Starting with CMS

[i-devs]

Go MODx and you'll never look back.

Want to use tables for layout (which I don't recommend, but your choice)? Fine.

Want to use XHTML/CSS, standards based, highly accessible design? Fine.

Want to add a blog? Fine.

Don't want a blog or a community portal site? Fine.

Have an existing site that you want to convert over to a CMS and not lose or have to change your existing site? Totally Fine.

Want a system that can be just made up of the components you want and also the ability to grow and add to it as needed? Fine.

and all in all, probably a much easier learning curve than many others.

[Iimitk]

Building a custom cms has many, many advantages over using an open source system. The most important of these being that you have complete control over
what it does. With an open source system there is always the task of adding and removing bits and pieces you dont need.

In most of the decent CMSs that have been suggested in this thread, removing pieces you don't need is just a matter of turning an option ON/OFF. You don't want comments? turn it OFF; you want a "Send To A Friend" functionality? turn it ON, etc etc. Those are one click away tasks.

The system that barleytwist needs sounds
relativley strightfoward and could be built with the very basic in php/mysql( lets also assume that he has knwledge of html/css as he mentioned
that it would need the cms would need to output to html/css and not tables)Yes there is a little learning to be done, but there is with any cms, my
point is learning enough basic php to achieve this is in my opinion roughly the same amount of work as learning and manipulating a cms. Why not
learn the basic php then you've got the power to make your system do what you want.

I really can't understand your argument against using an available CMS! Once again, if the OP needs are so basic, then most probably there would be thousands of ready solutions for him/her to pick from. Why would someone reinvent the wheels? If there's some specific functionality that isn't available, most decent CMSs provide a modular system to allow extending of the software by adding new options.

How do you think anyone learns anything? I learnt php/sql from a book a year ago in a very short amount of time and in fact my first project was a custom cms, which is
used on a daily basis by a small group of people. Its completley reliable and was built with only a rough knowlwedge of php and databases.

Care to share the link? PM me if you don't want to put it here. I just want to see if your custom built CMS would be better than any of the ones been suggested here.

I wonder are you are programmer and do you have any experience using an open source cms?
I ask becuase if you have any experience of php you'd have to agree that building a simple system, which is what barleytwist is after, that allows users to update content in a html document is
extremely easy to do and can be achieved in a relativley small amount of time. A 'talented' developer could do this sort of thing in their
sleep, its the bread and butter of programming! The sort of project anyone with minimal knowledge can achieve.

Sorry, I don't consider writing a basic CMS "extremely easy to do and can be achieved in a relativley small amount of time". I'm a computer sciences student. I'm designing/developing software, but I highly doubt the validity of your arguments. Maybe I'm not as talented as you.

[barleytwist]

Did I see somewhere a Browser based editor for a website. This must be a client type CMS or perhaps it does have some server side stuff?

[peach]

There's Wordpress but you need to be careful where you pick templates up from. Mike Cherim does a very good freebie you can get from his site.

If you want something more complex there's Joomla but it's not tableless yet although by using a decent template or building your own you can get it close. I believe that version 1.5 which is due out soonish will be table free.

if you put a bit of effort into it you can make any Joomla version table free.
Heres a tableless Mambo 4.5.3: http://www.starpodium.com

Anyways Joomla is good solution if you're a)lazy or b)non-technical. Joomla is a mess under the hood! SEF url system in unreliable, and the admin interface is totally overkill for my local clients.

I would recommend Drupal, or maybe ModX if your site is fairly simple.

For me it's Drupal all the way though. (at the moment )

[carlosma]

I'm also in the search of a CMS and I've found this site (cmsmatrix.org) very useful; it allows you to compare many features of a lot of CMS.

[TheMusician]

Sorry, I don't consider writing a basic CMS "extremely easy to do and can be achieved in a relativley small amount of time". I'm a computer sciences student. I'm designing/developing software, but I highly doubt the validity of your arguments. Maybe I'm not as talented as you.

I was a CS minor and I agree with elduderino that building a simple CMS is not difficult. The simple CMS will not have every feature in the world but most clients do not need every feature and do not want to learn how to use a full-fledged CMS package. The beauty of writing it yourself is that you can drop in an include, have the CMS functionality and not worry about templates, tweaking extraneous features, etc...

I agree that many CMS packages are wonderful and work brilliantly for anyone that needs more than just a few features, but a lot of the time it is just as easy to build your own.

My two cents, Peace.

[markbrown4]

All this talk about WordPress? WordPress is primarily a blogging software program. Don't you think your clients will be confused when they go to use WordPress? Are you using the Pages section or the posts section to add pages for a website?

I've found Wordpress to be suited to a website I am developing, I am using the page > subpage hierachy to dynamically create all the menus in the sidebars and at the top of the page, I am using posts for articles and it is all very simple to maintain using the inbuilt features like categories. You can make multiple templates and when creating a page you can select which template to use.

You can definitely use Wordpress to create some complex information structures.

Also on the note of building your own CMS - It's not worth the effort, trust me I've done it.
There's software out there that has already spent the hours making it work, even the simplest of CMS's needs a lot of time to produce something that won't be as good as something that you could download for free.

If you find yourself unsatisfied with the open source CMS's take their ideas that work and add to them, don't start from scratch.

[dylanjones]

Drupal is the way to go

[barleytwist]

Is it easy in Drupal to convert a page to a Drupal template as I have an existing site and want to edit only the #content text (or is there a much easier way for this one)?

Is a database always necesary or can a CMS work from files?

[Emj]

If you find yourself unsatisfied with the opensource CMS's take their ideas that work and add to them, don't start from scratch.

To an extent I think markbrown4 has hit the best solution - build on something that already exists - that is kind of the point of open source. Of course, you still have to find an existing CMS that you actually like!

[pm63]

All this talk about WordPress? WordPress is primarily a blogging software program. Don't you think your clients will be confused when they go to use WordPress? Are you using the Pages section or the posts section to add pages for a website?

Exactly. WP is for blogging, use something else for a normal site.

[JerXs]

Exactly. WP is for blogging, use something else for a normal site.

All I can say is you couldnt be more wrong.

[barleytwist]

I have digested all that's been said here and been looking at the suggestions. I think some people may have exited the post a it's drawn on a bit so I'll post new 'My specific CMS requirements'. Thanks

[exceedstudios]

I would go with Joomla! It's the best CMS out there and easy to learn.

[Faux]

I would go with Joomla! It's the best CMS out there and easy to learn.

Have you used every CMS out there? What exactly makes it the best?

[lvalics]

I saw a lot of posting here, but I think we missed the basic question.
First of all, based on original post, this guy need a very simple CMS.
Maybe a few pages what client can edit.
Basically Contribute is the best on this, but need to be purchased client, maybe client have more then one computer, so need multiple license etc.
So second look is for something simple, based on template system, XHTML compatible templates, very easy to build table less pages based on CSS, database behind (not mentioned, what kind, so maybe can be also text based) etc. In this case there is on the market a few CMS what do a small job, but efficient.
If you need, user management, RSS, other extra features, then Joomla, Drupal etc will be the choice.

So basically we will need to know the features (specifications) to offer a CMS solution.

I THINK, that the most important thing is to know, who will maintain the website (through Admin panel), what is this person knowledge level on this job, training will be offered ...
Why I say this??

We have installed many CMS for our clients in the beginning, based on same "offers" which is the best. So installed Joomla, Mambo, Company Website Builder, etc, but in many case the clients were lost in the admin area due to the many options displayed and we find out that they have not updated the content because they was afraid that will blow up something. This even if we trained.

So after a few of this situations, we saw what was their expectation and we offered ONLY what they want, something simple, with a SIMPLE Admin.
So, I think there is a lot of CMS, but you need to know your client level to offer something perfect for them. FInd their need, and then you will find the perfect CMS for your client.

Hope this help.

[markbrown4]

Exactly. WP is for blogging, use something else for a normal site.

This comment is obviously from ignorance, you must not have even tried using wordpress as a CMS.

What I like about it:
It has a very simple and easy to learn administration interface.
Can create complex information structures using posts within categories and page>sub page hierarchy's perfect for most website sitemaps
Templates fully customisable and can make Search engine friendly, fast loading XHTML pages.
Good WYSIWYG editor(TinyMCE) for content sections that outputs XHTML.

I am not saying that Wordpress is the best CMS, I don't think it is the most rich CMS out there but it definitely works for basic.. content management and is worth exploring

[Wolf_22]

This comment is obviously from ignorance, you must not have even tried using wordpress as a CMS.

What I like about it:
It has a very simple and easy to learn administration interface.
Can create complex information structures using posts within categories and page>sub page hierarchy's perfect for most website sitemaps
Templates fully customisable and can make Search engine friendly, fast loading XHTML pages.
Good WYSIWYG editor(TinyMCE) for content sections that outputs XHTML.

I am not saying that Wordpress is the best CMS, I don't think it is the most rich CMS out there but it definitely works for basic.. content management and is worth exploring

The thing I like about WP is that you don't have to read a .pdf to learn how to use it...

[Booler]

I've never used WP. Can it be used on existing websites?

[brandaggio]

Without my current host making some server side changes I did/do not have access to make, the latest version of Drupal would not install for me (I generally use a shared server that is fairly up to date but not bleeding edge). Drupal was my first choice based on a fairly exhaustive search - IBM's research was most helpful.

My host is decent but not that responsive, so I went with Textpattern because it installs/ed painlessly and is very elegant.

I imagine I would like Drupal best as there is not really a backend from what I understand - you edit the site by navigating it (after being authenticated) and browsing to the content you would like to edit. In the meantime TXP will do nicely - I fiddled with WP and TXP makes much more sense to me as a CMS.

[brandondrury]

I never found a CMS that did everything I wanted. Out of frustration, I jumped into PHP. It doesn't save time, but it greatly increases the poweres of my websites.

With my first PHP project, I created a tool that is landing me about $10 extra per day. It took just over a week to pull of the script. I tore some hair out, but I'm pace to put an extra $3600 in my pocket this year from this one tool (not to mention the increased site activity).

So, If it was me, I'd create my own CMS. You'd have many of the features you want in a week. It'll probably take a month to perfect, but you know you can always get what you want.

This is the route I've taken and I'm VERY happy that I did. It may not be for everyone.

Brandon

[joomlart.com]

My first choice is JOOMLA
My second choice is JOOMLA
My third choice is JOOMLA

Joomla is No1

[Booler]

My first choice is JOOMLA
My second choice is JOOMLA
My third choice is JOOMLA

That wouldn't be because you have a vested interest ... no?

[Webinsane]

My partner and I created cool simple CMS and decided to sell it for a small price because we thought there is nothing like it on internet. It is unique because it uses no templates (integrated into any site) and it can integrate into hundreds of pages in few seconds. Installation process of the script should be done in few minutes...that gives you prefect cms for your client in less than 10 minutes...priceless.

[i-devs]

I still recommend checking out MODx (even those {insert favorite CMS here} is #1). Ever wanted to get on the front end of the next big thing? This may be your chance.

It isn't a community portal or a blog script. It is a content management framework that allows you to add in the pieces that you need, and none of what you don't want... not merely toggling a feature on or off.

You can fully control the visual layout, even of the components you add. If you want a blog, your blog could look unlike any other blog out there.

Develop sophisticated navigation, fully styled by CSS, in no time.

Set up roles and user/admin rights and control who can do what. Have users that aren't too web savvy? You can set things up that allows them to edit content from the front end... all they have to do is surf to the page they want to edit. And even the backend is fairly friendly as CMSs go.

Move pages through a couple clicks. Publish or unpublish a page simply by right-clicking the page in the admin control panel tree listing and select publish/unpublish.

SEO friendly as well.

For those already experienced with their CMS of choice, you'll definitely find MODx to be refreshingly different. And unlike most CMSs, you could visit sites developed with MODx and never know it.

Before MODx, I looked at Mambo/Joomla, a couple others, started working with Drupal... which I still think is incredibly powerful and impressive and have the deepest respect for... but then I found MODx and was simply blown away. Working with MODx gives you the same feeling that you had when you got your first three-column, CSS layout to work cross-platform/cross-browser!