Anyone out there using an open source CMS for a website? If so, what? How are you getting on with it?
Alison, don't you use E107? What's it like?
Edit: I edited this to add a few tags (Kristin)
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Anyone using a CMS?
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 Harry Flatters |
Anyone using a CMS? |
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Posts: 166 21 Jan, 2007 01:07 |
Last Edited By: Kristin 24 Jan, 2007 19:54.
Edited 3 times.
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Ben |
#1 | |||
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Posts: 86 23 Jan, 2007 13:46 |
I've been writing a CMS since May 2005, but it's unlikely to be open source. I used to code my web site in Notepad and I spent more time messing with
the code than putting content on the site. Now I can quickly and easily do design changes and add content really easily. Using a CMS is definitely the way
forward.
Let me know if you'd like to give it a try (private message please). I can help you set it up. |
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alison |
#2 | |||
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Posts: 3367 24 Jan, 2007 11:41 Goddess of Mischief
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yep, the ezdesign site runs of e107. I do a lot of work with joomla (ex mambo) too, and would have changed ezdesign over to joomla, but our e107 is so heavily
customised, that I'd need chris to learn joomla then re-do most of his customisation to suit!!
Here are a few of my joomla clients: http://www.helsenett.no (this is heavily customised too), http://cbp-uk.com and http://www.paintcrete.co.uk/ |
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Harry Flatters |
#3 | |||
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Posts: 166 24 Jan, 2007 19:14 |
I've landed myself with doing a website as well as a forum. CMS seems the way to go, and I've looked at Open Source CMS and CMS Matrix, but I don't really know enough to be able to determine what I need! Might be a little in at the deep end but I've got to learn sometime... Before I looked I expected paintcrete to be some sort of coloured concrete... |
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alison |
#4 | |||
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Posts: 3367 25 Jan, 2007 12:36 Goddess of Mischief
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if you're doing a website, and you don't mind spending money, I recommend moveabletype. It has a free personal edition, so you can try it out too. But
it's the most flexible and clean system I've used, and I've used it for a bunch of sites too. It was actually a blog program, but you can do so
much with it.
If you need a website that's a portal - ie, you need the whole module thing so you can have uploads sections, members sections, latest posts/uploads/member etc on the main page, then e107 and joomla are what you're looking at. I've never used it, but I've heard good things about drupal. Of course, you could always try and make a deal with Ben :D |
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Harry Flatters |
#5 | |||
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Posts: 166 25 Jan, 2007 18:45 |
It's going to be for the same car club that I'm doing the forum for. As the nearest thing to a techy person they've got (or the only one daft enough to volunteer) I get to sort it out, and I think it'll be valuable learning, but I haven't done a website before in any format let alone CMS! It'll have to be portal type, I think. It'll need relatively static pages, but it'll also certainly need a members section, file downloads (mainly pdfs), gallery, possibly response forms, etc. etc., customisable, fully skinnable, etc. I was going to go open source simply to keep the costs down for a small club. Once I've decided what way to go I'll no doubt stumble through the way I have with the forum, but there seem to be so many CMSs out there and - as I said above - it's a job to know what I need; it seems almost as though you have to have done one first to get the knowledge to do one! CMS Made Simple is well spoken of, Exponent looks good but fairly raw yet, Drupal seems popular, and the ones you've mentioned above, Etomite, one or two others - but I guess they've all got their fans! |
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alison |
#6 | |||
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Posts: 3367 26 Jan, 2007 12:29 Goddess of Mischief
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One of the things in its favour for joomla is that it has a VERY easy to follow installation process. It takes you through steps and explains the technical
aspects very well.
But the only way to know if it's right for you is to go to opensourcecms.com and try the admin pages for a whole bunch. I suggest you check out joomla, phpnuke, drupal, e107 and XOOPS. But if you can, check out all of the ones listed there. If the admin panel just looks confusing, then move on! But also read the comments from others. I'd be interested if there were any that you found that were excellent, that I'd not looked at. |
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Ben |
#7 | |||
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Posts: 86 26 Jan, 2007 14:12 |
You can make a deal with me if you like - and that offer is extended to you as well, Alison - in fact anyone who wants to give it a try. My CMS is pre-release
though, and a big update is in heavy development, so it might be better to wait for that to be finished and any bugs fixed etc.
However, I'd be happy to install a demo of the latest stable version for anyone who wants to give it a try. |
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Harry Flatters |
#8 | |||
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Posts: 166 26 Jan, 2007 19:46 |
OK Boss, I'll report back! May take you up on that Ben... |
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alison |
#9 | |||
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Posts: 3367 27 Jan, 2007 00:11 Goddess of Mischief
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I am currently working with a programmer building a bespoke cms for a client, so I'll let you see that when the site goes live. It's been the bane of
my life for the past 5 months.
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Ben |
#10 | |||
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Posts: 86 28 Jan, 2007 13:34 |
Jeez, 5 months on a bespoke CMS? Not saying I'd expect it to be any less (more, actually) but I bet the client is paying a bit for that!!
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alison |
#11 | |||
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Posts: 3367 29 Jan, 2007 10:23 Goddess of Mischief
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oh no, the CMS hasn't taken 5 months, the overall job has. There was a good three months solid on the 80 page prospectus to start with. The bane of my
life isn't the CMS or the programmer, it's the client. It would have been nice if they'd checked their course copy before providing it, as I had to
to through and make pages and pages of type corrections after it was all laid out. Not spelling corrections in most cases, but poor grammar and changes of
wording. It was very slow going! The print stuff kept coming back to haunt me, with 1 reprint (not because of something I'd done, thankfully!) and the
actual website would have launched 2 weeks ago if it had kept to schedule. But their IT guy took over a month to provide some basic database settings to my
programmer, and now we are waiting on him again.
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Harry Flatters |
#12 | |||
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Posts: 166 11 Feb, 2007 21:39 |
Ben, be interested to have a look. Had a wade through open source CMS, and made a shortlist very crudely just on my impression of the standard of each and the comments made on OSCMS and elsewhere about them. Ended up with: Website Baker - very easy, very simple; probably too simple & not enough features, but if you just want to do a nice straightforward basic site it looks good Joomla - Looked good but wanted me to log in at every opportunity & some in between, felt a bit bloated / slow Exponent - looks as if it will be a cracker but very slow, not obvious how you do a lot of stuff easily. e107 - Not sure about this one... Drupal - nice and straightforward, lots of modules etc. but no WYSIWYG editor, and by the looks of the Drupal forums not likely to be a reliable one either. CMS Made Simple - looks like a possibility Etomite - not quite straightforward but could be good... Now for some more in depth stuff... |
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Ben |
#13 | |||
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Posts: 86 20 Feb, 2007 10:20 |
Sorry for the slow reply, Harry. Try Subdreamer. I will find a place to install my system where you can have a play with it.
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Ben |
#14 | |||
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Posts: 86 22 Feb, 2007 08:11 |
by the looks of the Drupal forums not likely to be a reliable one either
I haven't used Drupal but it seems to have been around for a while, so I thought it might be a good system. What was it about the forums that put you off? In developing my own CMS, one of the most important things I've come to realise is that you can't build a system that will suit everyone. |
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Harry Flatters |
#15 | |||
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Posts: 166 22 Feb, 2007 19:31 |
I wasn't really expecting a reply, I think - at this stage anyway.
It wasn't Drupal itself or the forums, in fact Drupal looks like a very good system; but to me one of the points of a CMS is having a WYSIWYG editor so it's easy for end users to update their pages without having to get into back endy stuff - Drupal doesn't appear to have a native one. Looking at discussions on the Drupal forums the ones that are currently integrated into it don't do so perfectly and are buggy / not reliable when used with Drupal. I have to provide at least two major areas of the site that will be updated regularly by non-techy types - I can't expect them to get into writing and laying out a page in HTML, and it also seems to me if you've got to do that it removes much of the CMSs advantage - you may as well code the whole site. It's a shame, because Drupal looks otherwise very competent. |
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alison |
#16 | |||
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Posts: 3367 22 Feb, 2007 22:23 Goddess of Mischief
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Can you integrate tinyMC with drupal?
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Harry Flatters |
#17 | |||
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Posts: 166 23 Feb, 2007 19:35 |
Isn't that a rap artist?
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alison |
#18 | |||
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Posts: 3367 24 Feb, 2007 00:43 Goddess of Mischief
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heehee!
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Harry Flatters |
#19 | |||
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Posts: 166 24 Feb, 2007 13:34 |
More seriously, the ones mentioned for use with Drupal are TinyMCE, FCKEditor, and HTMLArea, but it sounds as though none of them are without their problems.
If I try Drupal out though I may give one a go.
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Harry Flatters |
#20 | |||
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Posts: 166 16 Jul, 2007 07:42 |
Hi all & particularly Ben, sorry for the delayed reply.
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