CMS questions

Which CMS should I use

[Sbishop]

I need to build a site so that my client can update information themselves. What would be the best CMS to use? It needs to be super easy for them to update pages.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

This is a common question in these forums. Unfortunately I have yet to see a really good solution that is both easy to implement and easy for clients to use.

[Corey Bryant]

contentseed.com is one that we have used in the past

-Corey

[thecoalman]

I've been developing a mini-cms myself for this purpose. A couple of simple features like a calendar, announcement,and text on the main pages. Most of the CMS's I've tried are overly complicated, at least IMO which are geared more towards someone that wants to manage the entire aspect of a whole site which is generally not something your average client is going to utilize.

Creating such a simple CMS is not that hard, there are a lot of tutorials on the net for using forms and a database to update and display information. The only big concern I have had is security but I've simply taken some small precautions to prevent the client from killing his own site and password protected the folder to prevent any unauthorized access.

[RicoFlan]

If you're looking for a lean installation which is not burdened with a bunch of unecessary extensions, download the Mambo Lite package. This is new from mambo and it's just the core -- no sample data, no additional templates, no extensions.

It's fast and lite. Add in the WYSIWYG editor of your choice (use MOStlyCE) and your set with easy-to-use editing for your client.

If you need a blog aspect, go WordPress -- but make sure you install the various SPAM filters, etc.

[Sbishop]

Thanks for the responces. I have seen word press and was leaning toward using it, I just wanted to see if there are any other options

[bunltd]

I've been using CMSmadesimple - easy to set-up, easy to skin, good set up for seo (title tags, metas all controllable) and the interface is easy to understand and includes a wysiwyg editor.

LisaB

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Corey, I had a look at contentseed and their dire website is a real turn off. I cannot understand what they are trying to promote so I won't be downloading this one.

Am I missing something? Is there any reason why you like this and are promoting it?

[doodlebee]

If you need a blog aspect, go WordPress

Actually, even if you *don't* need the blog, you can still use WordPress. It's an excellent light CMS - I've used it for several clients who aren't interested in blogging.

[SiteTutor]

I was looking at drugal.org as a CMS system. Has anyone used them?

What I am looking for is a CMS which is designed to be search engine friendly and publish static HTML pages.

Could anyone point me in the right direction.

[webjourneyman]

I've used drupal on one site, not very knowledgeble but it helps to have a host that installs moduls for me free of charge.
As I understand it no mysql/PHP driven CMS publish static html per se, but you can fiddle with cron job to make the pages practically static, i.e. drupal will only make calls to the database once per day (or less frequently if you choose) and store the pages generated in cache, in effect creating static html pages.

[doodlebee]

As I understand it no mysql/PHP driven CMS publish static html

Hate to sound like a broken record, but WordPress *does* create static pages.

As for making the extension HTML rather than PHP, it's been done (and they have info on how to do it in the codex), but I've never done it myself - never had to.