CMS' & WordPress Plugins Inquiry

[~Psychotic~]

Two questions, should be easy enough to answer.

1. First off, what's the going rate for a PHP developer? If I wanted a content-management system built from scratch, what would that cost me? Let's say I wanted it to work practically like WordPress but with a few added features, how much would that set me back?

2. On the topic of CMS' and WordPress, let's discuss WordPress plugins. There's a lot of them but many of them don't do what or want or have horrible integration (especially with custom layouts, but this is to be expected).

I want to know if there are any willing developers wouldn't mind making some WordPress plugins, for pay, of course. I know many developers don't like to conform to the constrictions of another's coding, but rather than get somebody to make me an entirely new content-management system that I really don't need (and can't particularly afford) I'd rather pay somebody to develop a few WordPress plugins for me, that'd integrate well with my own websites that run off WordPress.

There's a few features I want added to my website, but I am not fond of how many of the current WordPress plugins integrate them, and some just don't exist with the functionality I want. I, however, actually like using WordPress as a CMS, it's rather easy to use and it works efficiently, I don't see a point in paying several thousand dollars getting somebody to make me an entirely new WordPress-like CMS with a handful of new features when I could get the functionality built into what I have got now.

 

[glaxxon]

A new cms will definitely cost you in $xx,xxx range easily. Pm me what functions you need to add to your site and also the website. I got a few guys who can possibly help you out.

 

[~Psychotic~]

I'm not looking for anything currently (still need the money) but a quote would be nice, I'll send you a PM now.

 

[jagdotme]

Check my PM and save $$$$ hopefully

 

[NLP]

The problem with a custom CMS is that you don't have access to a support community when things go wrong, and there's not as much new development and updates as with a big CMS like Wordpress or Joomla. And to some extent, you'd be reinventing the wheel, because there are a lot of great CMSs out there that are highly customizable.

You can find coders who will take a theme and customize it for you, and there are also people who specialize in customizing plugins. The challenge is finding someone who's reliable and who you like working with, but that's why these forums exist. Check out the "Developer Needed" threads.

There are options besides Wordpress, too, like cmsmadesimple.org which has worked out great for me, and silverstripe.com,
which is an opensource CMS framework that you can pretty much customize any way you want.

 

[~Psychotic~]

Thanks for those, NLP. I've actually checked out SilverStripe in the past but haven't fiddled around with it much, looking at CMS Made Simple as well.

Edit: I figured I should post this here, as this might make it easier to understand what I want. Honestly? WordPress isn't as must but I'm used to it and understand [most of] it's features. It's easy to make update, make blog posts, makes pages, etc. Sticking my templates in it is tedious in comparison to something like MODx but it's not exactly difficult now that I know how to do it. But again, it's not necessary, it's just a nice convenience.

This is part of the same private message I sent to glaxxon, above, perhaps it'll explain more about what I want my website to do and how much something like this would cost. To put it briefly: It's an image database, rather user-driven, so user-friendly features are they key here.

There are two main ones, and they're rather complex in nature.

User Control Management

WordPress user management is meh because it's mostly - from my understanding of it - just for people who are writing posts. I don't (currently) see any reason to be a Subscriber other than getting new posts sent to you, which is good I suppose. However, I need it to do a bit more than that.

What I want is an integrated login / register and user control panel script. Some of this is already handled by WordPress, but what I want is a system where people can login and upload images to our database directly, via the website, without having to send us some gimmicky and somewhat slow email.

The user profile is optional, it's hardly necessary, at all. Especially since I don't plan on having any sort of "community" to the website, at this time (not a good niche, really). However, a page for each member that shows how many images they've uploaded (and links to them) as well as a list of their comments would be nice, but again, it's purely aesthetic.

When registering such details as email address, WoW character name and realm said character is on, would be necessary, but the last details wouldn't be shown on any profile page (if one exists) unless they want them to.

Being able to control users via WordPress' own admin page would be handy. This is the rule of thumb for pretty much all the extensions I want as I want to keep the user-friendliness and design of WordPress, considering I want plugins I assume they'd be made to be integrated naturally, anyone.

I should add that one account per email address and per IP address would be preferred. CAPTCHA is a must, but I consider this a standard amongst todays login scripts, to be frank.

User-submitted Uploads and Database Administration

Coincides with the above but I thought I'd outline it in separately, anyway. Basically, in a nutshell, I want something like:

User registers > User logs in > User clicks on the "Submit" navigation link and can upload images to our database directly, via that page. When uploading an image, they'd be asked to browse to the images location (standard) as well as include a description for their image.

Those who go to the Submit page whilst logged out would be asked to login to upload images.

As for the database administration, that'd be what I, and other admins, would see. I want a place where we could login to the WordPress administration area and view the images that users have uploaded (which would most likely be stuck in a temporary folder on the server).

Via that admin area I'd like to be able to directly manage images. All the images on the website. I'd like to be able to add, delete and edit (such as title and the name of whoever uploaded it, etc).

If a user has submitted an image I would like to know about it, sort of like how pending comments are handled in WordPress now. Where I'm able to accept or decline (and give a reason for when declining, that'd probably be emailed to the submitter). Accepted images would get added to the database automatically and I want the images on separate pages (or, if they're called from a database (I expect this, actually, just from my meek understanding of PHP and MySQL) then I want each image to have it's own friendly URL, be able to have it's own comments and also a ranking system).

Ratings System

My site currently uses one, I don't like it though. This isn't necessary but user feedback is always nice. Just a simple ratings system on a 1-5 scale. 1 being lowest rank, 5 being highest (normal stuff there). People would have to be logged in to vote on an image. Not sure if I'd allow people to vote once every 24-48 hours or just once (an option to specify this time might actually be useful).

Knowing who rated what isn't important, don't want it either (I like anonymity, ) but being able to see image ratings at a glance, via the admin area, would be a big help. What I always wanted was to be able to see unpopular images at a glance, images with a rating of 2 or lower would be marked in red but they'd only get this "unpopular" marking if they reached a certain threshold of ratings (if the more than 50% of the votes was 2, for example, it'd be flagged).

I don't need to know who gave what rating, but knowing how many people rated what number is helpful (so knowing how many people gave an image a 2, how many people gave it a 5, etc), then I could use my own judgement in deciding if the image is unpopular or not (I wouldn't consider 2 votes - one 2/5 and one 4/5 - as very accurate, for example, but the system would flag it anyway).

To conclude, I'm well aware WordPress is not the best system for such a website, I'm sure there are far better but I am not aware of any at this time. I'm not a PHP or MySQL developer, I am a web designer, the subjects interest me but I don't currently have the time nor the desire to put much effort into learning them (I might if I was actually getting some qualifications out of the lessons or was putting a significant amount of money towards them).

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. As said, I'm fine with having to pay somebody but I'm going to need quotes on how much it'll cost so I can budget that in advance, as is the norm in most practices.

 

[thekooliest]

PM'ed

 

[~Psychotic~]

Thanks for the offer, thekooliest. If you read my last post you'll see pretty much what I want done.

I am sort of clinging to what NLP stated, however. It'd be nice to use a system that already exists, such as Joomla, WordPress, MODx or SilverStripe (SilverStripe looks bloody confusing for me, still fiddling around with it), etc. The upside to these is that they're released with security updates on a fairly regular basis, I don't need to rely on someone to update a custom one nor do I need to pay them to do so. Support is also much easier to get.

 

[thekooliest]

Thanks for the offer, thekooliest. If you read my last post you'll see pretty much what I want done.

I am sort of clinging to what NLP stated, however. It'd be nice to use a system that already exists, such as Joomla, WordPress, MODx or SilverStripe (SilverStripe looks bloody confusing for me, still fiddling around with it), etc. The upside to these is that they're released with security updates on a fairly regular basis, I don't need to rely on someone to update a custom one nor do I need to pay them to do so. Support is also much easier to get.

Okay, I complete understand where your coming from. I'll keep my eye out for options for you over the next couple of days and let you know if I see something that could help you.

 

[~Psychotic~]

Okay, I complete understand where your coming from. I'll keep my eye out for options for you over the next couple of days and let you know if I see something that could help you.

Thanks mate, that's much appreciated.

I'm looking over Joomla again, at the moment, I've heard it has plugins to allow some of the things I want. Hopefully this is true and I'll be able to find them for free or for a decent price.

 

[probafix]

Please use the below code and you will find enough knowledge :-

10 Reasons To Use WordPress As Your CMS - Web Development Blog

 

[thekooliest]

Ya I read that Joomla has been used for image CMS's...I hope you can find what you need