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Content Management Systems: CMS for intranet

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    Hi everyone...

    I guess this must be one of the most common questions you CMS gurus have to answer, but here gos.....

    I work for a UK government department. We are redoing our intranet. We want to implement a decent CMS which is free and has some already developed intranet type extentions (corporate calendars, user login areas, photo gallery, feeds etc).Obviouly it will need to be rolled out to a few thousand users, so it needs to have good admin facilities, as well as an easy to use interface.

    I have programming exp, and will be setting up the templates, and then handing the whole thing over to an "intranet team". We have been looking into the following 3 CMS: TYPO; Drupel; and Joomla.

    Does anyone have exp with any of the above? Pros, or cons they found when using them? Perhaps some other suggestions?

    Thanks for your time and input guys.
    Vix
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    Definitely Joomla. Better control panel & ease-of-use than the others, although table-based output of code can be a pain to hack around.
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    I have to throw in a vote for ExpressionEngine. It's not free, but a $250 (USD) commercial license shouldn't break the bank. I've been using it recently to build out a very robust online style magazine, and I think that we'll be using it to power the website of a huge videogame conference.

    The out of the box member features would probably be useful for an intranet, and there are no worries about table-based layouts. Since the content is pulled in and rendered through ExpressionEngine tags, you have complete control over the XHTML output. The admin data entry fields are customizable, as are the various user-groups, and much more. Bottom line: for $250, it kicks major ass.
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    In reply to Darren Hoyt and adjustafresh...

    Darren Hoyt: Yes our only concern with Joomla is the table based code it outputs. Any help on how you resloved/hacked this issue? What extent of the code is converted to tables? Anything else you would like to add would be a great help.

    adjustafresh: Our information architecture group are very pro the whole open source thing. Using a product that is not widley know and could potentially be unsupported in the future is an issue. I have palyed around with Expression Engine and it seems very worthwhile consideration. How would you suggest getting the architecture group on our side? Also have you use dany of the other 3 products mentioned above? If so which one do you prefer?

    Thanks
    Vicky
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      CommentAuthorvuurvos
    • CommentTimeMar 1st 2007
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    Hi Vicky,

    I saw you mentioned Typo. We are using Typo3 for a while and it is a very professional CMS. Of all CMSs Typo3 is professsional but also has a steep learning curve, especially when you dont have exp with css, cms, php, etc...
    Typo3 has 1800+ extensions which is a + and also has a lot of "enterprise" features (like version management, advanced user management, etc.) which is a + for intranet.

    vuurvos
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    Here are some workarounds:

    http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,24921.0.html

    What I'm finding is that it's smart to create one stylesheet for your structure/layout, but then another called something like joomla.css which overrides all the default classes generated by Joomla. With that in mind, it's a bit easier to keep the output looking how you want it.

    The more I've learned about Joomla, the more I'm feeling comfortable with it. The most important thing is that the client feel comfortable with it once it's turned over to her/him. Joomla's user-friendly control panel and WYSIWYG editor is a big part of that. For me, it's what gives it the edge over other CMSs. On the flipside, if I myself was going to be administering a site's basic news/blog/ functionality, I might opt for Expression Engine. I still wish EE had an easier time creating static pages, managing menus, incorporating a WYSIWYG, and so on. I might still just be on the wrong side of the EE learning curve.
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      CommentAuthorstrugglefish
    • CommentTimeMar 5th 2007 edited
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    I will have to raise my vote for expression engine too simply for the flexibility.

    I have years of experience with Joomla! and although its ok for a small website, it rather stinks when you want some sort of custom output. You would have to have a special plugin or write one in order to get any custom fields to output.
    Layout is kinda in your control, but if you want to use a table-less design, then prepare to do some hacking to remove table output built in to the code. This is my single most annoyance with Joomla!

    I might also add, forget any kind of custom groups and content based upon group with Joomla!
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    Does anyone know whether you can use Joomla to set up personalised pages for
    individual users?
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    Do you mean like Community Builder?
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    Symphony is not bad.

    RadiantCMS is a Ruby on Rails based CMS that doesn't have the extensions your looking for, but since it's basically a pre built CMS on top of Ruby On Rails, you could easily build the necessary stuff and it would all be in Rails.
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    Thanks Darren, that looks like the just thing! I will give it a go.

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