Php Cms

[jkpescador]

Anyone using a PHP CMS?
What is it?
Was it easy to install?
Was it easy to customize?

So far we are considering Drupal and Joomla.

[scrivener]

Re: Php Cms

I'm playing around with Joomla for a certain non-profit organization I'm part of. I really like the spirit of the development team and the community in general, although I must say that since so much of the application of a CMS is business-related, the community tends not to be quite as warm and loving as, say, the WordPress community or the phpBB community.

The learning curve is quite steep. Installation is easy, but management, once you get everything installed, requires a new vocabulary ("front page" doesn't mean anything remotely close to what you think it should mean) and the administrator's interface is confusing to navigate.

Additionally, I do most of my web-stuff with Safari, which doesn't handle JavaScript very well, and most of the administrative buttons are JavaScript.

Themes are easy to play around with -- almost as easy as with WordPress and definitely easier than with phpBB -- and there's no lack for free and for-pay themes and modifications.

I won't give you the URL just yet; I'm still working on it and besides, what I've got up isn't too far removed from what came out of the box. I'm worried about what the administrator interface is going to be like for some of my users (I have one person lined up to manage one module, or section, or whatever the heck it's called in Joomla!) and another to update another section, and neither is very experienced with this kind of thing.

I'm very interested in managing CMSes for some other non-profits and plan to spend hour upon blissful hour this Christmas break really getting up to speed.

Have you got a project in the works?

[zztype]

Re: Php Cms

I have a little bit of experience with Joomla / Mambo. If you'd like me to help with your system, let me know.
Blaine

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Php Cms

I have absolutely no idea what the heck you guys are talking about. But if it's SAP, Great Plains, or Mirror Pond then yeah let's do lunch

[glossyp]

Re: Php Cms

The better half used Mambo/Joomla to build everybodyeats.org. He built a custom php cms for hawaiidiner.com and it is so much easier to use from my point of view (I do all the content management). As Scrivener mentioned, the Joomla was super fast to install but the steep learning curve on the back end has been a real challenge. Also, Safari and Joomla don't play well together. Everything I do with the everybodyeats.org site I do in Firefox - it cut down on the frustration.

[jkpescador]

Re: Php Cms

Thanks for all the info.

This is for work. In many cases, the solution comes down to a contenet manager to help out the agencies.

I probably should set up a contenet manager for stuff outside of work as well. It would help to manage some of those projects by giving more people the ability to help out.

One friend likes Joomla. My neighbor likes Drupal.

I'll let the group know what we do. It's good to read all the experiences from sys admin to users.

Mahalo!

[pzarquon]

Re: Php Cms

Say, jkpescador, did you ever come to a decision? Scrivener, how's your site coming along?

I'm considering playing with Joomla for a site I might build for a local group. The "teaching others to use it" challenge you've mentioned is a concern, but I also expect I'd be doing most of the updating. I'm just curious about your thoughts as to its usability from the random visitor's standpoint. Is it intuitive? Does it organize your content well?

I know people are connecting other software to it, from Gallery 2 to the Simple Machines Forum package. How seamless, relatively, is it to "add goodies" to it? My instinct would be to install those sorts of things separately, but integration, if done well, could be a huge improvement.

[scrivener]

Re: Php Cms

Once I got a version of Safari that played nicely with Joomla, it was a lot more pleasant to mess around with it. However, I realized that I'd spent a lot of time choosing a default template that I liked the looks of without really thinking about what I wanted on the site.

That's kind of a problem.

As you know, one of the nice things about a good CMS is that you can run modules specific to your needs; however, since I wasn't sure just yet what my needs were, I haven't really played around with modules, either. As for existing third-party, non-Joomla compatibility, I haven't even thought about that just yet, but I am interested in linking the mainpage to a forum for registered users; that's probably down the road a bit.

Putting up random silly content helped a lot, as did lurking on the Joomla forum. I'm not too interested right now in creating a custom look -- I'd rather take a nice template and tweak it a bit.

Sorry if this isn't very helpful; I haven't been working on it as much as I said I would! Thanks for the kick in the pants, though. Gives me inspiration to get back on it.

[jkpescador]

Re: Php Cms

Sorry we chose to pay for something. I forgot what it was. I don't have a report on the status either.

[1stwahine]

Re: Php Cms

Anyone care for a Sub Sandwich? I treat! or How'd bout an Iced Mocha from StarBucks? Yummy!!!!

Auntie Lynn

[scrivener]

Re: Php Cms

I take back what I said about the latest Safari playing nicey-nice with Joomla. While the Java buttons and stuff worked fine, the WYSIWYG editor did not. I could not make any of the cosmetic and substantive changes with the editor (hyperlinks and italics, for example) with Safari. Firefox works like a dream, however.

I did purchase a third-party component called iJoomla Magazine and found the documentation quite helpful; there's an online tutorial that is quick and to-the-point, and I'm quite pleased with the aesthetic results.

I still don't have all of the Joomla-specific oddities figured out, but I'm getting them down a few at a time, each time I work on the project.

Some pleasant surprises were the image-manager (multi-level directory management) and the on-board template editor, which lets you edit the HTML and the CSS. For major editing, I still found it easier to use Dreamweaver, but being able to copy and paste into the editor, rather than upload the file via FTP, was most convenient.

I'd say I'm growing a certain fondness for Joomla, but I'm not a devotee yet. However, I find that now I enjoy playing with it, whereas in the past it was a chore. If you're in a hurry to get something up and operational and you've never used it before, I'd say this isn't your best bet. Now that I've got slightly more than a basic understanding, though, it's amazingly quick and I'm pleased with the results.

[Cameron]

Re: Php Cms

Joomla's great, easy to use, as for the wysiwyg editor not working with mac that's normal safari doesn't support any wysiwyg editors as far as i know, nor does Opera.

another great one to use is textpattern, it's a bit tricky to get started, but once you figure it out it's great

[scrivener]

Re: Php Cms

Okay, all you Joomla peeps. I've got a Joomla site almost completely ready to go, but something about the aesthetics is bugging me. Would you please click over to this site and look at the items in the left and right panels? How do I put a little space between modules here? I hate the way the items are butted right up against each other.

I'm confident in my ability to modify any of the files, but am not fluent enough in the language to figure it out myself; if you know something to do that requires editing files, I can handle it.

PS: I just realized that most of the items in the right panel are registered-only, so you won't see my problem there. In the left sidebar, however, you can totally see what I'm talking about.

[Cameron]

Re: Php Cms

It’s been awhile since i played with joomla, but if I remember correctly the templates were broken up into two parts the layout and a style sheet. To get more space in those areas you need to find the elements in the style sheet and mess with the padding property, or add it........I can't really tell what’s going on via the source... no offense to pixel bunny whom ever they may be but the coding looks pretty poor.

[scrivener]

Re: Php Cms

I know people are connecting other software to it, from Gallery 2 to the Simple Machines Forum package. How seamless, relatively, is it to "add goodies" to it? My instinct would be to install those sorts of things separately, but integration, if done well, could be a huge improvement.

Have you seen this? It's a Joomla/vBulletin bridge. I'd love it if you gave it a try and saved me the hassle! I think I'm going to install and play with JoomlaBoard on my OML site. I was going to run with the cool-looking phpBB component, but that was set up for Mambo 4.x.y or something, and with Joomla about to unleash v1.5, I'm nervous about increasing incompatibility. Are you running a forum area on your Lost site?