A Good Content Management System?

[[subc]]

Well, since I am a little tired of having to use my own computer at home to update my website (with the slick notepad and dweaver), I finally found out about portals and content management systems...

I have looked briefly a few and I found out that the most populars are PHP-Nuke, Post-Nuke, eZ publish (the one I was trying to use), and Mambo Open source.

 

I really have very little knowledge about php, but I already succesfully setup 2 CMS (mambo and ezpublish). I had to uninstall mambo because I found it to be a little complicated to use, and Im about to do the same with ezpublish along with its database.

 

I need a content management system to create some sort of online magazine.

Right now my website is about tutorials, and I write an html page for evey tutorial I make (and edit the tutorial list page too), but I want to create a magazine where not only I am able to write, but also collaborators.

However, I would like to revise their publications before sending them live into the website.

Of course, I would like to do all this online, sothe result page is generated on the fly.

 

Any suggestions of a CMS (or better to use a portal?) for an online magazine?

thanks in advance.

[chadf]

I've played with Mambo and Xoops. Of the 2, Xoops was much better. I just wish I could find a good use for it.

[borfast]

First of all, stay away from PHP-Nuke and Post-Nuke. They'll suck your brain out. I really dislike them.

 

I haven't tried eZPublish enough to say whether it's good or not but from what I've seen, it seems a bit messy.

 

Mambo is pretty cool but lacks some functionalities. I tried it when version 4 came out, I think and it was really great. Perhaps now there are more plugins available to fill the gaps.

 

I found Xoops pretty cool as well but there was something there I didn't like... I still don't know what, since I didn't play enough time with it to form an opinion.

 

Chadf, what makes you say Xoops is better? Maybe you can spare me the time of installing them both to compare them

[TCH-Dick]

Try php nuke, it is included in your cpanel under additional scripts. i use it on my site and it is very easy to use.

[[subc]]

MikeH says " Try php nuke, it is included in your cpanel under additional scripts"

borfast says "stay away from PHP-Nuke and Post-Nuke. They'll suck your brain out"

chadf says "Xoops was much better"

 

now, maybe your comments are based on your own experience and not because somebody said it was or it wasnt good.

If so, then I would like to know why you think that way about the systems.

 

I have my little list of what I need to do:

 

-------------------

Online Magazine:

 

+ A bunch of articles writers (I need levels of permissions for accounts, like: normal account can read, writer account can send articles, editor account can publish/un-publish articles, admin can delete/add/modify content)

+ An editor (that reviews articles before publish)

+ An admin (of course) to delete or add or modify content

+ Ability to post more than 1 image with each article

+ Ability to costumize font (like in mambo) for articles (bold, italic)

+ Ability to publish/un-publish/archive articles

+ Forum included (if possible) where the web account works in forum (without need for re-registering)

+ Maybe private messanging

+ Banner system (bottom, top or sides... or all)

+ Maybe a calendar for member

+ Maybe polls

+ Guest book

+ When article is displayed, abiliti for reader to either print/email/rate or comment the article (registered users). Any or all of those features.

 

by the way, this is for me (small site) and also for my girlfriend's company (hundreds of articles and close to 100 writers)... and Im trying to convince the owner to change their current hosting to totalchoicehosting Naughty

 

many thanks again.

[TCH-Dick]

PHPNuke can do all of that except the calendar with the basic install, the calendar is an easy add on.

 

I like nuke simply because it is easy to use, I run a hardware review website and I have several staff members that help with the site, you can set up Admins with different levels of access, So if you wanted to set someone up with JUST the ability to post new articles you can, if you want to set up someone that can post articles, approve articles, create new polls...you can.

 

It includes a forum and private mesage, you can download a theme for it to fit just about any type of site.

[borfast]

I didn't like any of the *Nukes because their default templates are ugly.

OK, I'm just kidding but they are indeed really ugly

 

I agree that they are easy to use but I didn't like them from a technical point of view.

They're probably the oldest CMS's around and so they're very mature and have lots of followers (= support), plugins and templates but their insides are just too ugly for my likings. If you're not a programmer, there's no point in explaining why I don't like them. Even if I wanted to explain, I can't remember most of the stuff I didn't like, anyway...

 

But if you want my advice, I think you should try them all.

Make a list of things you think you'll do regullarly or find important to have in your website. Then try them all in each of the CMS's and decide which one is best for you. Be advised that this is a tedious task. I've done it myself and by the end of the first one, you'll just want to get it done without any more hassle and you'll want to just pick the one that looks best. At least that's what happened to me.

[[subc]]

thank you very much to all for your replies.

I have already tried mambo, but it needed more features. And yes, ez publish is messy. Now since we all have php-nuke pre-installed, I am going to try that one (I had to remove a previous installation this morning, since the board became unsuable after selection one of the templates... some error).

 

By the way MikeH, what version of php-nuke is pre-installed? right now I can see the newest one is 6.9, but not very many people like it.

 

Xoops loosk nice, and I hope is as easy to use as phpnuke.

 

thanks all.

[TCH-Dick]

6.0 is the version that is installed from cPanel, If you go that route would STRONGLY recommend making sure you update with all the latests security patches.

 

doing a self install of Nuke is easy and would be the better route in my opinion. www.nukecops.com has a nice version out that includes all of the most used add ons already implemented.

[[subc]]

By the way, it was when I selected the Default Theme called 'Slash' or 'SlashOcean' when the code give me an error on line 300+ pf the mainfile.php (or something) and I couldn't repair it (since I was not given much info about the error itself).

 

Now, the database is a MySql database... I was wondering, is it possible to use it with other systems to retrieve information? or only by using php-nuke?

Could I delete one php-nuke installation and keep the database to use it with a new installation? (just in case a similar error happens again).

 

Can I create my own themes for the site? (if so, where do I go to learn) or are there other themes available for download somewhere?

 

many thanks !

[TCH-Dick]

You should be able to use the same database, and yes you can create your own themes (I've never done it but its possible) You can also download thems at 100's of websites www.nukecops.com that I mentioned above is one of them. If you decide to self install I'd recommend nukecops version 6.5 bundle (it is phpnuke version 6.7 but has a lot of add ons and is more secure in my opinion.

[[subc]]

hello MikeH... are you talking about the 'Nuke Cops PHP-Nuke 6.5 Enhanced Bundle' ? if so, I think I will try to install it myself woooot

(if I can't I can always do the automatic install from main servers).

 

thanks for the tip.

[[subc]]

wops, I posted a little to late. I can see your reply now. thanks.

[chadf]

Why do I like Xoops better than Mambo? Well first of all it was easier to install (for me). I had a problem getting Mambo to run initially and there was very little in the way of support on their web site. Xoops was much simpler and was more automated than Mambo.

 

But the main thing for me was that Xoops seems to have better support. I found their web site much more helpful. They both produced nice looking pages, but my initial impressions were just much better with Xoops.

 

I was kind of steering clear of PHP-Nuke and Postnuke because they look so generic and they seem like they may be a little overwhelming. That's my impression anyways. If I ever do decide to put one of them to use, I may try out some others. e107 looks decent also.

[Tony_B]

Hi,

 

I am a big fan of Mambo Open Source..i think that Mambo is the best CMS ever.

The upcomming version 4.5 is going to be a big hit.

 

I have tried PHP-Nuke, PostNuke, Xarya, Xoops and they all have great modules and templates..but they do not beat Mambo

 

There is a good documentation how to install mambo and i do not think that the support is bad at all.

 

Regards

Tony

[chadf]

I'd like to add that my opinions on Mambo and Xoops are based on very limited experience. Others with more extensive knowledge could probably offer better advice. I just felt like I should throw in my opinion since I just installed both Mambo and Xoops this week.

[pelon]

Personally I like Xoops more. it's easier to convert to Chinese (Hi to all from Hong Kong!! ), and sites using PHP-Nuke look somehow very similar...

 

Haven't tried Mambo but tried ezpublish last year....I don't know....I just couldn't stand it and made it vanish 1 hour after I installed it....

 

By the way, which one do you all think offers a better file downloading/sharing module? I want to try but have not much experience too.

[surefire]

I don't know if this is still an issue...

 

But the reason I steered clear of ready-to-use CMS systems was that the dynamic urls seemed to be at a disadvantage when it came to getting Google and other search engines to spider. As I said, this may no longer be an issue, but it was for some time.

 

Dynamic urls those long stings with ?&= in them like www.yoursite.com/default?id=2&topic=3

 

The issue was big enough for me to start builing my own content management system based on my own needs. It's certainely not perfect, but it taught me a lot.

 

You learn a lot of php scripting when you have to build it yourself.

 

If I were going to build my own CMS system from scratch, I'd probably build it based on a object oriented system like SMARTY or something similar. But basically, I'd still be building from scratch.

[[subc]]

thank you all for your replies.

After Installing/Un-installing/Trying Mambo, eZPublish and php-nuke, I think Im going to install Xoops now (at least Im going to try).

 

It makes sense what surefire said, but I am no coder, so I must rely on ready-to-use CMS to get the job done (as long as costumizing is not out of my hands).

 

great support ont his board. Thumbs Up

[chadf]

After playing around with Xoops some more, I decided that I could never be too happy with any of the CMS scripts. I just don't like being so confined. It's kind of like how I started out using Frontpage, but I had to abandon it after a very short period of time because it limits you so much.

 

Well I decided that all I really needed anyway was an easier way to add content to my site. It took about 2 days, but I managed to convert my site to a PHP/MySQL database driven site, with an interface script for adding content - and it wasn't that hard. I was even also able to keep my original site design. In fact, visitors to my site will have no clue that anything changed.

 

I know it can get a lot more complicated, but if you have some spare time I think you would find that you can create your site exactly how you want it.

 

But then again, spare time can be a hard thing to come by.

[stranger]

It seems you dont know what the eZ publish is in reality. The eZ publish is the best open-source content management framework in php. Have you ever looked at eZ publish powered sites? How can you compare the eZ publish with nukes/xoops/mambos. These are simply blogs! By the way the best blog for me is drupal.

[borfast]

Stranger, why do you say they are just blogs? They all have a plugin/modules architecture and allow much more functionalities than a blog right out of the box.

As I said previously, I haven't played enough with eZpublish but I found it quite confusing and I guess I just gave up on it. I think I'll try it again just to make sure...

[stranger]

Yes, you right, eZ complex but powerfull

[colorado]

Any TYPO3 CMS users out there? I just installed it, after installing e-XOOPS, PHP-NUKE, and MOVABLE TYPE. I'd like this thread to continue because the jury is still out for me. TYPO3 is EXTREMELY well-documented and seems very flexible. But the learning curve seems a little steep, which is OK with me as I see my investment in time paying off in the long run anyway.

 

TYPO3 looks promising, so if anyone else out there has tried this one out I'd love your thoughts, and would be happy to offer mine.

 

CHEERS!

[TCH-Rick]

I installed Typo3 to see how it would work for a client and have installed it on my own site as well. I would agree that it seems quite powerful but does take some time to learn. I have not had the time to play with it. One thing I do like is that you can load the admin panel and then edit directly on the page. It looks very promising for some projects I would like to do later.

[stranger]

They don't support png, only gif. That's the main reason i don't use typo3

[xGrendel]

Of course, I'm still learning the ways of all these different CMS systems. I can wholeheartedly agree with borfast that PHP-Nuke's default templates (and even some of the custom template designs) are somewhat ugly.

 

My experience with PHP-Nuke was somewhat good. I like the ease of use of implementing and controling content display. I only used two templates, but IE 6.0 and 5.5 never quite rendered the page correctly with the default template. The header image never displayed. Of course, everything looked beautiful in Netscape, my preferred browser for the most part.

 

I can see infinite possibilities for Mambo as it develops. But, if you just want to put up a quick site and publish, you are a bit more limited in choices of plug-ins and modules using the developer version. Now, before I get stomped on for telling you to use the developer edition - (from my understanding) the whole system was re-written with new code, so it's functionality may be a little different than what most are used to in older versions.

 

The other positive note on Mambo that get's me excited is the integration of osCommerce that is under development.

 

Of course, you could always build your own cms system and utilize some other free stuff like movabletype to control your content. As much as I love movabletype for it's content control, it's only free for personal use. Commercial use and use for commercial development will cost you a chunk of change.