Hi there,

OK, so, I have this site built entirely in HTML and CSS for my client last year but he now wants to be able to add content himself as the copy that's on there now is going to have to be changed frequently.

This is the URL to the HTML site: www.modenafinefoods.com

Now, I have tried to have it so that the site can be managed by him using Komposer, but it was more trouble than it was worth as there was a lot of problems with it and I was afraid that he would "break things." Therefore, I have attempted to install Joomla in attempts to:

1.) Convert my site so that it will be manageable in Joomla by my client
2.) Customize the CSS so that everything would look identical to my existing site... more or less.

I have installed Joomla, but to be honest I find the software to be very confusing and that the pages and CSS will be a pita to get customized. Do you think it would be better to use an alternative CMS?

I'm also now considering scraping the Joomla idea and working with wordpress.org, as I have made a site using that CMS before and would be comfortable in installing it and getting acquainted with how to run things.

In wordpress I'm still having the same problems with how I might be able to customize an existing "theme" so that it matches exactly to my existing site at modenafinefoods.com. I have limited exposure to PHP, but can figure things out usually (painfully).

If it would best for me to create my own theme in wordpress, can someone please show me the right direction on how I could integrate my theme into the software?

Can someone shed some light on what you think would be best?

Any guidance would be very appreciated.

I didn't have any problems implementing wordpress into our website. I started by finding a theme that had the same general layout as our website. Then I located the CSS files, and just started implementing my own changes. It's not hard at all - just have a look around, and familiarize yourself with the backend of the script.

Yeah, but it seems kind of like a pain in the *** to get thing organized from an existing theme to match my layout though.

I'm making progress but it's taking a while to figure out where to place things, what code to change, not remove a php code that breaks the site, to match my exact layout.

I've customized an existing wordpress layout before which wasn't too bad, but this site is pretty large which is making things difficult to get organized.

Wordpress definitely seems like the way to go on this though, I'm actually kind of disappointed by Joomla's support and customization options.

I've not had much experience in Joomla, but I can tell you I've done some crazy things with Wordpress. It's very easy to use, especially with OpenHooks. Try that first, and if that fails, outsource!

Well, I think it belongs to your website's size. If you have many databases, you should try Joomla and Wordpress is perfect for medium size.

I'll have to figure this isht out this weekend to customize my theme to match the layout.

I'm getting there - but it's kind of a game of me vs the theme and commenting out the php bits that I don't want to show up.

I'll post here once I figure everything out...

OK, I made some progress on this, but it has definitely been a little tedious.

http://malbertdesigns.hostzi.com/?page_id=23
compared to:
http://modenafinefoods.com

Now, I naturally have a few questions that would be WONDERFUL if someone could help me with:

1.Sidebar images for the nav.
I tried for a while to figure this out, but I don't know how I can manually insert my image to go to the correct link, instead of the text as it is set up right now. For example, at http://malbertdesigns.hostzi.com/?page_id=23 I would like to replace the text "Acetum" so that it reflects the link with the correct image, as indicated by this page: http://modenafinefoods.com/acetum.html on the sidebar. In the sidebar code, I don't really understand how the page titles are loaded in as they are not really listed.

2. Another thing that has been driving me insane, is how I can delete the "pages" text listed above: brands represented.

The HTML source code lists this as:
<li><div id="pages-3" class="widget widget_pages"><h1><strong>Pages</strong></h1>

But in the sidebar.php code, the "pages" part isn't listed at all, so I'm not sure how the hell that's showing up. here's the php code:
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=<h1></h1>'); ?>

Can some kind soul out there please give me a little help? The theme I modified is called "3d-realty".

Thank you very much.

Did you already remove the text above "brands represented"? don't see it.

I would definitely pick wordpress over Joomla. Wordpress is wicked when configured properly, no matter what kind of site you are running, blog or not. So much you can do to expand it as you go too, making it easy to leave more complicated parts of your site/project for later etc...

I suggest you to using wordpress. According to the functionals and needs, Wordpress is suitable even over. Another reason is wordpress is much easier to use than Joomla.

Thanks guys, decided to go with wordpress again. Joomla was too much of a pain in the butt.

In my experience, wordpress in clean and easy to understand and use. Joomla is ok for bigger sites.

best regards

Stick to whichever platform you are comfortable with. Joomla is more powerful but then you will have a steep learning curve.