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Content Management Systems: Which CMS is right for me?

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      CommentAuthorchibbell
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2006
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    Hello all. This is my first post here and I do hope I refrain from making a fool of myself. I tend to make long-winded posts.

    I've seen your various CMS recommendations to others and I've played with a few myself. I was curious if I could get some of you to take a gander at my site and offer suggestions as to which CMS might be a better fit for me. I'm quite profficient at XHTML and CSS but delving into the worlds of PHP and databases are a bit frightening.

    This is the site: http://www.siglerdesign.com

    I was hoping for something that could make updating the blog homepage easy, along with an archive, presentation of recent articles, and a few lists and links to favorite things. It would also be a godsend if it could help manage my portfolio section. I would be much more inclined to keep it updated if I didn't have to manually add a thumbnail and connect it up to a new page every time I wanted to insert something new. It should also be able to handle my menu system. Oh, and last but not least, I am interested in trying out Mint and wouldn't want to interfere with it.

    I had been considering wordpress but it doesn't seem to handle multiple pages well without some major wrangling. I was also considering Solucija's sNews as it seems quite easy but I am not certain it could do much more than the blog homepage. Drupal and Expression Engine seem like excellent alternatives but are beyond my current skill set. I would love to get this going ASAP as I am on the job hunt before this gig is up in a couple of weeks.

    I appreciate any help you can give and I hope to be able to help you guys out in the future.
    • CommentAuthorerichayes
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2006
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    Wordpress has become very flexible and could be adapted to do what you want.
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      CommentAuthornifkin
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2006
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    Side by side demo installs of a small army of open-source CMS software can be found here.

    OpenSourceCMS

    Compare to see what fits your needs then you can try them out to see how they actually are to use.
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      CommentAuthorchibbell
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2006
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    Thanks guys. I've used Wordpress on a few projects and its just not flexible enough. Its like pounding a square peg into a round hole. At least it is for me.

    I've browsed through OpenSourceCMS nifkin. :) It is indeed an excellent resource.

    I suppose I'm just hoping someone can say, "Hey Mike! Use this CMS. It's perfect for what you have going on." Alas, people rarely want to do your work for you. :P

    In all seriousness I'm really considering Expression Engine. It seems perfect but the learning curve seems a bit daunting. Anyone have any links to excellent beginners tutorials. Would love walkthroughs that take you step-by-step through setting it up from start to finish so I can familiarize myself with the various functions. I am currently reading their docs.
    • CommentAuthoradmin
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2006
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    Veerle has some really good posts on how she implemented EE for her site.... browse her archives:

    http://veerle.duoh.com/index.php
  6.  permalink
    I would highly recommend Movable type.
    The best Blog out there and easy to use.
    Thought core build on PERL.

    Cheers, DS
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      CommentAuthorvuurvos
    • CommentTimeJul 9th 2006 edited
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    You want a complete and easy-going CMS? Then use phpwcms.
    >> www.phpwcms.de/forum
    >> Or try phpwcms wiki for more details

    Phpwcms is quiet complete and when using the addons (http://phpwcms.raramuri.com/) there is a whole world opening for you. Phpwcms has a very low learning curve: is easy to start with, in the forum people are willing to help you all the time and no question is a stupid question! I managed to setup this site (http://www.stichtingflash.nl/index.php) with phpwcms. Of course when you really want to get all out of phpwcms, then you will have to invest some time of course. But regarding your design skills and html/css coding skills, you will have to manage that!

    Edit: Isn't Expression Engine a commercial product? On a first glance it seems to offer a complete CMS. I would pay attention to: is it still being developed, are external (open source) developers working on it, are upgrades & extensions for free, can you develop your own extensions?
    Very good showcase too, like this one: http://lukestevensdesign.com/.
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      CommentAuthorchibbell
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2006
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    Ack. I hadn't realized that people had responded. So used to getting response notifications in email. Any way to do that here?

    Thanks again guys. I'll check out Phpwcms.

    As for EE, there is a Core version that is free. Useful for learning it and I think its pretty easy so far.
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      CommentAuthorJohnRiv
    • CommentTimeJul 11th 2006
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    • CommentAuthorxbing
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2006
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    Expression Engine - I have been using it for my site since 2004 (http://www.sodhi.org/) , and absolutely love the flexibility. One can create nexted categories, add as many entry fields as needed (not limited to Summar, Body and Excerpt), amazingly detailed customization capabilities and very easy to use for Non-Programmers (unlike Wordpress).

    Give it a try.

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