svsmailus

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I would be intrigued to know a comparison, that if two people started from zero knowledge, whether learning Processwire would be any more difficult than learning Wordpress? One of the things that has attracted me to Processwire is that the forum is full of people who actually enjoy using it! The last time I enjoyed creating a website was in 2005 where I hand coded the site. Although Wordpress is ubiquitous, I don't meet too many people who seem to enjoy developing on that platform and I certainly do not. In the end I find that if I want to do anything well, it requires an investment of time. I'm hoping my investment into PHP and Processwire will give me back the enjoyment I had of developing websites.

If search is you thing you should try out Devonagent, although it's not free. I find it the best web search out there. I can search using multiple search engine's simulateanously and as well as set it to just search one domain. I also like the way it highlights the exact search term on every result and that the results can be saved to an archive, exported or added to Devonthink. There's also a mindmap of terms related to your search term that can be clicked to change the search. You can also use Boolean search operators. I'm not associated to devonagent, but have used it for years and it makes my life so much easier.

This is normal now, but wasn't a few years ago. When I was with bluehost files were never removed. It's pain to have to place all the files for a site somewhere else than where you site is hosted and makes "unlimited" very limited.

Sorry, my bad. It does store them in uploads. What I intended to say is that files in the Wordpress setup are ok, but recently on a non Wordpress site, my host deleted all my mp3 files that where displaying on the site as podcasts, stating they don't allow file storage, but they left the Wordpress mp3 alone. I'm now hosting files on Amazon s3.

Thanks guys, as I'm in no hurry I will look into your suggestions. Most sites I maintain are blogs, although one contains PDF's and Audios and Videos. I have a local MAMP installation on which I can start building my first site. Does Processwire save files into it's database? I ask as many hosts no longer allow storage of files on their server unless they are contained within the database such as Wordpress. How complex/trivial is it to move a local site online?

Many thanks for your comments. I've read through the links you all posted and they have been very helpful. I will start working through the tutorials. I was intending to learn PHP some years ago, but never followed through. This now gives me an opportunity to make that a reality. Is there a specific version of PHP that is recommended? I have a book that teaches v5.2. Many thanks, after checking through the settings your guess was correct. I did a cleanup and reinstalled with the demo files and now everything appears fine.

I've been involved in web design since 1995. However, I'm not a coder although I do know html/css and in the early days hand-coded sites. I then moved onto to Frontpage, then dreamweaver and finally created sites with Wordpress and also Rapidweaver. I know Wordpress extremely well, however, it is a headache. Updates, plugins and stopping hacks is becoming a drain on maintenance. So I'm looking to switch platforms and processwire was recommended. However, having installed a test site using MAMP, it seems the learning curve is pretty steep. As an example trying to set up the blog module ended with eveythings set up, but the blog displays as a blank page. It makes me realise that Processwire could easily become a time-sink that will require lots of time to try and do what you want to and there seem to be few tutorials that help you set up what you need. Is Processwire a good fit for non-coders or would you suggest I look elsewhere before I invest too much time and get nowhere? I've stuck with Wordpress for ten years and it has served me well, but Processwire failed for me at the first hurdle and that was in trying to set up a simple blog. If I have to spend days to set up a blog, gallery, insert videos, create rss feeds and create podcasts, I'd rather know now from experienced users that maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. many thanks Simon