New to the group . 1st post.. A little backstory..
25 years ago I was learning html and codong in geocities & angelfire.
2003 – 2006? I was using Oscommerce and ran a small music label website..
After 2006 I kinda stepped out of the website world and just sold merch on Discogs..
A couple years ago I decided to do an install of WP onto my server via my host.. I tinkered with it a little bit but got stuck even just trying to change minor things in the them I had picked.. So.. Nothing advanced, I gave up and just let it sit .
Present day. I removed the old install cause I couldn’t remember all my login info and I’ve always like clean and new over anything. Look like WP 6.5.2. I’m trying run a site that combines woocommerce for merch sales and a small blog/news portion that can serve as an update info type section..
Alot of guys in this genre usually just flock to Bigcartel or discogs, and bandcamp and have virtually no website to give any kinda of back info or even external link referencing. When I was designing my music sites back in the mid 2000s, people would have a distro/store link, a news link, a releases link, a friend’s link list..
Switching over now to WP has been frustrating to say the least.. I’ve noticed a difference in certain themes even with how a header menu is displayed.. Using certain themes, I can’t even find it HOW the menu links are even called from the theme menu editor.. Using the base 2024 theme, I can actually find the links in the navigator.. seems like once I step that theme, gone..
Woocommerce is a must for me. Other thing I would say aren’t a big priority.. What’s the best way (order) to design WP?? I know I can do this, I feel like I’m trying to swim too fast.. TIA…
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Page builder is quickest, beginner friendly route.
I like Bricks and Oxygen.
You are going to get a lot of different opinions on this because there is no one way to do things on WordPress. Some will tell you that you are getting in over your head.
My two cents? The bottom line is this really depends on what you want to achieve. If it’s a simple site with some products then that’s not too big a deal. If it’s more involved where you want to style/customise everything then the learning curve is higher. Regardless, if you are determined to get it work and capable of learning then there are plenty of resources and you will find a way to do it.
That said there are a few things to note. There are a few ways to go about building your site.
– There are many page builders. Bricks, Elementor, Divi etc.
– There are prebuilt themes. Each theme will have its own settings that’s exclusive to it.
– There are completely custom coded setups written with a combination of html, css and php using WordPress actions, filters and hooks.
Each camp hates the other and purists hate all of them.
My suggestion are to have a look at
– The page builders play around with the demos watch some tutorials if one of them looks more likely to work for you take it for a spin.
– The 2024 theme along with the block builder is a solid place to start. There are many tutorials on how to get started with 2024 included the official WordPress [documentation](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/twenty-twenty-four/).
– Woocommerce product management is straightforward. Customising front end pages is a little trickier. This is where a prebuilt theme (many available) like [Storefront](https://woocommerce.com/products/storefront/) for a simple setup comes in handy. For a more feature rich option the [XStore](https://xstore.8theme.com/) theme is affordable and has everything you could ever want bundled in and has some decent out of the box child themes that one could utilise.
– A CSS editor such as Yellow Pencil or Microthemer will assist you to fix a lot of front end annoyances. This option supplements any workflow.
Good luck!
Heres the thing, and this is really common, it sounds like whatever theme you’re using is the problem, not WordPress. 99% of the complaints or troubles I see with WordPress are actually specific to a theme or plugin that’s completely separate. Hate the player, not the game.
That said, the frustration is legit, there are just so many different variabilities. For what you’ve described Id recommend checking out the Storefront starter theme for WooCommerce:
https://woocommerce.com/products/storefront/
Its built by the WooCommerce dev team, so it’s less confusing and more stable to work with.
An alternative is the underscores theme, which is a starter for custom themes but not specifically WooCommerce.
https://underscores.me/