Is WordPress the right solution for me?
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Hello all. I am trying to construct a project for the internet, aimed around collaboration of articles and resources.
I have tried various platforms, the majority of which are too complicated for me. I have no programming skills whatsoever, and have no real idea what to do with ‘code’. I have tried to learn MediaWiki and some similar things like “Alfresco”, but I could barely get them running – never mind develop and design my requirements in them. I don’t want to wrestle with programs and programming, for that is not my interest. I just desire a final working solution for me and the intended users, although I do not mind a bit of newbie-level work to get it going.
Some of the commercial solutions claiming to do what I require are extremely expensive, limited, and are ‘overkill’ anyway.
This project is altruistic, free, for my spare time and special interests. Google Docs looked promising as a resource site, but it lacks the interface style and some features I need.
What I want to create is an interactive website, into which trusted people can log in and add information – in the form of articles, copy and pastes, or whatever to the WISYWIG editor. They would be submitted to the relevant categories and ‘sub categories’.
The aim is to build a ‘information resource’ site on a niche topic(s).
People in the future who need information on the topic(s) and need them fast (for refuting debates or making articles for their blogs etc), will be able to search in there to find what they need much faster than trailing for hours through Google. The information is mostly going to be pretty specialist, and I know from experience finding such stuff is damned hard work and takes a lot of research.
People can also come and just browse around at their leisure to learn about this and that if they choose. “Many hands make light work” – so hopefully with a few trusted in-putters, it would build into quite a library of information (often coming from the mainstream media and journals, I suspect – which I hope to operate on some kind of youtube style copyright infringement notification basis!).
Here comes the catch.
I will need a drill down ‘tree-like’ structure of all the articles submitted (which could reach into the many hundreds, or even thousands), a fully ‘in document’ word search facility, and a well styled results page that gives a clue to what has been found.
Essentially, the best way I can describe it, is for those of you who run Windows7 to go to windows explorer and activate the “preview panel” by clicking the icon at the top right of the toolbar. Find a PDF file and see what happens when you click it.
If there is a fancy unique word in the PDF file, upon a windows search, windows will find the PDF file, the document is listed, the panel previews the document and the highlighted word. You can then open the article if you choose.
It is this kind of combined search, browser, reader I am looking for, but on a web-collaboration platform that’s always on line.
The CCS(?) style of Blogs like WordPress are ideal in terms of usability and style. It looks clean and fresh. The WYSIWYG can be used by all people in the group to input information in a neutral format direct from their browser.
Can this project be done with a free WordPress site and addons? Is it a massively complex thing to achieve? Is there any realistic chance of me doing it considering I have no experience? Are there better free solutions for doing this specific task/project?. (Nothing I seem to find on the net seems right for this task as I vision it)
This is just something knocked up in Paintbrush, imagine it (or something similar) with a smooth CCS(?) WordPress style interface. The WYSIWYG aspect not shown, just the search results. It doesn’t have to be exactly like this, ignore some of the identification comments. http://yfrog.com/j5projectideaj
I’d rather know now if I am barking up the wrong tree here! :).
Thanks,
Eps.
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