Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In with Facebook Sign In with Google Sign In with OpenID Sign In with Twitter
Sign In Apply for Membership

Categories

In this Discussion

Who's Online 10

CurtisOdenEugeneVBHotBlackericgillettetc74422 +4 guests

Best CMS to use?

krushkrush
in Questions
Hi, I hope asking this is okay on here. The reason I'm asking on here is because I love the whole concept behind Vanilla, everything seems to be so well made, with usability as a priority. Anyway, onto the question, I'm working on a football (soccer to Americans) website in the coming days and I'm thinking of using a content management system rather than the standard Wordpress blog. I'm wondering if you have any suggestions. I have tried the following already; Drupal: I love this but I could never find a decent theme or edit the current ones to my liking. PHPNuke: I found this far too cluttured. Any suggestions will be really appreciated.
«1

Comments

  • BenBen
    Posts: 534
    Radiant CMS looks quite good. I'm planning to use it as soon as we switch to a server that can handle Rails.
  • eloflandelofland
    Posts: 1
    I'm looking at ModX - very nice admin interface, demo on opensourcecms.com

    Good hunting!
    E
  • erissivaerissiva
    Posts: 139
    sNews was looking really good for me at one point. Really simple and fast.

    Another good one is Textpattern. Its what I use over at zan.thri.a, but I use it as a blog instead. You can use it as the ultimate CMS - but methinks you are actually looking more for a portal than a CMS.
  • ADMADM
    Posts: 450
    I've always looked for something that has News (with archives), Gallery, Downloads and Custom Pages.

    That's it.. that's all I need, nothing too bulky and I'd like it simple.
  • 3stripe3stripe
    Posts: 1,433
    http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/860/1/the-not-so-big-cms-thread/ was another good thread on this subject... guess it's one of those never-ending topics... Look forward to seeing Radiant CMS as well...
  • ADMADM
    Posts: 450
    ModX looks really good. Had a quick play around.
  • Burke PrefectBurke Prefect
    Posts: 30
    Elofland, thanks to pointing that site out. That's pretty sweet. I'm playing around looking for stuff I like the feel of. :D
  • prince_of_oreonprince_of_oreon
    Posts: 76
    To summarize the defects of several CMSs Ive worked with.

    -Textpattern has no community plumbing. Lacks a publi publishing feature.
    -Serendipity has no community plumbing, lacks mods, and has a somewhat smallish support group.
    -Mambo / Joomla has too much of everything you don't need. Has some community plumbing. Is difficult to make the generated site standards compliant. Is generally not worth dealing with the beast size of the software for what you get out of it. I've left this software to the clan sites. It does publish categories and sections nicely, and is overall quite configurable.
    - WordPress is good, but not very flexible. You cannot for instance publish categories seperately with ease. It is possible by excluding category IDs, but is too complex to be worthwhile.
    - ModX overcomplexifies the back-end. Like WordPress publishing options are limited without a hassle.
    - Typo3 is fun, but has a wicked learning curve, of which I don't think anyone has actually reached the pinnacle. Not for the faint of heart, the task oriented, or anyone being paid 'by the job'.
    -PostNuke, *Nuke, Nuke* - bleh.
  • BergamotBergamot
    Posts: 1,876
    I <3 Django, but it's more of a framework/CMS hybrid than a full CMS.
  • garvingarvin
    Posts: 433
    RadientCMS looks pretty cool, but its almost too simple for my needs. Especially since it doesn't have a lot of features, and I didn't see a forum like this one has where people can talk about what they want to see with it. Unless I missed it.
  • LooZ^LooZ^
    Posts: 76
    It's sad but... We need some "vanilla-cms", the sweetest cms on the web...

    vanilla + swell + filebrowser... :(
  • EvanEvan
    Posts: 64
    Take a look at http://www.logahead.com/ if you want something really bare bones, kind of like Vanilla, I guess :P

    Edit: Heh, take a look at the forum. http://www.logahead.com/forums/
  • prince_of_oreonprince_of_oreon
    Posts: 76
    I'd like to try Django but its in Python. And I neither use Python, nor do I have any intention of learning it.
  • russliptonrusslipton
    Posts: 160
    prince_of_oreon:

    I could probably guess but can you say a bit more about how MODx over-complexifies the back end?
  • ithcyithcy
    Posts: 1,290
    Skeletonz is pretty nice.
  • emergentemergent
    Posts: 24
    I've recently started using TYPOlight and really like it. Aside from the huge emphasis on being accessible and compliant, there are some cool things being implemented such as mooTools.

    Take a look at the demo.

    It's definately simple and powerful from an admin perspective.
  • garvingarvin
    Posts: 433
    I'm using Jaws right now and REALLY like it. Real simple to setup and get working on. And the templating system is fantasticly easy to work with.
  • Max_BMax_B
    Posts: 410
    On a long thread on the same subject i read recently there were a link to a contest for the best CMS which has been won by Joomla.
    Try googling for this contest review.
  • TomTesterTomTester
    Posts: 669
    @emergent: looks good, but despite 2.1 version I feel it's not finished and support is limited. am I wrong?

    @garvin: I see jaws is 0.7, is it ready for prime-time? What's the support/community like, as good as vanilla?

    @max: I hear/read joomla is great but it seems (no experience) very inflexible in terms of layout/design.
    Is it me or do all joomla sites look alike (3 column) and too darn busy?
    Friends who ran Joomla were all hacked at least once or more (last time by those Turkish guys in Nov.).

    I've briefly glanced at ModX and more recently sNews (and liked both a lot)
    Drupal 4.7 seems good too, very powerful, but complex interface is not really suitable for my clients...

    Does anyone have another suggestion? (TypoLight was new to me, rest is featured in http://www.opensourcecms.com/ )
  • Max_BMax_B
    Posts: 410
    In fact, the only one I use, here and there, is SPIP, a french product, but I'm not able to compare to competitors, as my experience with CMS is marginal.
  • LooZ^LooZ^
    Posts: 76
    Of course "lussumo cms", but we have to make some pressure on Mark ;)
  • MySchizoBuddyMySchizoBuddy
    Posts: 1,799
    so no one is using the new Drupal 5.0
  • jeevesbondjeevesbond
    Posts: 2
    I'm suprised it's taken so long for someone to recommend Drupal! It really is a fantastic CMS, lightweight enough to begin with, but can be scaled as far as you like.

    As far as I know it's the only CMS project that has a foundation backing it, with serious corporate sponsors etc. It's still Free (as in freedom) of course. :)
  • emergentemergent
    Posts: 24
    @TomTester - version 2.2 of TYPOlight was just released today. I was able to upgrade my four installations with the click of a button, thanks to the brilliant auto-update feature. Support is very good, even though the community is small. Leo Feyer, the developer, is extremely helpful and active in development. I've built over 30 sites with phpwcms and have switched almost exclusively to TYPOlight, and I don't find it lacking in features. I actually just redesigned my own site with it - www.emergentmediagroup.com

    Regards,
    Ben
  • WandererWanderer
    Posts: 2,419
    I'm impressed with TYPOlight but it requires PHP 5 which my server does not yet have. pic

    Posted: Thursday, 1 March 2007 at 4:17PM (AEDT)

  • SilencioSilencio
    Posts: 50
    krush,

    You mentioned "I'm thinking of using a content management system rather than the standard Wordpress blog." and I am just curious as to your thoughts on this. Are you speaking of the basic WordPress install? Personally I have found that the Semiologic Pro upgraded version of Wordpress is very powerful and now there are many new options for layout including a single header with three columns sidebar/main/sidebar or sidebar/main etc....and with the Adspaces plugin you can have a lot of flexibility for displaying ads or other content. I wish I had know about Wordpress and Semiologic Pro many years ago....but if you haven't looked at SemPro lately it has changed a lot even over the last few months into a powerful solution.

    I have only explored a few of the CMS options but have found them overwhelming in options and layout, but that is for me and my limited knowledge. I really like the sounds of TYPOlight as I believe that pages need to be accessible and compliant to take us into the future. I am not handicapped but if I were I would be disappointed with my choices and options today with websites and frankly I am at the point where I don't know what I would do without the internet as it has become a big part of my life and business.
  • nolefannolefan
    Posts: 25
    I've managed to use Wordpress as a CMS on a bunch of websites to the point where you don't notice it's wordpress at all. I explored a lot of possibilites before that including SPIP ( fantastic but hard learning curve), Snews ( was waiting for 1.5 back then), Joomla ( too much), MdPro ( not enough users) and e107 ( almost picked it).. at the end, wordpress won out and required a small hack to use it as a CMS and hide posts...
    Love it
  • [-Stash-][-Stash-]
    Posts: 2,610
    I've tried Drupal, but I just do not get on with it's way of managing/organising things at the back end.
  • gigingergiginger
    Posts: 1,010
    I've just started using Wordpress as a CMS. Does everything I need. However, it's probably nowhere near scalable enough for anything larger than a stupid net label.
  • emergentemergent
    Posts: 24
    @Wanderer - Have you checked to see if you host has php4 and php5 both running? Mine had that going, but they didn't announce it.

    @people that use WordPress as a cms
    I've heard a lot of people (in this forum and others) talk about using WordPress as a cms. I'm not challenging those who use it, but I'm curious if these things are possible or how they are handled:
    --> navigation and subnavigation (and can it go 3 or 4 levels deep when necessary)
    --> image management/display - can you easily add images in a 4 by 4 grid with auto thumbnail generation?
    --> form generator - is there a simple one built in?
    --> are multiple templates possible, say, for each site structure level?
    --> are there various "content elements"? for example, one for images, text, forms, accordions (like this - www.emergentmediagroup.com/portfolio.html)

    Just curious.
This discussion has been closed.