Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

Design question - Can I do this with WordPress?

  1. cliffhobbs
    Member

    Hi all,

    I'm hoping someone can give me some words of advice please.

    My website (http://www.faqshop.com) is currently a series of static HTML pages linked together. The time has come for me to move it to something more this century and WordPress is one potential option I'm looking at.

    The prime goal for me is to be able to maintain the structure I have on FAQShop namely

    - Product
    - Category
    - Subcategory
    - Article

    For example:

    - SMS 2003
    - Administration
    - Collections
    - How do I create a Collection?

    What I'm struggling with is how I can achieve this with WordPress as I don't want to end up with say just separate blogs for each product that become "buckets" where I have to dump everything at a single level with no organisation.

    I also want to be able to have separate sections on my home page for each product with each section showing the latest post made automatically again without me having to do anything.

    A tall order I know and I'd appreciate any thoughts you have.

    Many thanks for your time.

    Kind regards,
    Cliff

    The blog I need help with is faqshop.wordpress.com.

  2. cliffhobbs
    Member

    Apologies, this should be indented (I couldn't see how to edit my original post) :

    - SMS 2003
    [TAB] - Administration
    [TAB][TAB] - Collections
    [TAB][TAB][TAB] - How do I create a Collection?

  3. timethief
    Member

    Please read this so your are clear on the limitations > http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

    WordPress.com blogs cannot be equipped for ecommerce. E-commerce transactions via shopping carts and the like cannot be conducted on free blogs from and being free hosted by wordpress.com

    If you do require an ecommerce site, advertising and/or affiliate links, FTP acces and the ability to hack a theme then you can hire a web host and get a free software install from http://wordpress.org
    You cannot build or use your own custom theme built from scratch at WordPress.com.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/adding-new-themes/

    The only themes we can use are those found here > Appearance > Themes
    This is a multiuser blogging platform. All blogs wearing the same theme are using the same underlying template and we cannot access the underlying files and edit templates or themes. http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/editing-themes/

    There are two free themes, Sandbox and Toolbox designed to allow maximum flexibility for CSS editing and creating new “skins”. Toolbox is more modern and includes a lot of support for CSS3 and HTML5, so it is really only limited by your skills and knowledge.

    If you have CSS editing experience the upgrade will allow you to stylize the appearance of themes you find here > Appearance > Themes, but will not allow you to change the functionality, by editing the underlying template. It does not allow you to remove footer links to the theme designer or to WordPress.com. Also note that CSS is theme specific, so you cannot use the CSS stylesheets from other themes with the themes at WordPress.COM. http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/custom-css/

  4. timethief
    Member

    Also note that aside from a blog being accepted into WordAds, no blogger initiated advertising, retailing or reselling the work or products created or services provided by anyone other than yourself is allowed on free hosted wordpress.com blogs.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
    http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/

  5. cliffhobbs
    Member

    Thanks for the reply and I'm more than happy to go down the hosting is on a paid for domain rather than the free service.

    However, I need to know if WordPress (free or paid for) will do what I need it to do otherwise I'll need to look elsewhere.

    PS - I have no CSS experience, I'm not a programmer ;-)

  6. 1tess
    Moderator

    You could make posts about the various products, then use categories to organize them.

    With a custom menu, you could have top navigation (if your theme has top navigation) to each category. Or just use a category widget for your readers to find topics of interest to them.

    for example you would assign your posts to such categories as
    - SMS 2003
    - Administration
    - Collections
    - How do I create a Collection?

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/categories-widget/

  7. timethief
    Member

    Do you make these products yourself?

  8. 1tess
    Moderator

    I have no CSS experience, I'm not a programmer

    WordPress .org (paid/hosted) or .com (free) provides the appearance for your blog, and while lots of people want to alter the appearance with CSS it is entirely unnecessary. Wp.com has nearly 200 themes to choose from.

    It is up to you to decide on the structure of your site: I suggested categories because you can expand the number of categories, add sub categories, and keep your work organized that way quite efficiently.

  9. 1tess
    Moderator

    timethief:
    He is not selling products. He offers tips on using various Microsoft systems.
    ≥^!^≤

  10. timethief
    Member

    Oh! 0-o :(

  11. 1tess
    Moderator

    oops to me too:

    On another look, he does have a store with links to books and software, and sponsors. So that might indicate that he needs WP.ORG, but the question of whether wordpress software will function for him comes down to "YES."

    For the record, the differences between .com and .org (again):
    http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags