What's your web platform of choice?

[bendurso]

@Casmat Also ChatGPT is really good with PHP and Javascript, I've done good stuff with it (and learned a lot)

[d.healey]

@bendurso said in What's your web platform of choice?:

Also ChatGPT is really good with PHP and Javascript, I've done good stuff with it (and learned a lot)

There is a risk with ChatGPT that you learn bad coding, because unless you know the difference you will assume that if it works it's good code.

If you already know what you're doing and you're using ChatGPT to shortcut work you could do that's one thing, but relying on it to produce code you don't understand is not always a wise idea.

I use ChatGPT all the time to write little snippets, and I almost always have to correct/improve them.

[Casmat]

@bendurso @d-healey yeah I haven’t had the best experience with ChatGPT, and it rarely has worked for me, unless its a question on syntax or a small part of code

[Casmat]

Another question I guess, how have you guys done designing on Wordpress, it’s of course a bit clunky, do you use things like elementor/Divi to design or what?

[d.healey]

@Casmat I like to be as minimal as possible. I use the Storefront theme and Gutenberg.

However I'm experimenting more with blocks and playing with FrostWP. I also added the responsive blocks plugin just yesterday because it has some stuff I'm not able to do with vanilla gutenberg.

You should also add the code snippets plugin, it has a ton of uses and makes customising things with code very easy.

[resonant]

@orange said in What's your web platform of choice?:

@Casmat Here is the detailed info that I shared before.

https://forum.hise.audio/topic/5720/web-design/5?_=1700576854525

That's really helpful Thanks!

[Casmat]

@d-healey ooh I’ll take a look at that!

[oskarsh]

@Casmat I am using Wordpress with WooCommerce for my main shop. However I am currently switching to using Nextjs and relying on Gumroad for my backend.

I think using Webflow + Gumroad is also a good choice.

I dislike the idea of having a php blog engine that is patched to run a Webshop as it comes with a lot of complexity and overhead. I like to follow the UNIX philosophy: Do one thing, and do it well.

[Casmat]

@oskarsh Whaaaatt!? sinuslabs.io looks AMAZING! Definitely one of the best wordpress/woocommerce sites I've ever seen. I would've never thought it'd be WP other than the checkout and login pages haha. I haven't heard much about oxygen, but it seems to be doing wonders!

[oskarsh]

@Casmat Thanks :)

If you are going to check out Oxygen take a look at this: https://bricksbuilder.io/ which is supposed to be a much improved Oxygen 2 basically.

[Casmat]

@oskarsh ooh! That's sick! Thanks a lot!!

[Dan Korneff]

We currently use oxygen and are moving to bricks.

[Casmat]

@Dan-Korneff Huh, is the footer wrong? It says astra for some reason, can oxygen be used with Astra?

[Matt_SF]

@Casmat There might be better hassle-free solutions when it comes to sell a few products, like Sellfy.
If I had to start over again I might choose one of these over wordpress, because it's time consuming, but in the end I learned a lot about webdesign/HTML/CSS/PHP. I switched to Bricks builder earlier this year and I loved redesigning my website.

If you're looking for a builder I strongly recommend this one.

@oskarsh I briefly tried oxygen too but I liked Bricks' workflow better

[oskarsh]

@Matt_SF After creating Oxygen the main Developer moved on to create Bricks Builder so its basically the updated version.

Usually the best tool is the one you stick with and learn, its all just html and css in the end.

[Matt_SF]

@oskarsh actually the main developer of oxygen has recently developed Breakdance. Bricks is made by another developer.
But I just meant that I liked bricks' way more than oxygens.

[Casmat]

@Matt_SF Yup, I'm looking to the scalability and customizability that a platform would offer so we would have to minimize the need for changing platforms later on! Sellfy looks good, but yeah it just doesnt have the level of customizability that I'm looking for!

[Casmat]

@oskarsh @Matt_SF Seems like bricks builder is promising haha, what makes it stand out from some of the other popular options like elementor/divi etc, is it the level of customizability/features or is it since it has a more intuitive interface geared towards developers instead of beginners?

[d.healey]

@Casmat What do you need that you don't get with Gutenberg and a decent starter theme?

[Casmat]

@d-healey Yeahhh, thats also what I'm hearing too, from what ive seen so far, gutenberg's block approach makes it seem clunky terms of ui and not cohesive design wise. Starting from scratch with a starter template could work, but hand coding everything adds dev time.. Basically my entire goal is to have an ecommerce website that looks stunning in terms of design. it needs to stand out from other sites that just seem clunky and unprofessional, which wordpress is quite known for. We need to make a functional site within a month, which the design and functionality seems unrealistic for starting from scratch, which is why I was thinking using an advanced builder could help. I don't really know where to quite start haha, i've made simple static sites on wordpress using the salient WP theme, but something on this scale with much more functionality, I'm wondering how I can achieve a functional website in a timely manner, whilst also looking professional.