Thanks very much for the advice. I'm pretty sure that's the approach I'm going to take. --steve
On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 3:59:59 PM UTC-7, Harry Houdini wrote: > > > Maintaining that many static files has really got to suck, this is where > Django is going to help you a lot. First step for you because you are just > starting out it to play around with Django, build some base templates and > try extending them until you get your templates looking how you want. Then > go ahead and design the DB in a way that makes sense for making it easy to > edit and display your site content (and to add whatever features on top of > that you want- e.g the voting thing you wanted to add). > > And overall think it would make more sense to start with a vanilla Django > install and get a feel for it before you jump to Mezzanine. I looked at > Mezzanine for a project and spent a few days messing around with it and > building up a site and I have to say that it adds a ton of functionality on > top of Django but has a learning curve when it comes to customization. They > modified django a lot compared to something like DjangoCMS I would say > (which is more of a plugin). Mezzanine is also pretty new and under very > active development (I follow their repo on Github, its pretty active) but > you can usually talk to people on their IRC channel about it if you get > stuck (its on freenode). > > You might find you can build it fast enough with vanilla Django and a few > unobtrusive plugins and that you dont need the CMS stuff (django.admin does > a lot actually but has some limits). > > > > On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:37:06 PM UTC-5, Steve Metivier wrote: >> >> >> - Project: Convert an essentially static HTML website and its >> attached WordPress blog, to Django, to improve on its currently slow load >> time, and to enable its functionality to be extended. (It’s currently >> implemented on a platform that I believe introduces significant overhead >> at >> runtime, and is very restrictive in extensibility. It’s on one of those >> “build your own website with no technical expertise” platforms.) >> I should note that I do have technical expertise, having been a >> professional developer in C for many years, and I now have a decent >> handle >> on HTML and CSS, but am a beginner with both Python and Django. >> - The website is a famous quotes site. (It’s >> www.InspirationalSpark.com <http://www.inspirationalspark.com/>, if >> you want to take a look.) Each page focuses on a specific subject (which >> its URL indicates), and is comprised of some introductory text, including >> meta tags, followed by 12-20 famous quote entries, each made up of the >> quote itself, it’s author, and a short description. Finally, there are >> related page links at the bottom, and AdSense in several places. The >> navigation consists of topic links in the left column, and there is also >> a >> right column containing various elements that are shared on all pages. >> - I envision each quote becoming a standalone object, so it can be >> shared socially and, eventually, rated/voted. I intend for each quote to >> be >> associated with a single topic page, for the most part. >> - The purpose of the *blog* is to allow daily additions of new >> quotes, which are scheduled as a “quote of the day”, go out to a feed, >> and >> are posted to an associated Facebook page and to Twitter, and then listed >> on one of the topic pages. I don’t actually want the individual posts to >> be >> visible to the search engines, due to the thin content issue. They should >> only be visible within one of the topic pages, and on the home page. >> - It’s critical that the page URLs remain unchanged, due to the >> number of inbound links that already exist, and current traffic (around >> 10,000 views/day). >> - I think what I’m looking for is a CMS, with a twist, to enable >> multiple objects per page. >> Here’s the long-term plan: >> - Phase 1 – re-implement the website (separate from the blog), as is, >> in Django, to hopefully improve its currently poor load time. High >> priority >> is given to maintaining the current URLs completely, for SEO reasons, and >> to time to production launch. >> - Phase 2 – migrate the current WordPress blog to Django. >> - Phase 3 – add social media buttons to each quote on the page – for >> Facebook and twitter. >> - Phase 4 – add user-created pages, where they can store and display >> their favorite quotes, with accounts and registration. >> - Phase 5 – add voting on individual quotes within a page. >> - Getting to phase 1 completion is a high priority, even if it means >> reworking components later to do so. >> - The admin interface would need to provide for adding new quotes, >> and assigning them to topic pages, plus adding new topic pages. In the >> current Wordpress blog implementation, it’s very handy to be able to >> specify each of the fields for a quote entry via a form, then pick the >> category from a list. It would be nice to keep this type of interface. >> - The scheduling of new “posts” feature is also desirable, so I can >> batch up new additions, and trickle them out, updating the home page >> daily. >> >> >> >> The big question: Should I start with a Django CMS like Mezzanine, and >> modify it as needed, start from some other open source project, or start >> from scratch? >> >> >> >> Thanks. >> >> --steve >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
