September 7, 200916 yr I currently use CMS Made Simple and Wordpress as CMS options for websites (and a developer for any custom CMS needs). Both have their pros and cons. CMS Made Simple is extremely flexible for layouts, and there are hundreds of plugins, you can do pretty much anything you want with it... but it's not as intuitive as Wordpress and the plug-ins are not as good, and they generally require a lot of modifications. It also requires a lot of explanation for how things work a lot of the time. Wordpress however is not really a CMS although it can be used to do entire sites, I find it's not very flexible at all when it comes to layouts... but I love the plugins (especially ones like NextGen Gallery, shopping cart, Twitter tools, etc) and the way the back end works as it require little explanation. Is there a happy medium out there? I know there are a lot of open source CMS's out there, just wondered which one to conquer next?
September 7, 200916 yr I find the sandbox theme is good for customising layout in WP, it comes almost empty of CSS and lets you style it however you want. Took me a little bit to get my head round it tho Probably haven't answered the question there... there's Joomla and Drupal, but i haven't tried them yet, I'm sure many of the bods on the forum have tho
September 7, 200916 yr Author Yeah sorry I should've explained... I know how to custom theme a WP or CMSMS site to whatever design it needs to look like, but I'm looking for a CMS that combines flexibility, brilliant plugins and intuitive backend use.
September 7, 200916 yr You know what I'm going to say - Expressionengine - once you get the "EEureka moment" you never look back
September 7, 200916 yr but I'm looking for a CMS that combines flexibility, brilliant plugins and intuitive backend use. why not build your own? it was the best decision I made and now my cms works how I want it too and as a bonus I can now charge customers a little more to use it
September 7, 200916 yr Take a look at modx, very nice interface (once you got used to it) and outputs nice code!
September 8, 200916 yr Author Actually I started looking at MODx - what are the plugins like? BlueDreamer - And I want to try EE actually might give that a whirl - is it really worth paying that bit extra for when there are so many open source solutions? gav - I'd love to but I know nothing about PHP and wouldn't even know where to start!
September 8, 200916 yr "is it really worth paying that bit extra" yes it is. Expression Engine is brilliant. For the sake of £150 you get a CMS that is really flexible, does not need to be hacked to pieces to make a flexible data structure and is more secure (WP: 89 security updates in 6 years, EE....2) - plus you get free tech support for a year. Just pass the cost on to the client.
September 8, 200916 yr Actually I started looking at MODx - what are the plugins like? BlueDreamer - And I want to try EE actually might give that a whirl - is it really worth paying that bit extra for when there are so many open source solutions? I've never used ModX but it's a very flexible CMS, Scott S knows a lot about it so hopefully he will enlighten you soon There's nothing wrong with free Open Source at all (don't forget commercial paid systems can be Open Source as well), but I always believe in giving my customers the best possible solution for their site and budget. If a "free" solution fits then I'll use it, but early on in my 10+ years of building sites, I soon found that having direct developer support not only gives me confidence that if I have a serious problem then it will be fixed, but also my customers as well. Typically, with free OS software, if you have a problem there is no guarantee of support, and if a site stops working for some reason your client will want it fixed asap. As sunwuking pointed out, £150 for an EE site licence is really small beer for something that's flexible, has full developer support, and most importantly an impressive security record. Plus the more EE licences you buy the bigger discount you get EE's not a solution for everything but well worth having on your "arsenal" of web building tools.
September 8, 200916 yr why not build your own? it was the best decision I made and now my cms works how I want it too and as a bonus I can now charge customers a little more to use it Definitely worth doing if you have the coding knowledge to do it but a lot of people don't unless they are very advanced in PHP or ASP. I'm currently working in a web & graphic design office that has a custom built CMS and it's brilliant because it's made to allow the client to do just about everything themselves with a site once it has been built without having to send emails or ring to get updates made.
September 9, 200916 yr Author Some great advice there guys... I will give MODx another bash, I know Scott S is the MODx expert I was waiting for him to post With ExpressEngine - are you able to have a full free demo to play around with to learn how to do custom templates and try out the plugins etc? I know it says 'Free Core Version' but does that limit it in any way?
September 9, 200916 yr EE's free Core version is free to download and use so install it and have a play It is a limited compared to the full versions but all plugins, extensions and 3rd paty modules will work (with the exception of "member" related things, custom sql queries, moblog etc), but certainly nothing stopping you from building even a large complex site.
September 9, 200916 yr Nice one, hopefully I'll be able to get stuck in this week! Thanks No probs... I'm actually building a site for a guitarist using EE core, she'll be able to do all the usual stuff like add news, photos, update her bio, add links and so on, and also including a simple shopping cart so she can sell her CD's.
September 9, 200916 yr Author Ooh okay - if you have any examples of EE sites you've done would love to see what they look like and what the plugins are like (PM me if you like)
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