Are Joomla and Drupal better than WordPress? In short, which is better, and why so?
Most importantly, WordPress is much easier to use than the other two CMS.
Although Joomla and Drupal come with many built-in features, still they sometimes drive away the users who prefer an easier platform.
WordPress is easier to use.
Any non-technical person can handle WordPress. Moreover, there are many hosting companies that come with one click WordPress installation.
That makes sense to the absolute beginners.
Why?
Because as a starter WordPress doesn’t demand that you should know PHP, or HTML and CSS.
Even a basic knowledge of JavaScript also helps developers. But as a starter, you don’t have to know any one of the above language.
That’s a big bonus. WordPress beats others on that ground.
Another thing is also important.
With a very basic knowledge of PHP, HTML and CSS, anybody can start working on a theme. And, finally can build his own WordPress website.
WordPress allows you to build your own WordPress website in the “wp-content/themes” folder.
All you need a few files to start with.
Firstly, create any folder and give it a name. Next, you keep your “index.php” and “style.css” files there.
What is the best alternative to WordPress?
If you consider simplicity, Drupal or Joomla cannot be the best alternative.
May be we can think of ready-to-go website builders like Wix, or Weebly. But not Drupal or Joomla.
As we just said, we can start creating our own WordPress website with this two files only. In your style.css file write these lines.
/*
Theme Name: CodeSchool Theme
Author: XXX
Version: 1.0
*/
After that, we can add the index.php file like the following. We are going to add that file in a minute.
Before that, we need to know how PHP while loop works. Moreover, we must have a basic knowledge about how PHP functions work.
Why so?
Bec
ause, WordPress builds itself using PHP language. Yes, there are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL language also.
But, the main driving force of WordPress is PHP.
Now comes to the “index.php” file.
<p><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></p>
<p><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></p>
<?php
while (have_posts()) {
# code...
the_post(); ?>
<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
<?php the_content(); ?>
</hr>
<?php }
?>
The code describes itself. In other words, it says, while we have posts let us bring all posts from database.
The permalink function before the title function takes us to the single page.
For that, we need another file “single.php”.
If we run the local WordPress site, it looks like the above image.
Individual Post without permalink
Similarly, just like index PHP file, the single PHP file also uses the same code. Only without any permalink to the title.
<p><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></p>
<p><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></p>
<?php
while (have_posts()) {
# code...
the_post(); ?>
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php }
?>
As a result, when we click any post, it shows the detail of that post.
However, we need to be careful about one thing. On the contrary to the other well-designed WordPress website, our own basic WordPress website looks very simple.
But don’t worry. We’ll learn to add some CSS styling to this website very soon.
Meanwhile keep reading.
What Next?
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