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Drupal for more complex things, mostly because when I found drupal it was one of the few open source CMS that wasn't built off a PHPNuke ancestry and, as such, it actually made sense to me and didn't seem like a toy. Now, it's mostly habit.
And, sometimes, for really simple or really custom things, my favorite management system is a text editor and Filezilla.
Lets see, how drupal goes here.
I think you're going about this backwards. Asking what CMS people like is generally like asking what car people like. We are in the midst of a snowstorm that's forecast to drop as much as 40" of snow, so 4-wheel drive or all-wheel drive is important to me. But it may not matter for someone who drives the streets of San Diego.
The better approach is to define your requirements and then ask which CMSes fit those.
For example, if you want excellent native image handling, that will exclude a lot of CMS - including Drupal which I, Future and BradleyT said we prefer (they're working on some improvements for version 7, but right now, it's poor).
If you want to invent new and complex content types, then Drupal and ModX will have a nice leg up on Joomla or Wordpress.
It's not like there's a "best" CMS.
Joomla - Just had nothing but hassle with it.
Drupal - Quite like it but some of the most basic features can require a lot of messing around.
ModX - Waiting for the new version out soon and I'm giving it a go.
Wordpress is great, but basic (more a blogging tool then a CMS)
CMS Made Simple - was the easiest I found to set up and get going
MySource Matrix - had a few problems initially setting up, but very powerful and my favourite.
For Blogging: Wordpress, Expression Engine.
For News: McClatchey's or the AHN Newsbahn.
What's the purpose?
New to this whole CMS thing, but here goes...
I'm a small bus owner who provides a service. Currently, I have a static, information only website. I've read plenty about web 2.0, social networking, etc... I'm sold on it, and know I need to get going on this initiative now...
Question is this - Why do I want/need a CMS (WordPress or other...) to power my site. The service I provide my clients is desired, and effective, I'm just not sure people would actually spend time on my site leaving comments, or taking surveys about my company. Maybe they would, who knows..? Is there more I'm missing? My guess is yes.
On the flip side, would I be better off achieving my personal web 2.0 goals by setting up accounts with FaceBook, Twitter, Delicious, Blogger, etc... and providing access to those on my static site? People could still leave feedback, correct? What is the difference?
Someone please sell me on why I need to blow up my static site today, and transition everything to a CMS platform, again - think wordpress, to truly start social networking to grow my business.
Thanks All-
SEM_Ninja
You don't. If you think you would benefit from community features or interactive features, it may be worth it. If you plan on having a lot of different people contribute and want to control and streamline workflow it might help.
If you want to jump on the bandwagon, I don't think they're playing your song ;-)
Another thing to consider. I would think that for most pages of your business site, you would not want to allow comments (like do you really want people commenting on your "about us" page?).
So the way to get your feet wet would be to install a blog app in a subidrectory like
example.com/blog
And start experimenting there. If it increases traffic, visitor engagement, etc, then you might expand out from there. If it doesn't, you haven't wasted a huge amount of time converting your site for nothing.
Thanks for the feedback. My thoughts exactly. My business is not all that interesting, per se. I wouldn't expect or want people to leave comments on my 'About Us' or 'Services' page. It's just not going to happen...
To this point, I do need to make more of an effort to make my site/company more "social" in nature. A blog is a great start. Any other suggestions? Being a small business I see no downside to linking my business Facebook, Flickr, Twitter Accts, etc... If people wnat to know more about the people behind the curtain, I see no harm.
Thanks again,
SEM_Ninja
I used to to the old DreamWeaver method and using templates to modify content. I wasted a few years.
CMS is the way to go.
WP or zimplit
Sorry to beat a dead horse here... After a bit more research into Wordpress, I'm learning one of the huge advantages to their platform is the ability to easily add any number of widgets to your site... Not all widgets translate into a value add, but a few do.
Can you strip unnecessary code from these widgets and use them on standard HTML sites, or must your site exist on the wordpress platform to use them?
I realize these points have probably been raised a 1000 times over, in the past two years, but better late than never, huh?
Any feedback from Ergophobe or otherwise, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks -
SEM_Ninja
Anyway, no, you really couldn't strip out extra and use WP widgets. Most of these integrate with the database and they really run within the framework of the WP and its templating system.
You do have options, though. Many of the widgets could easily be created with some simple PHP includes, without needing Wordpress. At a certain point, though, you reach a point of diminishing returns, where it just makes more sense to remake your site on a platform that is built to handle your vision.
If your current site has a very standardized design template, it's relatively easy with some regular expression search and replace modifications to tweak that template, up to a point. Of course, if it's highly standardized like that, it's also relatively easy to, at some point, drop it into a CMS of some sort.
I think I'm tired today... I know that's all rather vague, but I hope it helps.
The better approach is to define your requirements and then ask which CMSes fit those.
Or if a CMS fits those. "Content management" doesn't always require a database-type CMS. Sometimes a program like Dreamweaver or Expression Web will get the job done more efficiently, and the urge to use a CMS is driven more by fashion or word of mouth than by necessity.
Yup, that too! I think we already talked SEM_Ninja out of the switching to a CMS at all. Basically, I'm lazy. I look to do the least amount of work for the feature set I want. Sometimes that's Drupal with 50-100 modules active and the server creaking under the load. Sometimes that's Notepad and an FTP client and lightning fast page loads. Right tool for the job.
I've always used Dreamweaver to create my customers sites and want to be able to create sites that my customers can update themselves after my initial design. I'm thinking that Drupal is the best thing for this for a general business (turning off commenting and all). I just want the functionality of them being able to update their content as needed. I am also looking for a good solution for a photo gallery page (not on a drupal site) that will allow the site owner to be able to manage photos and descriptions themselves (for instance a car lot with cars for sale).
Any comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Beth
Have you noticed the What is Drupal NOT Good At? [webmasterworld.com] thread also in this forum? Don't get me wrong, I'm the #1 Drupal booster around here. But I always warn people that the strength of Drupal is its power and flexibility. But I think of it more as a development platform than as a user-friendly CMS. There's a lot of tlak about improving the usability, but unless your coding skills are pretty good and your clients are a bit tech savvy, I would hesitate to use drupal for what sounds like a simple brochure site. If you want to have complex content types, a community site, recreate Facebook or Digg, then Drupal is amazing. But it can still be a hassle.(see [drupal.org...]
Someone recently mentioned Concrete 5 here the other and I had a look at that - it claims to be a very friendly CMS for the end user (haven't had a chance to test it yet, but hope to soon). Also have a look at ModX, CMS Made Simple and some others like that which are very able for less complex sites. Many others, I just more or less picked those names out at random.
And of course, simpler still is Wordpress, but have a look at some of the others first.
As for photo galleries, many CMS have them, but Gallery (menalto one) is pretty easy for the end users to just navigate to where they want to add a picture or a subgallery and add it, with a title, description, friendly URL. Taht said, a car dealer might find a shopping cart script that allows multiple product images to be the way to go.
