The website creator's reading path #

This page is for website creators who want to learn in order. It follows a site from first look to maintenance in six stages. Each stage ends with what you should be able to do; when you can, move on.

Stage 1: look around (a day) #

1. What you can build with Exponential
2. Your first site, step by step
3. The admin tour
4. Editing content

You can: install a demo site, sign in, create and publish an article.

Stage 2: plan (a few days) #

1. Planning your website
2. Site map and content inventory
3. Designing your content model
4. Choosing an install method for a new site
5. Hosting requirements for a website

You can: hand someone a plan with the classes, the tree, the languages and the hosting.

Stage 3: build the structure #

1. Content classes for websites
2. Choosing datatypes for your fields
3. Structuring the content tree
4. Sections and object states for site builders
5. Relations and content reuse
6. Tagging content with eztags
7. Setting up several sites in one installation and Building a multilingual site, when needed

You can: create the classes and folders of your site and fill them with real content.

Stage 4: design #

1. Choosing a design or theme
2. Designs, siteaccesses and the design fallback chain
3. The pagelayout: your site's frame
4. Template overrides for site builders
5. Stylesheets and scripts for your site
6. Menus and navigation
7. Branding
8. Images and image variations
9. Landing pages with the layouts editor, then Layout types, zones and blocks, Layout rules and Shared layouts
10. Accessibility for site builders

You can: show every page type in your own design, with landing pages editors can change.

Stage 5: features #

Pick what your site needs:

• Forms: Forms with the information collector, Building a contact form, Spam protection
• Newsletter: Newsletters with cjw_newsletter, Sending newsletters safely
• Shop: Running a shop, Products, prices and VAT, Basket, checkout and orders, Payment gateways
• Members: Member registration, Visitor permissions
• Search: Site search, Search with ezfind and Solr
• Findability: SEO basics, Page metadata, XML sitemaps, URL aliases

You can: run every feature end to end, logged out, with test data.

Stage 6: launch and run #

1. Performance and caching for websites
2. Testing your site's accessibility
3. The launch checklist
4. Going live: hosts, HTTPS and siteaccesses
5. Handing the site over to editors
6. Maintaining your website, Backups and restores, Updates and upgrades

You can: launch, hand over and keep the site healthy.

Going further #

When the site needs logic no extension provides, the application creators' section of this help takes over: custom modules, fetch functions, datatypes, workflows and APIs. Project managers plan the same journey in The leadership reading path.

Related pages #

• Website creators: start here
• Website creators: frequently asked questions
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.