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Another Friday, another update!
This week I worked mainly on my current client project and made solid progress. As I mentioned in a past update I use Craft CMS for the first time to implement the website. I will provide you with my first impressions in this weeks update.
I also spent some time to help with the preparations for the big fundraising campaign of GOA Switzerland. I put together the campaign site on our website. Read more about the campaign in the second paragraph of this update.
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Craft CMS – First impressions
I started working on my new client project at the beginning of September. For this project I chose to use Craft CMS for the first time, after reading many recommendations. After one month of using it, I think it's a good time to look back and draw a first conclusion.
Before making my decision I read many blog posts, reviews and comparisons with other systems and therefore had some expectations. Now, I can say Craft CMS lived up to these expectations. It is a robust, solid and professional solution with a clean and tidy administration interface.
The administration backend only displays what is needed by the user. If you do not need to manage files or global contents the corresponding menu items won't show up. Additionally, the interface is completely responsive which allows you to manage your website from a tablet or smartphone.
The technical implementation of a design is straight-forward and pleasant. I had many more frustrations trying to build a custom design with WordPress. I can't say anything yet regarding the programming of additional functionality with plugins, as I didn't use this yet.
However, there were also some obstacles to get over.
Sometimes, it is not really clear to me, which is the best solution to implement a certain page content. Craft CMS provides three different content types: Singles (unique sites with an own template), Channels (multiple entries with the same template, e.g. blog posts), Structures (multiple entries with the same template, but can be hierarchical and put into a specific order). For some pages I did try many different solutions only to go back to the first implementation. But in my experience, this is a normal process in finding the best solution to a given problem. It's also a question on how much flexibility the site needs to provide in the future. For me it is a big plus that Craft CMS provides me with the tools needed to implement so many different solutions to the same problem.
Another thing I had to wrap my head around was the folder structure and separation of the Twig-templates. I did not find much information about best practices. The demo website provided me with some insight. Another CMS system I did some projects in is called Grav CMS and it also uses Twig-templates to implement the design. However, they are not structured in the exact same manner, so this experience did not help very much. But after all, I think I was able to find a way which works out quite well for my current project.
Both these "obstacles" were more connected with me using the system for the first time than with flaws of the system itself. I'm really happy with my decision to use Craft CMS and it's a pleasure to do this project with it. Hopefully, I will still draw the same conclusion at the end of the project.
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#saveandgivetokenya
There is a big drought in East Africa which leads to a big shortage of food and an increasing of all the prices. The projects of GOA Kenya are also affected in different ways. The children in the orphanages, for example, have to deal with smaller food rations or the employees can not always be paid the full wage. In order to help out during this crisis we have launched a special fundraising campaign.
If you, too, want to go without sweets, coffee, meat or alcohol during the month of October and spend your savings to GOA Switzerland, visit our website and participate: http://www.goa-schweiz.ch/saveandgivetokenya
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Thanks for reading.
And now off to the weekend!
Beni
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