Senior Project; Finale

It's been a couple months of work, but this is finally the end. I have tried 6 different platforms for digital content, backed with my few years of working with HTML, CSS and PHP.

We were all given sheets to fill out, all about "Senior Project"; we had to learn something new, something we could make projects with and present the knowledge gained. I had all sorts of small ideas, but couldn't really plan nearly 10 weeks of time on any of them. The realization of "wordpress alternatives" hit me like a brick, and the more I thought on it the more I realized it was a homerun; I could set up each day for doing a different thing with each platform, and by Friday show everything off.

Of course, life is rarely so generous; I was already a little behind, several websites were blocked by the school's filter, a few being far too complicated or required executables to be downloaded. But I got on track, and thus I looked into and figured out how to work with Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Pagecloud, and Weebly.

Thanks to an application called MAMP, I was able to host a local server for using Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress. Those aren't anything tangible that I can link to you, beyond what I have posted, due to the fact that it was entirely local. There was lots of toying around with settings to get them online, but they were infinitely more customizable and personalizable then the other 3 cloud-based and online platforms.


Which, I've done some thinking; I sort of understand now why users might be more drawn to that. Having tech support on call is a fair boon, and even if the cost is making things look exactly how you want them to look it certainly takes prior knowledge/skill to mess with things without breaking them when it comes to complicated organisms such as websites.




If I did it again I would start off with note-taking; I didn't figure out that was a thing until haflway through, and boy did it help my blog posting. I would also start earlier; I missed most of the deadlines (although not by much) because I typically underestimated just how much I had to write about.

Really, the lesson to take away there is a common one: prepare a time cushion, just in case.


My plan for post-high school is to go into Cyber Security, so it was a very pleasant surprise when Joomla and Drupal had security relevant settings, options, warnings, etc. It was just as disappointing when the cloud-based platforms had nothing to offer besides user accounts and passwords. The generic stuff. Not that that's unexpected, granted.

At the end of the day, the cloud platforms were the easiest to use, to setup, and the quickest. If you are willing to open your wallet up, they are perfect. For those who have some experience and are willing to spend some time to make a truly unique product, then the server based platforms are the ones you want. Wordpress is easy to recommend because of how widespread it is, but Drupal or Joomla are better if you are wanting something for a team.

If you feel like looking at any of the 6 more in depth, feel free to peruse the last handful of blog posts. Each are named thusly. Hope you enjoyed checking out my work & thoughts!

Senior Project; Weebly

Alright! This is my last blog post about a new platform; this week's being Weebly.

Weebly is yet another cloud based platform. Setup was very similar to the previous two, but with many themes that were also categorized and able to be freely browsed.

Also like the other platforms, editing the pages is extremely simple with drag and drop stuff from categories. Quite unlike the others, Weebly features 3rd party extensions and apps; even ones that are drag and drop. There is also support for youtube clips, misc files on your system, and file documents. Unfortunately, just like the other two, there is no CSS or HTML access. But most minor things can be fixed using Weebly.

Now, you may notice the lightning bolts above "audio" and "hd video". This brings me to the fairly negative part of Weebly: There are dozens of features that bring you straight to a paywall.
Almost exactly like a mobile game, there isn't a feature shown that just asks for money when you try to use it, and most of them don't express the fact that they are premium until after they have pulled you to the payment screen. It's a waste of time on the user's end and a waste of data.

Images let you upload your own, or browse the internet for specifically pictures on their own popup browser, which would add content to your website so that you don't have to worry about copyright stuff. They also offered pictures that were high-resolution, free of copyright, and professional; They were also 5 dollars a piece. For a picture. One of the ones I viewed was at a 2000x2000 resolution, which frankly isn't that high considering Wikipedia offers copyright free photos at up to 6000.

Weebly was really just frustrating in the end. It's a superior version of the other two platform's I used, but for a startup you really have to put money down for it be useful in the end. For 150 dollars for their "Pro" package, getting most of the premium features but without being too costly, for a freelance it isn't too bad if there is already some steady income. For a startup I would disagree, because it would be cheaper in the end to setup a free platform I covered earlier.

Weebly does offer pages that can be restricted either to users of the site or to members of the site administration, but it's also behind a paywall, and that's something Joomla and Drupal do for free.

Like the other two, this is the URL i set if you would like to browse what I toyed around with. As if a  final reminder, clicking "Continue" in the dialogue box that appeared would take me to a payment screen. You have to click that small little X in the top right corner to make this box go away.

The next time you hear from me I will compile my final thoughts on this project as a whole and on each platform vs eachother AND what is best for whom. That sorta thing.