Foundry or foundation help

Hello I am looking for some help. I am confused about whether to buy foundry or foundation. I want to create an online shop selling fishing gear. Its a mammoth task for me having little experience of building websites. What in your expert opinions would be the best one for me particularly with regard to how much help tutorials are available without having to spend any more money. I appreciate all the advice. Thanks

This is fast becoming the million $$ question but you should step back first. They are both ā€˜blank themeā€™ frameworks requiring a bigger learning curve and more expense than using a quality pre-built theme and some carefully selected stacks. If you are building just one site, you might do better looking for a theme you like and using that. For a newcomer it will definitely be easier. There are plenty of excellent 3rd party themes for $20-35 one off purchase.

The upside is that a lot of the design is done for you, leaving you free to concentrate on content layout. The downside is that there will be some things that you canā€™t change. These will generally be things like style of Navigation and any prebuilt containers. However you should be able to change fonts, colours, site width, banners and much more. Particularly look out for good use of Extra Content areas. A good place to start looking is: https://rapidweavercommunity.com

Moving on to blank theme frameworks - there are now quite a few - hereā€™s another post: Platform vs Foundry

These are brilliant if you want granular control over every aspect. They are also brilliant for people like myself who build for clients: with one product you can build multiple styles of website.

Recommending one is difficult however. Foundation 6 is great but it is a big learning curve. Foundry is now at stage 2 - a really good mature product set. And both have great support. Then you also have the lightweight ā€˜Sourceā€™ and others listed in the above mentioned post.

The choice is yours depending on how much of a learning curve is acceptable and how much you want to invest in one website. Once decided youā€™ll find plenty of help on these and other communities. In your shoes, Iā€™d get a good theme from a trusted (and active) supplier like Themeflood, Elixir, 1LD, WeaverThemes and others. I say active because since the advent of blank themes some of the other greats (Michael David Design and Brandon Lee for example) seem to have gone off the scene to some extent. I may be wrong but do your homework.

You then need to choose an e-commerce platform. Be be sure to define what you need before doing this, as the lightweight stacks will have limitations compared to something like Cartloom (subscription based). However, if your requirements are relatively straightforward, Paysnap is excellent.

Good luck! RW is certainly a great platform and can deliver what you\re looking for.

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Hi Manofdogz. Thanks a lot for your helping advice. I have been messing around with the themes for the last 3 days and just getting nowhere. I find them all too constricting and I donā€™t even think what I am trying to create is all that complex. I watched a video last night on foundry and foundation though it was done on RW7 but I seemed to get it. Maybe the reality will be different. What Iā€™d really love is a tangible book/manual like you used to get when you bought something. I know, luddite eh. Iā€™m also thinking that by the time I buy foundry this will have cost me over Ā£200 so far and nothing yet accomplished. Maybe I should have just got somebody to build it for me but what I really need is the control; to be able to update it whenever I need to. Daily basis likely. Cheers

You may well find the built in themes too constricting - 3rd party themes are the way to go for anything decent.

In terms of learning foundry - Elixirā€™s documentation and videos are very good. Do bear in mind that the original Foundation is no longer developed - itā€™s all moved to foundation 6 which is a very different beast.

Maybe a local ā€˜mentorā€™ would be good to get the ball rolling then you can take over?

That is definitely very valid. That said Iā€™d suggest this ā€“ Check out the tutorial videos and documentation for the frameworks youā€™re interested in. Watch through them and get a feel for how they work. Itā€™s completely free to do that and youā€™ll get an idea of how things all work together and if one might be more in your wheelhouse than another.

The cost for something like Foundry is higher than a theme or a free tool because of a few things. The first being that there is someone there supporting the product long term. The second is that something like Foundry can be used for many projects, and you can get a very different design for each with a framework.

While you might just have one project in mind right now, many people catch the web design bug after their first site. You might find that youā€™ll want to make other sites for yourself, or that perhaps when you show off your site people will be interested in you making something for them. So a framework like that allows you to not have to reinvest in more themes, stacks, etc for different designs.

With all that said, themes can be a great way to build a site too. If you need something that has a minimal presence on the page and will still let you design the contents the way you like you might use something like the Geometric theme, or a similar offering from someone else. A minimal theme like that lets you still have creative freedom within the confines of the theme. Youā€™ll then be investing in the theme and other stacks to accomplish tasks within the page. Depending on your needs this could be cheaper or more expensive than a framework. All depends on your needs.

Like I said, my first pitstop would be in watching a bunch of the tutorial videos for the frameworks out there and see what they have to offer and how they work.

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Hi Adam. Thanks for your advice. I have been watching the videos on the foundry page for the last couple of hours and I think I am going to go with foundry for some of the reasons you have stated in your message and I think I might be able to get on with it. Another wee question for you. I tried to purchase foundry v2 thinking it was Ā£89 but itā€™s trying to sell me an update at Ā£44 at the same time bringing the cost up to Ā£130 or so. Shouldnā€™t foundry be ready to go if I buy the brand new version and di I have to upgrade something thats brand new on day 1. Any help there would be much appreciated.Ta

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Thanks again for the advice. Yeah a mentor would be amazing. Unfortunately I am away out in the depths of Argyll in a midge infested bog. Not many people here and the ones that are have only just mastered the microwave oven. Ta

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I think what you are looking at is an either-or, newly purchase v2 or upgrade from v1.

Since you are new to Foundry, youā€™ll need the purchase, but certainly not both.

@teefers is correct. As I mentioned in my email to you just a little while ago ā€“ You only need Foundry v2. You likely added both to your cart somehow. The cart does not automatically add anything else, just what you click on. Just remove the upgrade from your cart and youā€™ll be good.

Just following up @Gregor ā€“ That work out ok? Get everything sorted?

Just to throw in my 2 cents, pence or what ever currency you useā€¦

Foundation is built using the Foundation framework from Zurb, Joe I believe is a principal for Zurb so he has access to new items that will be updated in the framework.

Foundry is based on Bootstrap framework. Both are industry standard frameworks for coding HTML. I would have a look at both the Foundation framework documentation and the Bootstrap documentation to make your choice. Both are fine choices. I believe that Foundation allows for more customization but it does have a higher learning curve.

Itā€™s like Chevy vs. Ford. Pick one and stay with it. :slight_smile:

Thanks Teefers Iā€™m all sorted now and trying to get my head round foundry.

Hi Adam yep sorted I had clicked on the upload before and it got into the cart. Just deleted it and loaded v2. Now staring into the abyss with it. See her. From what Ive done so far it looks amazing. Wee question though, when I look at the stacks I have in foundry theres a bunch of them that are just text with no icon. Is that normal. Are these the ones that are on the upgrades? Ta

All great insight and advice above imho. One thing I would add is that if one chooses to use a framework there are many pre-built ā€œprojectā€ files available that serve as (in my mind) a ā€œthemeā€ that is developed in one of the various frameworks. Offering one a pre-built design that still offers the flexibility and control of a framework. While purchasing a project file would be an additional cost (albeit typically rather small) it might be an option to consider if you choose to use a framework. If interested many here can point to their favorite pre-built framework based projects. Best of luck.

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Thanks Keith. Yeah Iā€™ve finally gone with foundry. Hopefully I can get round it. Iā€™m in Scotland so the currency at the minute is potatoes. Ta

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Hi Gregor, In addition to the Adam has on his site you might want to have a look at these three from Dan at RealMac using stacks 4 and Foundry:

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Thanks Teefers. Thatā€™s really helpful of you. I certainly will have a look. Ta

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Awesome! Glad you got it sorted out. Have fun!!

Have a look at this thread itā€™ll answer that question for you:

Hi Adam. Wow I canā€™t believe it. Thats worked perfectly. All the icons are on view now. Thank you. Sorry to say, another problem. I downloaded the free mason templates but when I open them on the project they say they are not installed. Is there another quick fix for that?? Thanks

What does it say is not installed?

I suspect youā€™re might to say ā€œEqualize.ā€ If so, that is because you need to update Foundry. Go to the Stacks updater and update Foundry there (thereā€™s instructions on updating in the Foundry Documentation). The latest version of Foundry contains the new, free Equalize stack that was added recently (http://discourse.elixirgraphics.com/t/where-can-i-find-the-equalize-stack/3224).

If it isnā€™t Equalize please let me know what it says. Screenshots help.


Addendum ā€“ Sorry, I was busy multi-tasking and misread your post. I thought you were referring to the Carpenter pack. You can disregard the above about Equalize. That is used in the Carpenter pack. That said, you can update Foundry to get that free, new stack though.

As for your problem ā€“ When you installed Mason, howā€™d you go about it? Drag and drop it on RapidWeaverā€™s icon? Then quit and restart RapidWeaver?