggestion I bring from years of trying different things to never find what I really wanted or needed in making a custom site quickly, with power and interactivity I have 110% control over the placement and function of.

UPSIDES:

First, WB-8 is NOT Muse, a Front Page spin off or some cheesy local version of the site making software that so many hosts have now. All the site design packages I've ever tried before this one were failures on some level. Either I needed to use enough coding anyway to make the time saving nature of the WYSIWYG features a moot point (Dreamweaver comes to mind here) or it's SO easy, any idiot could do it at the first sitting ...and you have a Front Page website that is SO distinct by it's sheer cheesy appearance, you'll attract more mice than visitors.

WB-8 is similar to Joomla in one way. It's as simple or as extremely complex as you want to make it or learn to use it. I can have a multi-page, live feed and interactive site up and going inside a couple hours and looking very solid for the effort. That's without using any of what I've really spent time to learn in making the software sing.

It's 100% drag/drop with the same coordinate based absolute positioning (during the design phase) as any Adobe design software. it also has the locking feature while STILL leaving the object editable on the page. (Designers should appreciate that little quirk)

MOST importantly for most of the stuff I do? It does all this AND it's portable. You make it 100% local on your machine then upload. That makes restoring the site to a new sever as quick as DNS propagation updating on the change of IP. Actually moving the SITE between servers is upload time. ...unlike Joomla and others.

Anyway.. Hope that helps in advice from having used both options extensively. Good luck on your site!

Get a domain from GoDaddy.com and then get their Website Tonight upgrade. It's very inexpensive, and point and click setup.... I searched for months for an easy to use interface, etc. and this is simply the easiest, and best bang for the buck, I found.

reply to post by mblahnikluver


I think wordpress would be able to do what you need. You can build some pretty nice sites with it like this
The functionality you want would probably be best to implement using tag clouds and tag searching which you can implement easily in wordpress

Hi,

The Joomla thing is not a very good idea in my opinion.

From the mouth of Joomla herself LOL
docs.joomla.org...

Any CMS pertty well is going to be PHP (pre processed hypertext)and SQL,structured query language.

Sits like PHPNuke, Joomla, are built on this tech.

Once your hacked, you basically loose your data base and your site, everything needs to go, or your just there patching and playing till your web hot skids you. Want their help? sure, dig out some cash.

a WYSIWYG editor is a good choice, remember to back up all html documents and images, that way when the server gets hacked or crashes, you can re upload without problems.

Good luck.

ps. Moms basement and a tropical island are polar opposites.

reply to post by lnfideI

In general terms, Joomla has some issues. Namely, using it for small sites where time to learn the package and how to properly install, run and secure it, isn't available. Joomla is absolutely NOT FrontPage or WordPress for being Idiot-proof'ed to a fault ....which has never been the point to do. There are Administrative extensions that can be (and are as step #1 in my Joomla installs) added specifically to scan for and address all known vulnerabilities.

* (There are also admin extensions to handle 100% automated back-ups...so being hacked is a 5-10 minute annoyance in restoring files after determining how it happened ....nothing like the deal breaker it once was for CMS systems)

Joomla.org's Website Showcase

Joomla is 100% free for the s/w and extensions are still running about 50% free I'd guess, as an estimate, so I really like the software. I have nothing to gain in suggesting it.....but I show the link above for a good reason why I do support it as strongly as I do and use with folks I build sites for.

It's used to run everything from municipal and county Government sites to Fire Departments, to State Universities to Pizza Shops for their ordering and delivery business with everything in-between.

I'd actually been away from Joomla for awhile here while I learned and really got proficient with WB-8, but returning to build another site at the moment has me working with the new Joomla 3 framework/backend and I must say I am impressed.... They made it even easier and more friendly ..which is saying a lot, given how much it already was. There is still quite a learning curve to fully 'master' the software, but still a package that can have a basic site up and running within an hour, too.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I've built a couple of fairly big sites with Joomla (A couple of versions back now though)
I have to agree with you about its learning curve. I wouldn't want to put the effort into learning it if I was only wanting to build one site like mblah needs.

Wordpress does seem to have quite a few gaps in its available plugins though.
You can find a Joomla plugin for more or less anything you could possibly think of although I've found that most of them do need some tinkering with to get them to work exactly as I want

I'd mentioned above that I'm back to working pretty heavily with Joomla for awhile and found something that just blew me away for significant new capability compared to how Joomla admin functions and design has operated in the past. It comes down to a template, an extension and two major issues solved in one shot.

The template: JSN Boot Pro (Free)

(A position for everything...and then some..and some more just for good measure... lol)

The extension: JSN PowerAdmin

What the company there offers comes at a healthy price, I admit. However, the two above things are 100% free. The JSN Boot template is 100% functional and unlimited. To people who have worked with Joomla, you'll appreciate what I mean to say they make *FULL* use of the variables config area in the Template manager. Some templates have an option to change themes or maybe width, but this has dozens of settings right there.

The extension has what they call a Site Manager and what it does it just awesome for a Joomla environment. It comes up in a 3 window/column display with a menu-tree (Fully editable to add directly to the tree for menu items), a live view of the Content box of the page/menu item being viewed (and editable directly...with context menu control of elements within the article ) and then .... in the third column, All Module positions represented with drag/drop interface to add/drop or change positions for any modules available on the install.

One of the biggest problems I've ever had with Joomla was making templates easily and without buying outside software (Artisteer is what I've used for years). This solves it, free and within the admin back-end.

* I usually don't praise something, but the above two things added with the major new changes in Joomla 3.xx for native mobile/tablet support just makes it like a new package to work with since the 2.5 I last used for any length of time.