Weeknotes 19

This week, web design and development work and a few freelancer things. Read on…

Web Design and Development

I’ve been testing Craft CMS on a local domain to see how it works. In fact, I’ve built a copy of this very site with it. A simple site, yes. But it has some functionality that I need to assess with Craft CMS.

To get started, I read a post and followed a couple of video tutorials:

• Craft CMS: The (very) basics of templating
• Building a Blog with Craft CMS
• Craft CMS: Nested navigation based on Structure section

Overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised and some of the Craft concepts that I struggled with before (Channels, Singles etc) seem a lot clearer now. The .twig templating language is a bit of a black box for me at the moment but it’s easy to see how it works. And the Craft documentation is there to be used.

It’s been interesting to compare it with Perch which is what I normally use. I’m not coming down on one “side” or the other though. They are both great CMS tools. Still, at the very least, if someone comes to me with a small Craft project, I’m better able to handle it now.

Freelancing

This has been my slowest year as a web design and development freelancer for some time. I don’t know why that is although I can come up with a few ideas. I have had some enquiries through my site in the last week but they have not turned into paying jobs so far.

It sorta feels like I’m working for the wrong market. Small businesses may be using WordPress themes and build-your-own-site software instead of another local small business like me. I need to re-evaluate where I am over the next few weeks.

See you next time.