Does anyone know a good software for building websites?

If you really want something robust then I'd avoid wordpress, drupal, joomla and all that other crap.

My advice is to the BEST solution, but it is certainly not the easiest and that is use Jekyll. But Jekyll requires Ruby, and to use ruby you need to run mac or linux. You can do it on windows but not effectively.

Basically Jekyll is a preprocessor for html static pages.

You could also buy a template at theme forrest, joomlashack, etc, and get up and running. The thing is those templates, and wordpress in general are so bloated with code that it's a hassle trying to get a "good" worpress site up and running. You might get one up and running easier with wordpess, but it will be bloated and full of bugs.

Creating a website on your own is not easy and anybody that tells you it is, probably has a shitty website. I spent years trying to get a good website up and running and I know a bunch of useless **** because of it.

Websites are more difficult the more you know about them, and **** changes by the minute. If you have somebody create one for you, you are probably going to get screwed.

Anyway, good luck. But if I were you and I didn't REALLLY need a website, I would use a facebook page instead. It's much easier, and people actually might visit that page.

 

Wix's support is still complete bullshit

Rocket River

 

Wix is like GoDady, Homestead or any of the "old guard" when it comes to website builders... terrible. Most of them have tried to adapt to other startups that do what they do better, like Squarespace. Duda, Pikock, etc.

 

Jekyll is a static site generator. It's supposed to be simpler than WordPress. If RR wants to sell things he will need DB to hold data so even if you use Jekyll you will still need a back end system. Also most hosting runs linux so why does it matter what OS you are running on your computer?

 

No you do not need a database. I think you fundamentally don't understand what Jekyll is. In Jekyll you create templates to fill in information and then ruby + liquid converts that information into a webpage that you upload to your site.

You can think of templates as mini-databases, but it is a little more complex than that. The point is that Jekyll can do everything that a database system can, but without the huge overhead that a database creates. In the end, it is true that the final page that the customer sees with a Jekyll site IS indeed static and that is the point. Database websites, all they are doing is piecing together a bunch of data to try and build a page dynamically, which has the disadvantage of a lot of overhead and lag, not to mention sometimes poorly designed pages do to the database being poorly conceived in the first place.

As I've said, Jekyll and other solutions like it are the best sites, but they require a lot of upfront knowledge to get them working. Wordpress is much easier to get up and running but is also bloated and requires you to spend a lot of money to optimize it.

 

But if Jekyll writes a static page, can the data be updated dynamically and the static page refreshed automatically and on the fly? If not, then it is vastly different than a database driven CMS.

 

Yes, it does it automatically. Only it does it on the server side. So, for example, you want to add a product, change a price, etc: you add that you the template you've created, then Jekyll does its magic and it is updated and then you upload the page to your website.

What is static about Jekyll is what is served to the customer. Everything else, including your pages, are dynamic on the server side.

You can think of Jekyll as you might think about sass. With sass you can create variables that make building a css stylesheet easier. With Jekyll, it's the same thing.

 

Nice, thanks for the info. I'm definitely going to check it out for a site I'm working on. I've been looking for a leaner viable alternative solution for WordPress for years.

 

I would look at storefronts like Etsy, Shopify or even amazon marketplace and use Jekyll as a landing page. I haven’t used Jekyll but I’ve seen blogs talk go step by step on hosting their page with octopress. You’d have to learn some coding, github and a hosting solution like heroku or aws, but there’s plenty of support and it isn’t totally French.

Point of sales sucks if you don’t have an on-site engineer. I remember our resident fudge maker having problems with his webmaster/contractor because he trusted too much with himself handling the biz portion and the engineer handling the tech. Big mistake. Someone once gave me the advice of needing a trusted lawyer and accountant when you start a business (or learn it yourself). Add an it engineer to that list. He doesn’t need to know everything...just enough to pick up the pieces and make sure things don’t smell fishy,

Storefronts have their own problems like availability and the fees but it’ll help you get up and running without needing to worry about payment integration and privacy crap. You might want to track or record your clientele over time But that’s mid to long term and not a showstopper to get up and running. I would read The Lean Startup or look up its principles. It mainly says to get your product out ASAP, then learn everything you can out of it’s results to bring new stuff out again. This is especially important if you also have to juggle learning supply chain mgmt on the fly.

Once you grow huge, then you can afford to make things pretty, perfect, and right.

In the meanwhile, these steps will help you get your feet wet into the tech involved.

You can even dabble in dropshipping with an amazon storefront

 

Check out cloudcannon.com it has video tutorials and goes into explaining how things work.

Jekyll also has a plug-in system that makes a lot of tasks easier to do.

If you can believe it healthcare.gov uses Jekyll.

 

I know what Jekyll is. My point is you still need to a DB to store orders.

If someone orders something that needs to be stored somewhere. That somewhere is database.

For example when you post a message on this message board it gets stored somewhere. That somewhere is a database on a server. If someone is going to order something on RRs website that order will need to be stored somewhere. Usually that somewhere is a DB.

WP has caching plugins so you aren't generating a new page every time.

 

I'm not going to argue with you, it is pointless. My point with WP is that it is bloated, and expensive if you want to make it seo optimized, since most people will have to use a plugin like yoast which is like $90 per year.

Again, you don't understand what you think you know. The fundamental problem with a db based system like wp is that it stores EVERTHING in a db and then it puts it together. It also has terrible permalink issue, it's slow, all stoff that is a problem for website rank.

Here's a link if you don't believe me that you don't need a database to take orders. Also, Jekyll has more plugins than you can possibly know. It's a huge solution at this point.

https://snipcart.com/blog/static-site-e-commerce-part-2-integrating-snipcart-with-jekyll

 

You are using snipcart as a back end system. They will charge 2%. I guess if you are cool with paying 2% to them you are free to use them.

 

Well, my main point really is that if you want an online store (unless you are some very known brand) you'll be better off using ebay, amazon, etc, because it is extremely difficult to get people to your website to buy something. You are going to spend what you spend on ebay in fees trying to do it.

My point is why put yourself through the hassle in the first place. That's why I suggested the facebook marketplace, amazon marketplace, ebay, hell even craighslist.

Doing it yourself is a wast of time mostly.

 

In house DB, cloud DB, or back end as a service. There is a DB somewhere.

Lmfao this thread.