Mambo / Typo3 / Drupal - Do i really need a CMS?

[followgreg]

I've been looking around now for a few days and I am really confused about the whole CMS industry. Even if let's say I am willing to invest some money, I don't seem to find what I want but I've narrowed down my search to Mambo/typo3 and drupal ...or nothing.

Is there one of the CMS above doing that:

- Allows full user control over pages and sections headers (meta tags and page titles essentially)
- Allows user to define his own URL...a static one (example:/this-is-my-specific-url.html and not /this-is-my-article-title.html)
- Allows to give any category of my site a specific anchor text when linked from the menus

...In addition of RSS feeds and out of the box useful addons :)

Finally I wonder about using CMS or not ...maybe frontpage is my best option but I want to setup a website with over 1000 pages so...wondering!

[broniusm]

I'd recommend a customization of WordPress for your simple CMS. A work-in-progress of mine is at <snip>, if you'd like to see what I mean. Note that I left some elements of the blog engine which could easily have been removed. Even though WordPress is a blog, it can be used for its components quite easily. Loads of features and user-submitted plugins are available.

The theme-templates are totally customizable: I modified my theme's look with graphics and colors all in the css. I created a page-iterator for non-blog-like pages within the header template (header.php) so my page-list is dynamic: user creates a page, voila, it's in the menu!

- Allows full user control over pages and sections headers (meta tags and page titles essentially)

Hmm.. not sure about meta tags from my own implementation. However, page titles generally mimic either article header or, if you're posting a page, you can set the title as you wish. Note the difference between a "page" and a blog "post."

- Allows user to define his own URL...a static one (example:/this-is-my-specific-url.html and not /this-is-my-article-title.html)

This is called a "post slug" in WP posts [click Advanced Edit] and "page slug" in WP pages.

- Allows to give any category of my site a specific anchor text when linked from the menus

Not sure the level of automation you're looking for, but the post category and page loops both link to pages by page title, I think. Categories are by category. However, you can always embed a link into your posts and surround any text you choose with that anchor.

I hope this helps some.. WordPress is very powerful and simple, and it makes for a good, straightforward CMS, imo.

[edited by: trillianjedi at 3:14 pm (utc) on Aug. 30, 2005]
[edit reason] Please see TOS. Thanks. [/edit]

[followgreg]

Hi broniusm,

I've never thought of WP lie that even though I've used it as a pure blog feature.
You are right it is a good straightforward CMS but woould not come easily with all the functionalities and addons you can find in Mambo or Drupal...and of course in a more complicated solution like Typo3.

The point of a CMS should be to simplify a webmaster's life somehow while giving the oportunity to have a 100% consistent site design and fonctionalities without penalizing the SEO or any on page customization part if needed....maybe I'm asking to much I dunno but I just can not find what I need...unless paying like $10k for a commercial solution!