Tips for an absolute beginner.

Hi everyone,

I've been playing with the idea of creating a community for some time and I was really happy when I discovered UNA.

Unfortunately, despite my enthusiasm, I know very little about web development. I've played a little bit with wordpress which I felt to be a bit confusing, and had a look at Joomla which I felt to have a more structured and clean back-end. The fact is that all my life my interests have been scattered around other places unrelated to PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JS etc. When it comes to writing scripts, only a year ago I begun picking up on programming to make some data analysis algorithms using C, did some macros, and that's it.

With that said, I was wondering if there could be a gentle soul to give some advice on what to expect with UNA from the standpoint of an unexperienced user. I understand that UNA can do a lot (watch some videos), and that some custom functionality is possible but will naturally require some development. 

What I would like to know is:

  •  how complicated it is to setup and admin a basic community for someone with little or no experience. From the process of instillation, to setting up the design/layout, to defining different types of memberships and to manage monetization, or any relevant aspect involved in running a community.

If you feel that substantial technical knowledge is required, please leave some ideas on where to start and a path to follow.

Many thanks for your help and suggestions.

Best,

R.

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Replies (6)
    • Hello R.!

      First of all, thank you for your interest in our software! I guess this topic is the nice for the beginners like you:

      https://una.io/page/view-discussion?id=1476

      • Thanks LeonidS,

        In the meantime I've installed UNA to run my website.

        I am continue to play with it, making modifications to have a better idea of how the back-end is connected to the front-end. I've had a look at the UNA Start Guide which was helpful, but the other guides you guys are planning are definitely necessary for someone like me who has little knowledge on the topic. I'm looking forward for them.

        • You’re absolutely right about more beginner guidance. We made the Start guide to group our instructions, but definitely need to produce more onboarding tutorials. We are now finishing the first “starter solution” for launching a preconfigured site and plan to add more intialnsetup videos. 

          • Some of us had a similar idea of sharing, and build a powerful community. UNA is very very special. Don't hold back sharing ideas as well. Everything is possible if we are not lazy.
            I'm pretty new here too, but has a job to create a social network. There are some very basic things I would like to have, like the Database builder module that Dolphin 8 had and bragged about... (Elbowing Andrew here)...
            UNA is one of easiest and most powerful systems. So much,  in fact, That I want an UNA for marriage. Perfect woman.
            But UNA does have a learning curve and can be difficult at times. You have to take her to dinner, buy her drinks, etc etc. It will take many many dates and hours to really get your hands on her.
            What I think, is that protean should be focused on some more. It can do everything every other template can do. Sometimes this template fever looks a little bit as an easy commercial solution aimed for the lazy ones. Work from the basics and do't spread too thin. That was how Djengis Khan lost the empire.

            You're welcome to see what I'm working on here: dotkhmer.com and here is my sandbox monkeyempire.net a little blog where I also write the little tips and tricks I learn for others to enjoy.

            • Pethol please note that Forms app in Studio is the database module you are asking about. It’s there And is already much more powerful than what we had in DolphinPro. 

              • Okay - then I just need to figure out how it works. I made a little suggestion in discussions. I just woke up with my left eye closed. Infection. *sigh* I hope I will get out of this hospital soon. I hate hospitals. Last time I was in a hospital, was in 6 years ago in Kenya out in nowhere with a Masai tribe. I had a hard case of Malaria.

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