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Are you really using WordPress template as a developer?

kethmars on February 01, 2021

Besides working full time as a full-stack product engineer, I also do some freelancing. The reasons for that vary - sometimes I want to try out new...
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Christopher Wray • Edited

I still wouldn't use the WordPress template. I'd go to Webflow. (:

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kethmars

Though to add to my previous comment, I'd say Wordpress is a great tool because of it's huuuge ecosystem, many people already know about it's backend user interface and it's easy to build custom functionality.

As I don't have experience with Webflow, can't comment on that side.

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Christopher Wray

Yeah, I agree that there are a lot of great plugins with WP. My concern is as a developer, I just can't recommend WP due to security concerns with easy to install plugins that could have issues. There are ways around that though.

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Arber Braja

Well same can be said even for JS based webapps. Every week Github notifies me to update my repos because some package on one of those apps has been updated because of an exploit/security issue.

I wouldnt blame WordPress as being insecure. WordPrees is not insecure by default. If developers decide to install nulled themes/plugins its their fault. If developers or whoever maintains the site never updates plugins or theme is not WordPress's fault for the site being hacked.

Basically put, in most of the cases its an external factor which permits a hacker to hack a website.

Usually its the devs fault, even when the dev uses a plugin he should need to know how to pick plugins. Ideally a dev should rarely need to install a plugin whenever the same thing a plugin does can be achieved in just couple hours of work.

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Christopher Wray

Yes, I agree with you.

How do you normally pass off your sites to your clients? Do you just give them basic editor control in the WP admin panel, or do you give them full admin control?

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Arber Braja

It depends from the agreement/contract we make. In case the client wants to cut ties with me I prepare a document with info on how the client can do basic stuff on the site. I create a new user role with only basic capabilities (only what the client needs to have) and recommend the client to use only this user.

I do give the client the credentials of the admin user for sure too though since sometime he might need to have access and do something more.

In case the contract is for me to provide support for long term, I give the client only credentials of limited permissions user so he/she can add for example new pages/posts/events and prepare a guide how to do that.

Have created a template for this kind of stuff which I use for all clients usually.

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kethmars

Thanks Christopher for pointing out Webflow, have been thinking about testing it out in some freelance gig!

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Christopher Wray • Edited

@kethmars once you go to Webflow, you won't ever want to go back to WP..

Especially since you know how to code. It is just visually designing with HTML and CSS.

I love it. Let me know if you would like and I can walk you through getting started!

Also please use my referral link before creating an account. (: If you get a plan in 3 months then I get 50% for the first year haha

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Christopher Wray

chriswray.dev/technologies/webflow

You can see the link in the top banner.

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Arber Braja

I have used them a lot. It saves a lot of time setting different templates and reusing tjem multiple time on multiple places (pages/posts). WordPress is good for freelancing. Since at that time I was also working full time only on WordPress on my main job always used the same standards I used at work even though usually when working freelance there is no code review or quality check. At that time I really loved it. Even now whenever I work with WordPress on new projects I use my own starter project which is composed of the same standards we built at work based on the experience of multiple experienced devs.

It happens though that I have to work on an already built site, that's where I start hating WordPress.

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Kevin Marciniak

For my own website, I did create my own theme since, at the time that I created it, I had more time than money. I also didn't find a pre-made theme that had the look/feel that I was going for.

Making my theme took a lot of time! But, I'm glad that I did since that made me learn a lot more of the backend of some Wordpress API calls. And it allowed me to try out Tailwind CSS framework.

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BP

I don't have a big problem with WP but sometimes retro fitting Bootstrap into it is quite a chore!