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Content Management Systems: Expanse CMS — Anyone Used It Yet?

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    Has anyone tried the Expanse CMS? I'm a WordPress guy myself, but am not the best PHP guy. This seems like it could be okay, especially for developers who are more focused on design.
    • CommentAuthorPettyRider
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006
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    Haven't used it myself, but it looks really good. And $30 is cheap. Why not go for it?
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      CommentAuthorSpookyET
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006 edited
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    I would not buy it. Their demo is broke in Opera. Yes, it's probably just a CSS issue, but if they can't get their CSS right in all major browsers, they probably can't get right more important issues. Also, it's too new, imature, to actually pay for it and use it (unless, you want to be a beta tester).
    • CommentAuthorPettyRider
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006
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    Oh, come on. It's only $30. And is Opera a 'major browser?' I've seen Opera botch CSS before anyway.
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    I've heard good things about Expanse.

    I'm about to use Drupal and Joomla for two upcoming projects. I'll try to post back and see how intuitive they are from a front-end/css/implementation standpoint.

    "Their demo it's broke in Opera. Yes, it's probably just a CSS issue, but if they can't get their CSS right in all major browser, they probably can't get right more important problems."

    As an aside, how many of you guys check your designs in Opera, or consider it a major browser? Far as I know, it accounts for less than 2% of the browser market:

    http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
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      CommentAuthornifkin
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006
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    As an aside, how many of you guys check your designs in Opera, or consider it a major browser?

    Check in it, yes.
    Consider it a major browser? Oh hell no.
    • CommentAuthorPettyRider
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006
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    Same here. I check in it, don't consider it a major browser (of course, that depends a lot on demographics. I might reconsider if the site in question was aimed at a techy crowd).

    So I think the way to treat it goes: Does the design look exactly like I invisioned in Opera? No. Is it legible? Sure. Case closed.
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      CommentAuthorSpookyET
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006
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    Opera is the most CSS standards compliant browser on Windows. It's far more compliant than Firefox. Opera may not be a major browser on desktop globally, but it has a high usage in Europe, and it is the major browser on mobile phones.
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      CommentAuthorSpookyET
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2006 edited
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    There is a dev who is creating something like Expanse for free, but I can't remember the link. It a tag line of a simple, standards compliant CMS for purist designers.
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    Yeah, spooky. Opera displays a lot more things correctly than firefox, and just generally, Opera has much more features, so its better.

    It has a built in mail client, notes, bittorrent, mouse gestures (EXTREMELY quick and useful) and everything else that firefox has.
    • CommentAuthormista3
    • CommentTimeAug 13th 2006 edited
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    I just checked out the demo. It's not very inspiring, they should have put some better content in, and not been so half-hearted about it, eg:

    Big news
    Big news, gangster. Big ups to you.
    Booyakasha.


    But, I like the fact it handles text and image content in the same interface.

    Wordpress can't do this kind of thing - I always have to bolt on something like Zenphoto and spend ages trying to integrate it with Wordpress. So, a plus point for Expanse!
  12.  permalink
    Hey Spooky ...

    If you ever come across that CMS, I'd be stoked if you drop in the URL.
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      CommentAuthorkayloe
    • CommentTimeAug 14th 2006
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    Try not to use Joomla if possible.
    It doesn't validate, and you have to hack, hack, hack to get it to look how you want...
    Plus, the way content is organised is not too intuitive, so that means some serious eduction for the end user.

    Expanse actually looks quite good in comparison.
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    I just installed Joomla and the homepage validated for xhtml transitional. Have you checked the most recent version?
    • CommentAuthorMatt
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2006
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    I am still a fan of wordpress... you can basically make wordpress dress you in the morning. If you look how they set up the database, besides their capitalization convention, it is beautiful and you can write code to make anthing you want happen from getting all the images from a category that have been uploaded to creating a thumbnail of each person's webpage that registered and making a user page. From some help from my co-workers plugin you can even have complete control over your podcast (and make it fully complient with itunes [which was a pain to get right, but we finally did]) http://www.nathanm.com/wordpress-plugins/.

    Wordpress is easily customized if you design in a way where elements can easily be removed/added without affecting the design negativly.

    Just my 2 cents.
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      CommentAuthoranblik
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006 edited
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    xaraya, plone, > b2evolution, movabletype, wordpress and somewhat drupal can be utilize to create a website with web standards. Question is, is it possible to get a CMS where:

    01. One installation of CMS will work for multiple website with different looks and content? One ADMIN, multiple clients (websites).
    02. Purely Liquid theme (DIV/CSS). Our designers are very creative and knows css well, but I don’t want any restrictions while designing a website for my clients. It should be semantic.
    03. Accessible / Usable: Follows WAI AAA priority level guidelines. Each and every single pages within a websites is validated not only from 3WC XHTML/CSS Validator but also from Cynthia, bobby etc.
    04. Automatic insertion of Acronym within a paragraph.
    05. Proper use of breadcrumb.
    06. A use of SIFR, to save time creating header images.
    07. Content First, menu right.
    08. Meaningful METAs, TITLE and HTML URLs.
    09. Blog work like Wordpress/movabletype
    10. Forum work like getvanilla.com
    11. Ecommerce work like karova.com
    12. User Management/ Membership work like amember.com
    13. Contextual intelligent Advertisement works like adpeeps.com
    14. STATS should work like what google Analytics offers or MINT.
    15. Theme should be entirely css based. No use of smarty. Also where I can create any number of column (1, 2, 3, 4...column) and any number of rows (1,2,3..rows).
    16. Javascript/AJAX: No use of this feature due to security, rather a Server side validation in place?
    17. Website can be viewed EQUALLY same in any browser IE, FF, OPERA, SF, KQ etc. Can be viewed same in any resolutions starts from 840x600 res. Can be viewed in any devices mobile/PDAs/browser. Can be viewed by any person (normal/special), Can be viewed in any PCs? Can be viewed equally same by color blind people ?
    18. A automated accessible/seo reciprocal Link Exchange system.
    19. ADMIN side should be accessible too. I will never mind if Admin consist of TABLE tags but it should be accessible using headers/sort atrributes..
    a. Easily convert one website to XHTML Transitional or XHTML Strict with a click.
    b. Allow/block users by region
    c. Multi-lingual interface (utf-8)
    d. Users Group (Many Admins, many moderators, many webmasters, users).
    e. Apart from CMS modules a option to create static pages like About Us, Privacy, Terms & conditions with proper METAs and HTML URLs?
    f. A powerful feedback/Contact us feature with webmail kind of features. (messaging system). Also from client side Feedback form, a mail should be forwarded to the admin who is assigned within those Areas.
    g. A powerful RTE Editor.
    h. MODULES can be added with easy with many BLOCKS?

    I am not interested in taxonomy, node system, I am a layman, and I know nothing about WWW. I am extremely busy person. I want those features mentioned above. Anyone please help me to find out one? Sorry for being so direct.

    Thanks in advance.
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      CommentAuthorvuurvos
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006 edited
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    I am also interested which CMS could fulfill this list.
    The user friendly smooth CMS's at this moment I heard from are for example:
    expression engine, text pattern, wordpress, CMS made simple. I use phpwcms myself which is very user
    friendly. Problem is that these CMS's are very smooth, good looking and user friendly,
    but dont have the masss and power for demanding designers/developers.

    Perhaps typo3, e107, drupal, civicspace offer more functionality. Typo3 seems to be a hell for someone to work with. Maybe I will be going to drupal/civicspace. Anyone experience with these?
    • CommentAuthorPettyRider
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006
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    I personally haven't dealt with any of these CMSs, other than Wordpress, but shouldn't the front-end of any CMS be completely unhindered by the backend management?
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      CommentAuthorSpookyET
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006
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    WordPress is not a CMS; it's a blog.
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      CommentAuthorvuurvos
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006
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    Mabye the CMS award will show us which CMSs are best at this moment:
    cms award
    • CommentAuthorMatt
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006
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    "WordPress is not a CMS; it's a blog."

    -A blog is a CMS... it manages content.
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      CommentAuthoranblik
    • CommentTimeAug 20th 2006
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    I am looking for the best CMS, not necessary it should be open source as listed in the cms award. hotbanana is somewhat we liked but cfml based.
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      CommentAuthorSpookyET
    • CommentTimeAug 26th 2006
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    This is not the CMS I mentioned above that I cannot find. However, it's moron-proof: http://radiantcms.org/

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