[giggly kisses]

I've developed many websites using raw HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, but now I have to use WordPress to implement an image uploader for an image gallery. I'm lost to say the least. Do I actually write code to develop with WordPress or just install a plugin and build it through their interface? Can I actually write my own scripts for the site? I'm currently pulling the site files via FTP to my LAMP directory (which is taking much longer than I'd like to admit) so I can start working on it but I don't even know where to start learning how WordPress works.

I read over a few posts on the WordPress site but didn't really find anything that I thought was useful; maybe I'm just looking at it wrong. When someone first explained what WordPress was to me they made it sound like an API to develop blogs, from what I see now though it looks like it's just a more refined version of geocities. Is this perception of WordPress wrong?

[modi123_1]

WordPress is a content management system which relies heavily on themes and plugins. Most, non technical, people are happy with just pointing, clicking, and doing basic rearrangement with in the interface.. no need to worry about messy code or what not. So yes, in that sense I think I am catching on what you mean by "like geocities".

In all honest a wordpress page is just a specific number of 'areas' and the theme just makes them look pretty in different ways... you write your CSS and modified php code to direct how you want those core areas to look.

http://webstutorial....heme-layout.png

The other side of the coin is the person that creates the themes or creates the plugins. A power developer with some PHP, javascript, etc background. If you think your plugin is going to require custom code to work then by all means - go make it!

http://net.tutsplus....rdpress-plugin/
http://corpocrat.com...rdpress-plugin/
http://www.wpbeginne...rdpress-plugin/

[giggly kisses]

Okay, I see, that makes sense. So I don't have to use the WordPress UI at all if I don't want to? Making a plugin sounds much more appealing to me, I'll read over the links you provided. Thanks for the reply, it helped a great deal.

[modi123_1]

No.. you would want to use the word press ui for most of it.. I mean that's why it is there.. to provide a skeleton framework for you to slap muscle and skin tissue to.

[giggly kisses]

Sorry, what I meant was during the process of actually developing the plugin I won't really have to use the UI, just for testing purposes and the like. I read over the links you provided and this all seems simple enough. Thanks again for the help.

[tomcam]

WordPress is just a PHP app. The IDE is TextWranger, NotePad, or whatever. You develop completely separate from the WordPress UI with whatever tools you are used to.

That being said, don't forget that there are skillions of image gallery plugins ready for you at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/