Web Building

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

ifpeople.net — Tue, 16 May 2006 23:14:00 GMT

Hi,

Just a quick post on this forum, as a lot of CMS's come up that for me have some red flags associated.

Open Source and Free Software are great tools, but you really have to be careful regarding security. Open Source provides a means of quality control, but it doesn't gaurantee it!

We recently were contacted by someone using Xoops, an open source php/mysql system, that had 4 sites hacked and had lost _all_ their data! This was a bug in Xoops!!

There have been many, many PHP security issues over the years and continue to be...so, even though there are tons of options, low-cost hosting, etc it can end up costing you more than you think.

We have been using the Python-based applications Zope and Plone for years and never had the security problems experienced with PHP apps we have worked with (Mambo, WordPress, ezPublish, etc). Plone out-of-the-box handles most if not all of common non-profit needs for editing content, managing users, dynamic features, etc. There is a list of sites that use Plone here that can be helpful (broken up by sector).

Anyway, just a word of caution regarding open source, especially PHP-based, CMSs.

Regards,

Chris

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

atlanticwebfitters — Tue, 16 May 2006 17:41:00 GMT

I'll throw my hat into the ring. If might like to try Portal Software, go to http://atlanticwebfitters.ca We have demos online for you to try... and support our clients.

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

sleepy — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 05:29:00 GMT

Hi, i'm new here, i would just like to ask for help from all the good members here. i do a weekly newsletter for our church from srories and articles from our church members and print them everyweekend just in time for aour sunday mass, i would like to reach more members by having a website that is just like a newspaper website, although all sources or access will be my responsibility, but i'm not technically capable, can you guys help me with any resources or recommendations of what CMS product i could get and would really be helpful for me? a news content CMS is what i believe the call it... i'm also on a really tight budget and may shoulder the software cost, but if anybody knows a free system like this could be very helpful to us. thanks.

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

overclocker_wiffen — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:10:00 GMT

Hi Manu,

The two CMS systems I've used are Joomla (a spin off from Mambo) and EPiX. Both are pretty good in terms of features and it depends what langauage you want to use for scripting. Joomla uses PHP which has good support, can be run on most servers but is not type safe. you have to pay if you want to compile your PHP to run faster. EPiX uses Java so you can use JSP and compiled Java class. Java is type safe so you can't hack things up like you can in PHP so it will help you make less mistakes.

Hope you are able to make a choice.

Tim

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

josmac — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 23:57:00 GMT

Hi,

Obviously this is a topic with more than a few opinions! I want to suggest that you take a look at Textpattern as a simple, lightweight, and tremendously user friendly CMS.

Textpattern is aimed at writers--people who want to get content up. But here is where it gets interesting--it is also a very design friendly CMS. Simply put Textpattern sites can and do look very nice. (To my eye, many CMSs do not necessarily produce good looking sites.)

Textpattern saves users from knowing html! It uses a simpified tagging system called Textile that is just great to work with.

Like most Open Source CMSs it is based on PHP and mySQL (and to set it up you really do not need to know much more than that these are available on your server.)

Textpattern's home is : http://www.textpattern.com
Textpattern resources are located at: http://www.textpattern.org
Textpattern documentation is at: http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Textpattern community forum is at: http://forum.textpattern.com/index.php

I don't work for these guys--but I have put together several sites using Textpattern: http://www.aginnovations.net

Good Luck!

Joseph

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

yoleonard — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:33:00 GMT

For my kids new charter school we went with Etomite (www.etomite.org). Very simple to use, and easy to hand off the future maintenance of it to non-technical users. See www.navigatorpointeacademy.org

Lots of snippets that can add functionality without a lot of programming knowledge required.

Uses PHP and MySQL, and runs great on simple inexpensive web hosting.

Roger K.
www.GimmeMyDomains.com

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

Susan_Tenby — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 20:32:00 GMT

If you have questions about what is permissable, in these forums, please look at the Community Standards. Number five states, Message boards and billboards are two different things. Please refrain from posting unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or any other forms of solicitation. You are not allowed to spam or to offer for sale any goods, services, promotional advertisements anywhere on the forums.

Thanks,

Susan (as listmom)

ps- Just curious, from a UI perspective, did you not see the link to the community standards?

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

lpennock — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:42:00 GMT

Immediate Disclaimer: I work for Sitemason, a small company based in Tennessee, so I am biased, but we have a CMS solution used by many non-profits. We are completely web based so there is no software to install and no need to know any HTML or PHP or anything like that; all you need to manage the site is a web browser. Prices start at $30 a month which includes hosting, and if you want to take a look at some of the other non-profits we work with, see the list on this page:

http://www.sitemason.com/clients.html

If you are interested in more information you can get in touch with us through that site off the "About Us" page as well.

note: If it's not okay to make posts like this, i apologize, but I looked around and didn't' find any policy against it.

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

antharia — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:29:00 GMT

How about a price that is based on your NPO's annual operating budget. Pricing starts at under 10k. Built on PHP/MySQL, fully hosted, fully supported?

You can learn more at our site www.antharia.com. We are the system you see behind Planned Parenthood's SaveRoe and soon to launch 2006 CompassPoint redesign. We work with tiny NPO's like www.nwhn.org to United Way.

Let me know if i can answer any questions or set up a demo.

-------------------------------------
--
Jordan Dossett, ePMT | Creative Director
jordan@antharia.com
Antharia // More than just Web.
Studio: 240-296-3424 ext. 13
Fax: 240-524-1356
www.antharia.com // www.anthariauniversity.com

Development + Design + Training // Antharia is woman owned.

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

dunxd — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:20:00 GMT

The number one thing to look for when choosing a CMS is the documentation - many development teams of the most popular CMS out there seem to treat documentation as an afterthought, failing to understand that their terribly clever systems have to be used by other people. Unfortunately, these tend to be the CMSs that offer the most features.

Without decent documentation you will find yourself running around countless web discussion forums - this may be ok for the person setting up the site, but for the people who will be adding content you need something with help built into the system. I can't say exactly which ones have this, but I'd bet that this will narrow your choice down to a very small number!

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

benfellows — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:29:00 GMT

----original message----

I am a volunteer for healthwrights trying to implement a system where people from around the world can update a website with stories of helping people in developing countries. i need a content management system that is capable of letting a writer input a story, then an editor approve the story if the editor likes it.

HotcakesCMS is useful for this. You can edit at will and then hide articles or pages until they are approved. See it here: Content Management System home page

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 04:48:00 GMT

Hi Marc

I use Xoops and I find it excellent. The forum is hugely helpful and response to questions is very quick. I am currently being helped with designing a website using pure css. When I say helped I mean I have had very little experience with css and people are encouraging me and helping me to understand its use. This means that I get to design my own website how I want it! Very useful.

Rich

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

victorsapar — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 02:51:00 GMT

hi marc,

mambo (mamboserver.com) can accomplish what you want (and more) with your site. its so flexible that you can design and structure your website any way you want. and yes, you can enter new content in an online form similar to what you've used to type your message in this forum. no html knowledge required. if you can manage to use a webmail service (yahoo, etc.) then you can readily upload content with mambo (with proper privileges of course). want to have unique design for each site you host? using multiple templates is the key.

i must admit though that in order to freely modify mambo you must be fairly knowledgeable with graphics design, html and css, among others.

you can opt however to have someone set it up for you. there are a lot out there who can do this for you. find one that fits your budget.

i live in a third world country. our fees will prove cheaper if you're based in the states or europe. besides, we work with non-profits primarily. (sorry for the plug.)

vik sapar
freelance ict consultant

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

gillian75 — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:45:00 GMT

Mark,

Mambo is fairly easy to use, as with all of the CMS there is a learning curve. THe Template is actually easier than it looks. I am working on Mambo for my company as we speak. Take a look at http://ahana.org. We should have it fully functional in two (2) weeks.

Thomas

RE: Which Content Management System CMS ??

drharrison — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:58:00 GMT

We updated our website last November, and chose to go with Mambo, since it fit well with our current webhost (php, apache, mysql) and they didn't charge extra for installation and setup.

Mambo has a large active community, many 3rd party addons and the flexibility to customize the look and feel. There are also many, many templates available, some free under the GNU/GPL licensing, and some are available for a fee. it also has many template development/hosting companies/consultants to help you get started.

I was able to modify a template for our website, and I knew little about CSS and even less about PHP.

It saves us so much time and $$ updating the content now, as we used to have to send any updates to the webhost which would make them for a fee. We now can login and add/update content (cut/paste, wysiwyg editors) very quickly and at no cost.

I've been very pleased with it so far...