How did you make NoobNotes?

[Amy]

It’s been one of my many dreams to make a website, that also helps people play songs quicker and easier if they are new to sheet music.

The only thing is.. how did you make this website? Websites are a confusing concept to me, and I can’t find any templates on Wix or anywhere else that fit my ideas.

So please help, as I’d like to share notes with people across the world, to help them.

-Amy

[natKeymaster]

Hey again Amy! Wow that’s the first time I’ve been asked that – i’m worried i’ll ramble on too long but here goes 😀

The website is built using a system call WordPress, a CMS (Content Management System – literally, a system to manage content, ie webpages :)) There are many types of CMS, I chose WordPress because it’s popular and there’s lots of support on the web to help.

There are 2 versions of WordPress though:

1) WordPress.com – This is the ‘hosted’ solution, which sort of means it’s WordPress but Wix-style. Pros: no need to know code. Cons: You have minimal control (boo!)

2) WordPress.org – This is where you download the full WordPress code for free, and pay another hosting company instead. Cons: You need to understand a bit about websites and code. Pro: You have ABSOLUTE control!

…guess which one I went for 😀

I’d love to encourage you to get stuck into learning about websites, from the code side (HTML is much easier than youd think!) to the networking (IPs, DNS, sound fancy but not so complex!) the hardware side (websites are just files stored on computers at the end of it all :)) however from the sounds of it that’s not really what you’re after! …though if you are, i’d HIGHLY recommend FreeCodeCamp and CodeCademy to start learning about all this 😉

Which leaves you with options like Wix, paying a lot of money for a web developer, or lowering your sights – for example, http://flutersmusic.blogspot.com is just a blogspot blog, but manages to achieve pretty much the same as i have here. So is http://www.mintmusic.co.uk/ come to think of it.

I’ve been playing with websites long before i started NoobNotes – to be honest, this started out as a way for me to mess around playing with WordPress and making my own theme 😀 I was struggling because I had no content to put on this test site – it just so happened i’d picked up the flute not long before, so thought i’d use the notes as content – 2 years later, here we are…!

So i guess my answer is – learn to code! it’s infuriating yet liberating at the same time 😛 haha oh and also that i’d happily collaborate with you and post any notes you wanted, giving credit to you of course, but also understand that you might prefer to create your own thing.

Whatever you’d like to do, i’ll happily support you as best i can 😀
-nat

[Author]

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