{"id":655,"date":"2017-08-29T01:19:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/?page_id=655"},"modified":"2026-01-07T18:28:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T18:28:59","slug":"web-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/web-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Building web portfolios"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starting to build a portfolio site\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first goal in this class is to build a basic portfolio site in a Content Management System called WordPress. \u00a0 All your assignments — from photo exercises to podcasts to animations — will be displayed on the site, and you’ll be able to use it for other classes and job applications in the future.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Think of your CMS\u00a0 WordPress portfolio site as a platform that will hold all your photos and text, as well as links to other sits, sort of the way an island holds palm trees and houses.<\/p>\n

To begin with, we’ll provide a little background on the KIND of portfolio site we’re building.\u00a0 Next, in Assignment 1.1.<\/a> we’ll start to build the site.<\/p>\n

The old days: “static” HTML sites\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

You’ve probably heard of the World Wide Web.\u00a0 It was a simple system that was built on top of the existing internet.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The first web pages used simple hypertext markup language (HTML) with tags set off by brackets: \u00a0 \u00a0< \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 >\u00a0\u00a0 These were written in simple text and read by “browsers” (like Google Chrome or MS Explorer).\u00a0 You found the page you wanted with a URL (Uniform Resource Locator).\u00a0 And the links were expressed in the html code as, for example,
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.radford.edu
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In code, the link would appear like this:
\n<a href=”http:\/\/www.radford.edu”> Click here for RU<\/em><\/span> <\/a><\/p>\n

Each\u00a0 simple text had the .html suffix. They were placed in a public_html<\/strong> folder inside a web server.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>The folder\u2019s top page started with a file always labeled \u201cindex.html<\/strong>\u201d (or \u201cindex.htm\u201d) and you could have lots of folders within folders, each one with an index.html file at the top.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Public domain photo from the Library of Congress<\/p><\/div>\n

Various companies introduced software to make it easier to create html pages. Probably the best known was\u00a0Adobe Dreamweaver<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The idea with Dreamweaver was to create a web site on your computer and then upload it via the file transfer protocol\u00a0 <\/span>(FTP<\/span>) to a site on a web hosting server.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The system worked, but you had to create lots of individual html pages, and any change to a menu on one page would mean that you\u2019d have to go back through and individually change all the menus on all the rest of the pages too. \u00a0 <\/span>So it could also be confusing and time-consuming because the pagers were “static” — One change on one page wasn’t reflected on other pages. It was not dynamic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Web 2.0 — Dynamic\u00a0 \u201ccontent management systems\u201d (CMS)\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

These days, web sites are said to be dynamic, <\/i>since they are much more functional.\u00a0 For example, your WordPress pages will automatically display the same menus on each page. This makes it much easier to edit. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Just FYI, WordPress and other CMS pages are usually created with a combination of mySql\u00a0 databases\u00a0<\/span>displayed dynamically by php applications. Unless you are going into hard coding, you don\u2019t need to know much more than that, except for the fact that html is not the way that CMS systems are created.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>However, it is still a good idea to know HTML code and some CSS code. Both come in handy for formatting pages within the\u00a0 CMS systems. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Why CMS applications are better
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

CMS includes WordPress (the most widely used), but also Wix and\u00a0 Squarespace (on the low, less-functional end) as well as Drupal, Joomla, Zen Cart,\u00a0 and others on the high end.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WordPress is both an open-source software that runs inside servers on many different platforms, and ALSO a platform company (wordpress.com) that sells web hosting services.<\/p>\n

We’ll use WordPress software in this class.<\/strong> Feel free to experiment with others as well, but once you get the hang of WordPress you’ll have a better understanding of CMS in general.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to create your own simple WordPress CMS for free, and its useful as a place for your web\u00a0 portfolio.\u00a0 For more complex uses, a paid hosting site is good.\u00a0 You don’t need special editing software to make a CMS site — you simply use your browser.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The editing software, like Photoshop or Gimp, is to edit and format the things you put ON your CMS WordPress side.<\/p>\n

The advantage of a free site is that you can learn how to build a portfolio site.\u00a0 Then later you can decide if you want a more professional site, since\u00a0 the disadvantage of a free site is often that it contains advertising.<\/p>\n

There are lots of hosting services such as Bluehost, Gatorhost, GoDaddy and others. Costs go from about $10 a month up.\u00a0 The WordPress application being used for this COMS 226 site is based on Bluehost.<\/p>\n

INSIGHTS FROM ELSEWHERE\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wix vs WordPress<\/a> — Sitebuilder’s report on why to use one or the other.<\/p>\n

Why developers are divided over WordPress<\/a> — With that many customers, it’s hard for software developers to innovate.\u00a0 But if you’re just starting out, it’s a much easier system to use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting to build a portfolio site\u00a0 The first goal in this class is to build a basic portfolio site in a Content Management System called WordPress. \u00a0 All your assignments — from photo exercises to podcasts to animations — will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-655","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4293,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/655\/revisions\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/viscomm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}