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Bram Huisman
7,387 PointsBuild everything dynamically or not?
Hi guys, i've a question!
When you build a WordPress site for your customers. Do you guys build everything dynamically? I can imagine that some content will be static content, so as a developer you put in the right places. Or is there a technique which gives the customer full control to change everything on the site?
Hope you guys can help me!
1 Answer
Erik McClintock
45,783 PointsBram,
It truly depends on the site, client, and situation. As you mentioned, there could be some things that are okay to hard-code into a given site, because you and the client know they will rarely, if ever, change, and when/if they do change, they're fine with passing off that update as a request for you to handle. This could be something like the copyright notice in the footer, or perhaps the company logo. Again, though, it's really all dependent on the situation at hand.
There are ways to make just about everything on a site dynamic and easily editable by the client, particularly if you use some fantastic plugins that are available in WordPress, such as Advanced Custom Fields. That is a great, fairly well documented, actively supported plugin, whose basic features are free (though you will likely want to upgrade to their premium services for some of the great additions that they provide, such as the coveted Repeater field...), and it makes providing your client with content control very simple, while allowing you to easily and reliably manage how that content will be presented on the front end of the site. Of course, there are plenty of other plugins that offer similar features, both paid and unpaid, so if ACF doesn't meet your needs or you don't want to pay for their premium services, you'll just want to do some research to find something that's a better fit. Or, of course, you could develop your own!
Happy coding!
Erik