Fed up with Wordpress

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I am new to WPress, installed, bought a good theme, customizing for a month and I still cant get some simple basic things resolved and ready to quit. I bought the7 theme, which includes the Visual Composer and my home page looks different in all of the browsers.

1. The tab section on my home page is not formatting correctly in IE9, and throwing the text and pic overlapping the next column (contact form) in IE9, 11 and FFox....but looks correct in Chrome. I am pulling my hair out. The theme support have been great up til now, but haven't heard back from them about this.

2. The google map on my home page isn't showing either in IE9, but is in IE11, FF and Chrome. Many still use IE9 so I need it working right.

3. The image sizes on another page are correct in Chrome, but larger and wrong in IE9 again and since I am a photographer, this is a big part of my website showing the images correctly.

Home page is www.PaulAlfordPhotography.com

I am ready to go back to Dreamweaver and HTML...just didn't have all these issues with designing with that. Are these "theme" issues ? Compatibility ? Should I invest in a different theme ? Are HTML designs a thing of the past ? I hate that WPress you have to trust a bunch of free plugins just to get something designed and then they seem to cause conflicts with each other and the server load and all sorts of troubles... I am a visual designer and hate all this code and php !!

Any thoughts and suggestions would be great.
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Scott
Hello Paul,

The issues you are seeing are very likely browser compatibility issues with the theme. To test, you would just need to try another theme and see if it looks the same across the browsers. It is very probable that another theme will solve the issues. It sounds as if the current one was not tested across all platforms very well.

While CMS programs such as WordPress and Joomla are popular at the moment, the 'old school' method of custom coding with html and even adding a splash of php and javascript is not dead. In fact, HTML pages done in this fashion do very well on servers. CMS programs build each page dynamically upon request from the server and its databases. This causes load on the server to process the php scripts. A static HTML page has almost no processing involved and makes the server very happy.

CMSes are designed to quickly add features without having to code them via plugins. You do not have this luxury if you custom code your own site. However, the advantages to custom coding are speed, low overhead, streamlined code, and ease of maintenance if done correctly. The disadvantage is, of course, the time involved and lack of ready-to-go features.

By all means, if you are comfortable with DreamWeaver and HTML use that if it fits your needs. CMSes are more designed for those who have no time or interest in developing a site of their own and want something up there quickly, or they need a lot of extra features that they do not know how to code. I wish more would go back to thin pages instead of the bloated CMS coding, it would save them a lot of server suspensions and give them faster site performance as well.

In the end, it is your choice, both are valid and have their uses. Choose which is the most correct for you and both you and your site visitors will be happier for it.

Kindest Regards,
Scott M