Although I don't have all of my content gathered together yet- I have accomplished most of my pre-build planning so I decided to have a play around in Wordpress in order to get a better idea of how to use it. I ended up using the free Fruitful theme because it was one that I could completely strip down. Using the page builder plugin helped me to control the page layout (although my home page layout was incredibly simple anyway). Aesthetically the theme worked really well and I liked how easy it was to control the layout of the actual page. However there were distinct problems with the navigation, widget integration and footer. The navigation was directly linked to the header so I couldn't edit it as it's own entity which meant that I couldn't make the navigation sticky when scrolled without making the header sticky as well (which I thought looked a bit rubbish). As well as this ideally it would be good to integrate a search bar within the navigation along with some kind of login widget- but because the navigation didn't have its own element it wouldn't allow me to include these elements within them. I had similar control issues with the footer- it wouldn't allow me to include anything but social links and phrases on it (ideally I wanted my contact page and blog links to be included on this). Although I had these problems- I now have a much better idea of how to work Wordpress although I think choosing a theme that has easy to use and customisable navigation and footer is probably key.
Plugins
These were the plugins that I have found and used so far in order to create my tester site.
Google Font/Font Setting Plugin
The google fonts and font setting plugins were particularly helpful in customising my specific fonts- the font setting plugin essentially allowed me to upload and apply fonts to specific elements (excluding navigation) which was really handy because it meant I could use the font I used within my logo.
Page Builder Layout
The easy to use layout builder - it was really easy to use and allowed me to control the entire layout of my pages (including adding in rows, sliders and images).
Parallax Scroll
I tried to make my header scroll upwards (whilst making my navigation stick to the top) using this parallax but it was incredibly confusing and didn't work very well.
My Sticky Header
Again this was another plugin that I used in an attempt to control my header and navigation but again this was confusing and it didn't work.
Widgetize Navigation Menu
I tried to use this widget to see if I could put a search bar within my navigation - but it wasn't compatible with my theme so again it didn't work.
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