Managing huge websites

Content Management Systems

[hdpt00]

Hi all,
I'm looking to start a 4 month project on making a very large (content wise) website and I want some opinions on the best CMS. I looked at mambo and I don't think it provides enough of the features I need (no multiple template support). Right now I'm decided on typo3 although it seems quite complicated, it has all the features I need.

First off, I was wondering if any of you have experience with this and come with any recommendations. Secondly, if you think typo3 is the way to go could you point me to someone who could possibly do the job of converting my html template to typo3 format?

Thank you,
Brandon

[zollerwagner]

I have been considering cms, too, but have concluded that whether it is a good idea depends on the situation.

A recent article by Jeffrey Veen: Why Content Management Fails (look for it on the Adaptive Path site or do a search on Jeffrey Veen CMS) talks about the downside of CMS. Of course, blogging is a huge success and it's basically run with CMS, so this is all relative. Interestingly, Veen himself talks at length on CMS (more or less) in his book The Art & Science of Web Design, so I'm sure he's aware of the benefits of CMS, too.

You might take a look at the reviews and demos of CMS at opensourcecms dot com. There are a lot more options than appear there, but it's helpful to be able to test them out live.

Let us know what you decide.

[hdpt00]

My situation is that I will be having hundreds, if not thousands of pages of content. Also I will have some dynamic content on the front page, such as top 5 most visited content pages, etc. The only other alternative is making a few templates for every situation imaginable and making a clear architecture and naming structure and then using some third party script to see which content is downloaded the most as well as some type of internal search engine. I see no other alternative than a CMS. I have been to that opensource site and read the reviews, but they're opinion only means so much. I'm having one hell of a time trying to do this typo3 templating by myself. Any help or opinions would be great.

Thanks,
Brandon

[zollerwagner]

One thing I would definitely do is look for a cms that supports css layouts because you'll eventually want to move to that anyway, so better now to have to change that later.

And with a css layout, it should be fairly easy to create a variation on an existing template that would be indentifiably you without all the work of having to design from the ground up.

If you search on css layout at that other site I think there are several threads there giving options. I remember one of the supposedly not quite ready cms was really impressive.

[pmkpmk]

My team and I were facing the task to change a 200+ trilingual website to a new CMS. After two months of test-driving various CMS we settled for Typo3 because of its flexibility, expandability and of course because of it's price.

We have fair knowledge of Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL - nevertheless we decided to buy professional help for the setup. There's lots of companies listed who offer service for Typo3 on the typo3.org website. I'm sure there is one near you.

We installed it ourselves, but we bought from them the customization, template programming, training and hotline. Due to the timeframe of the project we did the change of the CMS first, and the training last.

During that phase, which took about 8 weeks, we only concentrated on the content while the external guys built the Typo3 framework around it. Once the site was live (in mid January), we then had them explain and train to us WHAT they actually did :-)

At the moment, we are transferring our next site to Typo3 - this time all on our own.

Typo3 IS extremely complex. It's a hell of a setup-job. And if you're into hardcore-customization, you can spent a long time with it. However, once it's set up, it's the most flexible, most versatile thing I've seen!

I'm having one hell of a time trying to do this typo3 templating by myself.

There's an easy way and a hard way to do it. The easy way: take an existing HTML file and insert the tags into it. The hard way: coding the template completely in typoscript.

My advice: long into the typo3.org community, find somebody near you to help you. I don't know what your background is. If you are able to pay for it, pay someone. If not, an invitation for dinner might do as well. If your site is interesting or prestigious, try asking for collaboration or coaching. If you're not a fortune-100-company you might even find somebody who help's you for free!

[danieljean]

opensourcecms is great, except it only provides PHP/MySQL.

After a long, frustrating search, I came upon Lenya (http://cocoon.apache.org/lenya/) which will probably rival with typo3. Cocoon, the CMS framework upon which it is built has some amazing features.