Wordpress as a CMS

oddz, no, I don’t. I’m an independent freelancer and work solely on my own. Why?

kohoutek,

I am so glad to find your cogent analysis of the various CMS.

I need something where the greenest novice can easily register, log in, post an article and upload content.
This is a genealogy / family history site. There is already a large database of individuals with notes (see bridging the search function below).
http://mykindred.com/
We need a place to post documents (articles) that are not “related” to the people in the database – censuses, newspaper articles, vital records, book excerpts, information on places and events, pictures, maps, etc.

Here’s a list of what I think we need (from a novice in CMS):

• tiered menus or categories so can have articles pigeon-holed by topic
• collaborative editing
• minimal administrative intervention
• uploading of articles and media (images, video, pdf, etc.)
• ability to lock documents to prevent editing would be nice
• templates for certain content
• the ability for WordPress-style “comments” on an article (without editing the article itself) would be nice
• having separate area where only members can view articles would be nice
  … (to allow for submission and editing of articles before publishing in a Journal)
• the ability to bridge the search function to search fields in the genealogy database would be VERY nice!
• member directory for researchers
• members can add themselves into the researcher directory (i.e. without admin intervention)
• member directory by category – for different research areas (researchers by country, surname, etc.) (members can belong t more than one category – so selecting England, Smith would give all researchers for the intersection of those two categories)
• contact form for each member so they can be sent email by site visitors
• DO NOT need e-commerce

I am no expert – but I have tried:

• Joomla (obtuse & unfriendly)
• MediaWiki – nice but not friendly
• WordPress – wonderful, but doesn’t seem to support collaborative editing
• ModX – love it but not sure how it would work for collaborative editing
• phpBB – it’s easy to register and log in; not collaborative, can’t insert media, etc.
• TikiWiki – got it working on local computer. have tried for two days to get it working on remote shared host. Appears to require shell access (SSH) – why would anyone make their product so difficult to install? Also, it is huge, almost 12,000 files and 75 MB in size – looks like they’ve thrown the kitchen sink into it.

I am willing to shell out $150 for Expression Engine but it’s not chump change to me. I’d like to know it was going to work for our purposes.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks,
Tom

Hello tcloud,

you already seem to be using the TGN CMS that is designed specifically for genealogy sites. What do you not like about it? I noticed there’s a [URL=“http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=genealogy”]WordPress plugin that allows you to integrate the software you’re currently using with WordPress.

Anyhow, I’d use ExpressionEngine for what you’re looking to do. I know it isn’t cheap but it might turn out to be a good long-term investment. I use EE on my sites as well and there’s currently no CMS out there that is as convenient to use for me. With that said, it might be good to take a look at [URL=“http://drupal.org/”]Drupal as well for this. The learning curve for Drupal is higher than for EE, particularly because it requires for you to know PHP, whereas in EE you don’t have anything to do with PHP for most tasks. The downside is that you’ll be spending more than $150 if you’re going to make use of some of the more sophisticated third-party modules. Drupal will cost you nothing and it’s good for such kind of sites. While I’m not a fan of Drupal (reasons mentioned in previous post), it is without a doubt a powerful tool that might be right for your task.

To not make it sound like a nightmare, there’s a nice project by the name of Acquia, a package distribution that simplifies the whole process and comes with pre-installed modules and other tools that can help you reduce development time significantly. See the Drupal Acquia overview here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://acquia.com/files/marketing/Acquia_Overview_datasheet-web2.pdf

Another very interesting project that might be of interest to you is Openatrium: http://openatrium.com/features

Looking at it more closely, Openatrium might be quite suitable, so definitely watch the introduction video on their site.

And a Drupal module that you might want to take a look at:

Storm module

To quote the module’s page:

Storm offers a hierarchy of content types to help with project management.

Organizations, Teams, People,
Projects, Tasks, Tickets, Timetrackings,
Notes, Knowledgebase, Invoices, and Expenses.
Each content type provides permissions to control the sharing of data with other Drupal users, and based on assignment of projects/tasks/tickets to particular users or teams.

Now onto EE, my favorite tool that would also work very well for your project.

Here’s a page built with EE that has many of the features you’re looking to have on your site: http://typedia.com/ (yes, the topic is a different one, but if you browse through the site you’ll notice that the upload feature, registering feature, the content hierarchy and dependencies are all similar to what is on your current genealogy site)

By the by, everything that EE can do, Drupal can probably do as well. I’d say that Drupal probably has the edge in terms of collaborative features, though you can get those in EE as well, albeit not free of charge.

Anyhow, since I know more about EE, I’ll work off the list in EE-mode rather than Drupal-mode. Perhaps someone who uses Drupal a lot can fill the gaps.

- collaborative editing

In EE there’s a revision feature built in, so if you were to write on an entry and saved it, a co-author later goes on to edit your entry and saved that, then you have two revisions, the one you originally wrote and the one your co-author has done, which means you can reverse versions as you see fit.
Furthermore there’s a default Wiki, Member, and Mailinglist module that are all part of the commercial package.

- tiered menus or categories so can have articles pigeon-holed by topic

Available by default.

- minimal administrative intervention

If you were to add categories or change the status of an entry, you’d not have to leave the write panel to do so. For bigger changes or additions, e.g. adding a new custom field, you’d have to go to leave the write panel to do so.

- uploading of articles and media (images, video, pdf, etc.)

Yes, EE has a Filemanager built in by default which you can access within an entry or separately.

- ability to lock documents to prevent editing would be nice

That’s not available in EE, also not via an add-on.

- templates for certain content

Available by default. In EE it’s very easy to configure your site to display content based on pretty much any parameter you throw at it with very little effort.

- the ability for WordPress-style “comments” on an article (without editing the article itself) would be nice

Available by default.

- having separate area where only members can view articles would be nice
… (to allow for submission and editing of articles before publishing in a Journal)

You can have parts of your site made available for a group or groups of members only. There are plenty different ways to accomplish that and some enhanced modules that make the whole process relatively simple. You can set the permissions, defining which actions a member may or may not perform. To avoid a member from publishing an article, you simply set the status to “draft” or something else and it will not be public.

- the ability to bridge the search function to search fields in the genealogy database would be VERY nice!

The built-in search module allows you to define search parameters in various ways. How specific you want to be is up to you.

- member directory for researchers

Yep. You can either use the default member module, get yourself a quality substitute (not free), or create a Channel to specifically hold the member names and then relate and associate these with any other data you have. This kind of modularization of content is one of EE’s major strengths.

- member directory by category – for different research areas (researchers by country, surname, etc.) (members can belong t more than one category – so selecting England, Smith would give all researchers for the intersection of those two categories)

Entirely possible by default.

- contact form for each member so they can be sent email by site visitors

Members may have a page and you can setup a contact form on that page for each, but in EE it is not allowed for members to have a blog or anything like that. It goes against the license, so if you intend on extending your site at some point to give your members that feature, then EE wouldn’t be right choice. See here: http://expressionengine.com/user_guide/license.html

To round it off, if you’d like more advanced collaboration/publishing features, I can recommend this module: http://leevigraham.com/cms-customisation/expressionengine/nsm-publish-plus/

The site explains best what its good for:

Another CMS that might be interesting to you is MovableType. I used it way back when though, so am not familiar with the newer versions.

WordPress is definetely a blog at heart with basic page functionality tacked on as an after thought. WordPress could be used as a page based CMS by simplying creating pages and not posts.

Drupal may seem like a sledgehammer but for good reason. Most sites will grow in complexity, eventually. WordPress will require hacking much sooner than Drupal would. Drupal is also more extensible via modules, so hacking at least is kept out of the core, making upgrades a lot easier.

Drupal is highly configurable and with that comes complexitybut setting up permissions can greatly reduce this complexity on your users at least - as admin you want and need all that control so you have no choice but to learn it.

Cheers,

Alex

Thank you for your response – I have to leave right now and can’t digest all of it and then my kids insist on a birthday party for me this evening and I can’t figure out how to get out of going, so it may be tomorrow before I can look at it in detail.
WRT the genealogy software TNG – I am very satisfied with it, but it is not a CMS as I understanding the concept. It only has places for information or media about a person or their families. Anything not about a person or family can’t be placed in it.
If one wanted to write about the the concept of a DNA “bottleneck” or the 1918 flu epidemic or bubonic plague and its effect on the world’s population, or about the publication of the Geneva Bible and its use by the Pilgrims and Quakers, there would be no logical place to store it in TNG. Research on the origin of a surname could involve articles on the place(s) for which the family was named, or an occupation, etc. Those types of articles are generic and aren’t compatible with the format of TNG (as they aren’t associated with any one person).
That’s why there are bridges for Joomla!, PostNuke, etc., though I have yet to see anyone who has successfully implemented a genealogical wiki or CMS – “successful” meaning, to me, that people actually participate in it and contribute to it. I administer several public forums on these subjects and know that people are willing to contribute – but those forums are simple and easy to use, basically like phpBB. When they start using “geek-speak” most contributors disappear – witness the dratted wiki mark-up “languages”.
They want something simple like phpBB or even FaceBook. I want to provide that for them – and to have something that I can link back to the genealogy information when it is appropriate.

thanks again (and I will study your reply later today or tomorrow),
Tom

I am a huge fan of wordpress but just for simple sites. I think that for large sites where there is a requirement beyond the basics then wordpress is not the best out there. Whilst I would agree with PCSpectra that wp is a blog at heart the new wordpress v3 does significantly improve the cms for web pages.

hi, well there are many site which provide you full authority to to create your blogs and get benefits for your site. Like Blogger and Disquis and many more
But I believe wordpress is the best option for it.

A quick word about WordPress

I have been using WordPress as a CMS for years on both simple and complex sites and have had little problems with integrating it as such (especially since v 2.7). Most of the issues that came up while trying to use it as a CMS happened in my early experience with it when I tried to do things that a more seasoned WP user would not, simply because I didn’t know better and thought, because I knew PHP, I could just ignore the guidelines.

Now that I have a great deal of experience I know what NOT to do. Use WP as it was intended. Leave Plugin and Theme creation to those who do understand the best practices of WordPress and simply communicate with them if you need help.

Best Theme to use:
The best theme to use is one that was developed for your site. That said, there are plenty of themes out there that you can purchase which get you 90% there. If you don’t know what you are doing, you could hire a good Theme Creator. If you really want to develop your own themes, get a copy of “Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes” (http://www.sitepoint.com/books/wordpress1/). Even though I have been using my own Themes for years, this book clearly explains what took me years to fully understand.

Which Plugins to use
Again, this depends on your site, however, good things to look for when selecting plugins are the number of downloads, rating, duration of Plugin and when the last update was added.

Look first for the rating and number of people who have rated the plugin. A plugin with a low rating or a high rating with few users who have rated the plugin is likely not a well used plugin and may cause you headaches.

Then look at when the plugin was last updated. The date at which the plugin was last updated tends to signify if the plugin is being kept up to date and worked on.

The number of downloads a WordPress plugin has indicates the user base. A good user base tends to support the plugin.

kohoutek (or anyone),

I have three questions.

1 - The CMS I need should have a good WYSIWYG editor. Does EE have that – for all data-entry functions? I need to encourage participation, not require people to work with some arcane markup. (This site is powered by VBulletin and I like their editor.)

2 - Does anyone have any observations about TikiWiki?

3 - How does VBulletin compare to WordPress and Expression Engine? (not counting the $285 license cost.)

thanks,
Tom

There is a handy test site that at least allows you to try out EE from the point of view of adding content (though you can’t explore template code and administrator settings etc.

http://webunder.com.au/weblog/expressionengine-2.1-demo/

There is a very popular plugin for EE that replicates this intuitive tree structure for EE called Structure.

You can see it in action in the Demo link above.

There are many plugins for EE that provide powerful WYSIWYG editing features—both free and commercial—such as Wygwam.

@Ralph, Structure works for static pages, it does not alter the appearance of all entries. It could be a good alternative to using “normal” entries though: http://buildwithstructure.com/ It’s a great module but it’s commercial ($65)and there’s no free alternative I know of. Well, the “Pages” module in EE would be an alternative but it’s not nearly as flexible as Structrure is.

I know of that demo but you have no access to the significant areas, as you said, so there’s no way one can find out what it’s like to work with EE by using this demo in my opinion.

@Tom, vBulletin has a new CMS feature but I haven’t used it so can’t really say anything about it. Same goes for TikiWiki.

EE has its own Wiki that comes with the default package though.

OK, thanks for that. The problem I have with plugins is that it’s very hard to get a sense of how they work or what they do until you buy them (and even then…). It seems to be a rule that developers assume people know what the plugin is for, so give very little away on their website. Drives me nuts. It’s a bit like radio stations who play nice songs be refuse to tell you who the singer is (implication: “but man, if you were cool, you’d know…”) I’m glad for the web, as now you can search for the lyrics and usually track the song down. Not so easy to find out what these darned plugins do, though.

Agreed 100%, Ralph. What makes me really frustrated is the fact that almost every EE developer seems to go the commercial route. This wasn’t the case a year ago. Even some of the older free add-ons have turned into commercial ones recently.

I admit I don’t like where the whole thing is heading and I’m not sure whether I will continue to be as loyal to EE for my own projects as I used to be. :-/

Yes, it’s a bit daunting, as the cost can really rack up quickly. I don’t begrudge them charging for their work (though their prices are a bit steep); but it only increases the onus to spell out clearly what their plugins do. If I don’t feel I know what it does, I won’t buy it. I only got Matrix because a friend showed me how it works. Now I can barely live without it. As for the future of EE, well, it will be interesting to see. I’m of a mind to specialize in just one CMS, so I hope I can stick with it. Their focus is steering more towards the corporate world, as far as I can tell.

You have opened my eyes to Tumblr, though. Wow, that looks really interesting for small, low-cost projects.

Yes, well it’s still my favourite CMS. I haven’t found one that is better suited for the way I think and work. But I can’t deny that it’s becoming costly.

As for Tumblr, yes, it’s risen to quite some fame in the past year. Dan Cederholm’s simplebits switched to Tumblr a couple months ago. And he’s not the only one.

Wow, he switches systems more often than I switch clothes. Well, sort of. V. interesting.

I’m learning a lot from you guys in there at Sitepoint. Although I’ve been gone for long, I still manage to come visit once in a while to see what’s up. My brother uses WP as his content management system and he’s done good with it but we don’t have that much time to talk so it’s good to find information here. Thanks

Is this book still a good one to use for WP 3.0? I do have CSS experience, no PHP experience though, and I am looking to learn WP in detail.

Thanks.

Hi Bluehound, welcome to SitePoint!

Yes, the book was only published a few months ago, and is very relevant to WP 3.

Thanks for the welcome and great, I didn’t see the publish date. Looks like that will work for me.