Need forum for Site Studio

[party789]

Those who use Site Studio (and Site Builder too, I'm sure) could use a separate forum to ask for help and share solutions. See this post in the Pre-Sales forum for an example:
http://forums.hostgator.com/ideas-and-help-t47277.html

Most of the folks who post there do not use Site Studio or Site Builder, so their advice, while well-meaning, is of no use to newbies using these tools.

[virtvir5]

I think you'll find that much of the "well meaning" advice is of some use to newbies if it's heeded. Isolating oneself from it, on the other hand, ...

[dewt]

Originally Posted by party789

Most of the folks who post there do not use Site Studio or Site Builder, so their advice, while well-meaning, is of no use to newbies using these tools.

The advice tends to have been learned from some very bad experiences with similar products. As with all advice it can either be taken or ignored, that is up to the recipient. I wish that there had been a forum like this to help me when I started out with my last hosting company. I made the mistake of using their 'free WebSiteBuilder' and regretted it from almost day one.

Do you know of anyone who is an expert user of either package? I don't. Having been around here for just over a year I have yet to see a single response from an actual user of either program. I doubt very much if I ever will.

Edit:I eat my hat! I've just seen your reply to another post.

[eLIANT]

Regardless of the usefulness of replies to previous posts, if HG intends to keep SB and SS as core features, much the same as WHMAP and WHMCS, which each have their own forums, then it's completely rational to have a forum for them.

I agree w/ OP.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by dewt

The advice tends to have been learned from some very bad experiences with similar products. As with all advice it can either be taken or ignored, that is up to the recipient. I wish that there had been a forum like this to help me when I started out with my last hosting company. I made the mistake of using their 'free WebSiteBuilder' and regretted it from almost day one.

Do you know of anyone who is an expert user of either package? I don't. Having been around here for just over a year I have yet to see a single response from an actual user of either program. I doubt very much if I ever will.

Edit:I eat my hat! I've just seen your reply to another post.

In the two and a half years that I've been here, that response from the OP was the first and only help-type answer I've seen from someone who's used either program, and was startled when I saw it the other day.

I don't want to start/escalate this to a holy war about Site Studio/Site Builder, and party 789, as long as you're happy with what you use that's fine.

But I've gotten at least a dozen PMs from newbies who started out using one of the two and were grateful for the nudge to switch to something else.

As David notes, the experience behind our advice has been gained at way too high a price.

[virtvir5]

Perhaps I should clarify my early response just a bit. I certainly don't mean to knock those who chose Site Studio or other "starter" types of web building proggies. I myself started with (please don't laugh too hard) Microsoft FrontPage.

My real point is that forum fragmentation and isolation of newbies is not beneficial to anyone, and especially not the newbies themselves. In fact, it's more often self-defeating. I've watched it happen elsewhere and the usual result is that the best advisers (sometimes the only ones) tend to congregate in other more diversified areas which defeats the whole purpose.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by virtvir5

Perhaps I should clarify my early response just a bit. I certainly don't mean to knock those who chose Site Studio or other "starter" types of web building proggies. I myself started with (please don't laugh too hard) Microsoft FrontPage.

My real point is that forum fragmentation and isolation of newbies is not beneficial to anyone, and especially not the newbies themselves. In fact, it's more often self-defeating. I've watched it happen elsewhere and the usual result is that the best advisers (sometimes the only ones) tend to congregate in other more diversified areas which defeats the whole purpose.

Nicely put.

Also, although it's fairly obvious that reading through posts is educational, just reading the post headings helps many learn...and that's another way, IMO, isolating the Site Studio/Builder folks into a separate forum would be "cruel to be kind".

eLIANT, the reason that WHMCS has a separate category is that WHMAutoPilot already had one when HG started licensing it. The reason WHMAutoPilot had one (still does) is that nearly 100 percent of the resellers had it and its developer also popped in to answer/ask questions.

But this thread is a good reminder that helping newbies make the right decision (for them) should be done tactfully, and that one size does not fit all.

[dewt]

OK, I'll join in and apologise for my post probably sounding a bit stroppy. In my defence please read my signature.

I have seen many new members of the forum that have been very frustrated by not being able to do what they want on their sites because they are using either SiteStudio (SS) or SiteBuilder (SB). Since there is not a large knowledge base here on either of the products they have not been able to get any help. This has caused them to get disheartened and leave. That was why I took the step of having them installed so that I could at least try and offer some advice on them although I will never have the time (or the inclination) to become an expert in the use and capabilities of either. I am very glad to see party789 being able and willing to offer help on them.

While I agree in principle that a separate forum where all the threads relevant to the two products could be gathered together is a good idea, my worry is that with the shortage of knowledgable users there would not be any support for it. I am a shared hosting user so I read the threads in that section. I also read the announcements, public and general sections. I don't tend to read any of the other sections apart from a quick browse through if the forums are quiet. Since I don't activley use either SS or SB I would probably skip over that section as well.

Finaly can I just say that there are sites where either SS or SB are capable of producing the desired result in a quick timeframe so please do not get the impression that I am completely against either.

Now apology over it's time for me to go back to being a grumpy old git.

[eLIANT]

My apologies to the OP for making this tangential note...

I recommend a sortcut on your desktop that links to

http://forums.hostgator.com/search.php?do=getnew

Each time you click it, you will be taken to the HG forum with only those threads listed that have been updated since your last visit.

If you vist daily like many of us do, then each time, this list is in the 10-20 range; that's not too bad.

You can see the thread title & forum name to determine if you want to visit the thread.

When you're finished, just close the browser and the forum cookie will remember when you visited, so the next time, again, you'll only be presented with the fresh postings.

[jehaine]

I used SiteBuilder to set up a site last fall. I ran into several major problems, some of which are not as much of an issue in this new version (ie. page #s being jumbled whenever you add something & lack of sitemap).
Keep in mind you are completely at the mercy of the sitebuilder when you choose them. I spent many hours setting up my site trying to work around the issues it had, only to find the template I was using is no longer available now. The only way I could update anything was to pick a new template and now the whole site is a complete mess. I have used Wordpress on every project after my first one & will probably end out using it on this one as well now. Moving everything will be a PITA, but I will have control over the site once I do.
I would say SiteBuilder is fine if you only plan on having a few pages, if you plan on adding to the site regularly, avoid it like the plague.

[Fairy]

Total noob, here. I've been searching this forum for how the heck to make Site Studio do what I want it to do, to no vail. Until this thread. And now it seems that I have my answers, which are not good. I signed up with HostGator cuz I needed a point & click set-up-a-website-for-dummies where nothing would live on my computer other than the graphic files. After using both SB and SS, I seem to get along better with SS. I'm waiting to be activated for the locked forums, but until then, if someone in the know (apparently few), can take a stab at these so I can be sure once and for all, I'd really appreciate it:

* In SS is there any way to remove some of the graphics that seem to come "bonded" to the templates? Or is this one of the common problems?

* I want to upload a logo. Is this more trouble than it's worth?

* Speaking of being more trouble than it's worth, is there a true "you're an idiot" site building SW out there that will allow me control over my site but also has templates? Cuz to have to design my own from scratch is too overwhelming for me at this point. I hear alot of Wordpress, but never worked with it. I, uh, do have FrontPage ...

Thanks for helping out a pathetic newbie.

-- Fairy

[RainbowViper]

We're all new once, Fairy, don't apologize for not knowing.

Given what you said, I'd go with Wordpress. Yes you DO have to learn how to use it, but I discovered it's not as intimidating as it first appears. The available documentation (scattered throughout the net and not just at Wordpress) is excellent.

The ONE thing that most puzzled me (at first) was keeping "Pages" and "Posts" straight, until I visualized it this way:

Use "Pages" for information that will be completely static (or nearly so), like an HTML page, and use "Posts" for dynamic information like Blog entries.

Once that dawned on me, the learning curve got easier.

Even a basic install has powerful capabilities for design. With the available plugins, there's really no limit to what you can do with it.

Definitely worth spending several hours of your time to learn.

Hope that helped.

[Fairy]

It did help, thank you, RainbowViper.

I think what I'm going to have to do -- cuz I have a short window, here -- is I'm going to have to publish a site studio page or two, then take the time to do it right with Wordpress.

Yeesh.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by jehaine

Keep in mind you are completely at the mercy of the sitebuilder when you choose them. I spent many hours setting up my site trying to work around the issues it had, only to find the template I was using is no longer available now. The only way I could update anything was to pick a new template and now the whole site is a complete mess. I have used Wordpress on every project after my first one & will probably end out using it on this one as well now. Moving everything will be a PITA, but I will have control over the site once I do.
I would say SiteBuilder is fine if you only plan on having a few pages, if you plan on adding to the site regularly, avoid it like the plague.

The phrase I emphasized is a beautiful capsule of the problems inherent in Site Studio/Site Builder: as proprietary, online applications they effectively become in charge of your site. Unlike other ways to construct your site, they don't produce something that can translate easy to more standard applications; if you ever want to move away from HG, you'll almost certainly have to redo everything.

Originally Posted by Fairy

Total noob, here. I've been searching this forum for how the heck to make Site Studio do what I want it to do, to no vail. Until this thread. And now it seems that I have my answers, which are not good. I signed up with HostGator cuz I needed a point & click set-up-a-website-for-dummies where nothing would live on my computer other than the graphic files.

Word Press is a good alternative, as are the suggestions in this thread: Site studio/builder alternatives even novices can use.

One of the worst fallacies that SS/SB promote is that they're "easy" to use; as you've discovered, that's really not true. Not only are they idiosyncratic, but because they're proprietary, very few help resources are available--even the least popular CMS probably has more "how-to" stuff online, and something like Wordpress has an infinitely greater quantity of tutorials, fora, templates, etc.