Fecking neckbeards
After my forays into the UDM drop-down menu I bit the bullet and decided the best thing for a site would probably be to install some kind of CMS and migrate the data to it. Means she can use a semi-decent HTML editor instead of raw HTML too.
I had heard great things about both Drupal and Joomla so figured they would be top of my list. Looked at the install for Drupal, looked simple enough. Tried to install on my machine and got no end of problems.
Hey let’s create an “install.php” but not make it do a complete install, sod that we want our users to learn loads of Unix commands to set it up, too hard for the authors to script.
Fuck that noise.
WordPress and Cubecart being the two other applications I have installed both had this facility. I don’t mind editing a config file or anything but that was a step too far. When I install an application on Windows you follow the options and click appropriate sections. You don’t have to hand edit the registry. Why? Because you shouldn’t have to.
I then downloaded Joomla, waited and age for it to upload to server and then went to the directory. Redirected to installation directory where it checks my requirements. It tells me I have a problem, the help file with the handy screenshots tells me exactly what I need to do to fix it. It then checks again. It asks for FTP and MySQL usernames etc. Installs and is all set to go.
I have no idea yet if it does what I want it to do but unlike Drupal it has passed the first hurdle of making it possible for me to find that out. It could be that WordPress would do but I think the option to easily integrate forums etc is a good bonus. I have to have her shop in it too which will be another hurdle.
Lesson: you may have the greatest web application in the world but if you make users jump through hoops in order to test it you will get nowhere. If I cared enough to look into it I would have managed to set up Drupal, I just didn’t give enough of a shit to. My time is too valuable to me to waste learning how to do stuff your install should script for me. How you expect Joe Bloggs to do so is a mystery.