Can a SBI website be made to look like and function like this?

[justhopingandsearching]

Does anyone know if a SBI website can be made to look and function like the following two websites: Fluent in 3 months and AJATT: All Japanese All The Time. In particular, I want to be be to add drop-down menus and that box ... I forgot what it's called where it can display which posts are the most popular, most recommended, and just random posts.

[Brutha]

Does anyone know if a SBI website can be made to look and function like the following two websites: Fluent in 3 months and AJATT: All Japanese All The Time.

SBI purposely doesn't work like a blog.

[justhopingandsearching]

Originally Posted by Brutha

SBI purposely doesn't work like a blog.

I don't want a blog. I like the idea of a static website, but was just wondering if SBI was capable of incorporating some of the features of a blog, in particular the interactiveness of a blog.

By your answer, I'm guessing that's a no. Oh well, I look somewhere else then.

[Tarzansjane]

Hi

If you can create your own HTML pages, you can do quite a lot. Blockbuilder allows you to create three columns and Socialize It! allows you to put all the links to social sites on every page (with the click of a button). RSS It! allows you to put an RSS feed on your site, as well. It's up to you how you integrate them.

However, it is a known fact that if you get too busy or confusing, it is counterproductive, so it may not be in your best interest to create a bunch of columns, anyway. But you could definitely make your header and layout as aesthetic as you want.

SBI is like having training wheels. It works to keep you from making dangerous mistakes so putting ads in places that would get you banned by Adsense are not that easy to do. You could work around SBI's system and do things it is trying to protect you from, but realize you're on your own then.

As far as being interactive, Content 2.0 is the interactive feature of SBI! It is better than blogging, because it is more like letting others blog on your site. People can post as many pages as they wish and your visitors can comment on those posts. It really helps your site go viral and expand quickly.

The new module (just released) allows your visitors to spread your site across Face Book (it's called Face It!).

So yeah, there's lots of interactivity available with an SBI site. You just have learn to use the tools and work them.

[neilward2]

Why would you WANT your site set up like these, I can't see how they would make ANY money.

I'm having a re-design at the moment which will be in Wordpress and highly tuned for capturing leads, selling products and offering training - this is 1 way to make BIG money from your site.

I only know a handful of people that make money from their blog - and they have literally tens of thousands of followers.

[Brutha]

I like the idea of a static website, but was just wondering if SBI was capable of incorporating some of the features of a blog, in particular the interactiveness of a blog.

The websites you linked to aren't static websites.

[justhopingandsearching]

Originally Posted by neilward2

Why would you WANT your site set up like these, I can't see how they would make ANY money.

I'm having a re-design at the moment which will be in Wordpress and highly tuned for capturing leads, selling products and offering training - this is 1 way to make BIG money from your site.

I only know a handful of people that make money from their blog - and they have literally tens of thousands of followers.

I'm not all about the money. Yes, I would like to make some money, but if I "lose" a couple dollars here and there, I accept that.

Besides, I don't want a blog. What I want is to have a place where people can "look around" if you will. As in, in case you haven't read any of these before: these are my most popular posts. Another one, I really liked was the random generating article button Steve had on this site. I want little details here and there that I feel would help the reader out.

The blogs were obviously bad examples. I don't want my site to look anything like them. I was just trying to ask (in really bad way) if Javascript could be used to create certain features that most blogs have thanks to PHP. For example, most blogs have a read more or read these related articles section at the bottom of each post, which entices the reader to continue reading the website. SBI websites do not. And the few SBI websites that I found that did, did it manually?!

I've been doing some further research, and the answer seems to clearly be NO, which is slightly annoying but it's not the end of the world. I didn't actually need them for my website, I just wanted them. Like I said before, oh well.

[justhopingandsearching]

Originally Posted by Brutha

The websites you linked to aren't static websites.

I know. What I meant is can Javascript be used to create functions that have been written in PHP? As in can functions written in PHP be rewritten to work in Javascript?

For example, can the following written in PHP be rewritten into Javascript?

   <?php
    //for use in the loop, list 5 post titles related to first tag on current post
    $tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
    if ($tags) {
    echo 'Related Posts';
    $first_tag = $tags[0]->term_id;
    $args=array(
    'tag__in' => array($first_tag),
    'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
    'showposts'=>5,
    'caller_get_posts'=>1
    );
    $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
    if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
    <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>

    <?php
    endwhile;
    }
    wp_reset_query();
    }
    ?>

I'm sorry for not clearly explaining myself. Does this make anymore sense now?

[GrigoriySidelnikov]

PHP is considered a server-side web language. This means that the code you write in PHP is executed on the web hosting server, and then the result is displayed in your browser. The code is executed using the resources of the hosting server processor. This also means that PHP code has direct access to the server computer's resources. For example, you can run a system function on the hosting computer Opeating System! Can JavaScript do this? No, it can't.

Javascript is executed in your browser, using the resources of your own computer, not your hosting server, commanded by you browser. And is therefore considered to be a client-side language.

Now, on the other hand there is server-side Javascript. It is not in common use, but it can pretty much run on the hosting server. But you are not looking to use that.

You can do some of the things with Javascript that you can with PHP by brute force, simply rewriting the code in Javascript to achieve the results of a PHP program. But because Javascript doesn't have direct access to the hosting server where your PHP code is stored, as you may imagine, there would be limitations as to what type of programs you would be able to "rewrite" in Javascript.

So, you question is partially invalid, and partially valid.

To be specific to the code you have mentioned. No, you can't rewrite that piece of code in Javascript and expect it to work. One of the things that the PHP code you have suggested does is communicate to a database. It's clear by looking at the following line (from the code):

$my_query = new WP_Query($args);

This is a wrapper function for accessing (possible) MySQL database. Javascript cannot do this.

However, what you may be looking for is bridging Javascript and PHP with AJAX. AJAX can enable your Javascript code to do what PHP can do, by triggering the PHP code of specific function. For example, you can execute an asynchronous HTTP event using AJAX (from Javascript) to call a PHP function. And you can even return the results of a PHP function back to Javascript. So, by using AJAX asynchronous http requests, you can simulate this. But no, certain parts of PHP code can never be rewritten in Javascript due to the fact that one language is running on the server, and the other one is running on the client.

[justhopingandsearching]

Originally Posted by GrigoriySidelnikov

However, what you may be looking for is bridging Javascript and PHP with AJAX. AJAX can enable your Javascript code to do what PHP can do, by triggering the PHP code of specific function. For example, you can execute an asynchronous HTTP event using AJAX (from Javascript) to call a PHP function. And you can even return the results of a PHP function back to Javascript. So, by using AJAX asynchronous http requests, you can simulate this. But no, certain parts of PHP code can never be rewritten in Javascript due to the fact that one language is running on the server, and the other one is running on the client.

Yeah, I can't do that either. I'm using Site Build It (SBI) and as far as I can tell, they only allow you to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

I had thought of another idea, but it's too tedious to even bother mentioning, so I'm going to just scrap this whole project.