Hi all,
I'm looking for a template based website builder type dealie I can add to hosting as extra value, to try and give my hosting an extra selling point. I'm hoping that some of you might have recommendations (both commercial and free packages considered).

What I'm looking for is..

1. Must be simple. Really simple. Really really simple. I want people to be able to use this and have a nice looking site running wth a couple of pages within 30 minutes tops.
2. Should be PHP (4 or 5, either is fine), and preferably not encoded in any way, so I can modify it, or at least create additional plugin type stuff.
3. Should use a WYSIWYG editor (preferably Xinha/HTMLArea) for editing the content - I don't want people to have to use BB or textile type codes, they won't understand.
4. Ideally, it needs to have EXTREMELY basic eCommerce functionality - basically, nothing more than an order form which the "admin" can add products to with a title, image, short description and price. CC details could be taken and stored in a database for later "manual" processing and removal by the admin. Some security would be nice in storage of the CC details. I don't want categories, or searching or anything - this is envisaged to be used for catalogues of perhaps 15 or 20 products maximum. Really, really, really simple.
5. Templates/layouts - it should have a good variety available now, and the ability (and instructions) for creating your own (this would be a job for a designer though, not the lowly administrator, we don't need a "layout creator" in the system, just the ability to use a custom layout).
6. If it needs a database (and preferably not) then it should be MySQL.
7. It doesn't need to be able to handle lots of load, these will be simple "brochure" sites, 5, maybe 10 pages at the most, they might only get a couple of hits a day, or week!
8. Must live happily on a cpanel server.

Licencing costs need to be ameniable to a small volume hoster.

Anybody got any recommendations? Remember: it needs to be so simple your grandma could use it.

Have a look at SiteBuilder 2 frm sw-soft. I know v2 has a shop-cart section of some sort that might be suitable, and it is definitely easy to use. (there's a demo).

http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/sitebuilder/

The windows version is free at the moment, but the linux version isn't really expensive.

There are a few problems with sitebuilder,

1. It's too complicated. Really. The users don't need half the options they get for designing the look of the site - all they should do is pick a template, that's it.

2. In the wizard the next button is no where near prominient. Even I got to a point where I was looking at the screen trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next for a while before I noticed the Next button.

3. They are using htmlArea, but they have stripped out the copyright notices and version information. One would hope they have a special licence from interactivetools.com to do this otherwise thier product is in breach of that licence. Also it looks like they are using a pretty old version of htmlArea as thier base - I know first hand that there are LOTS of bugs in the old htmlArea, especially under Gecko. They have also edited htmlArea so that the header part of the site is displayed "in the editor" but not editable. Infact, clicking page links in the editor takes you to that page to be edited - this is really counterintuitive (especially as there is no indication of what is and is not editable, a dotted red border wouldn't have killed them).

4. I believe it needs to be installed as root? I want a package that is installed per user with no dependancies outside the user's account.

gogocode,

Some of your requests practically scream out Soholaunch but some don't. I don't think any sitebuilder on the market meets all your needs. Knowing what I know that will probably no longer be true next year. Let me go real quick

1. Simplicity.

I think Swsoft's sitebuilder is fairly simple. I didn't like the tables feature in it but haven't looked at it recently. Sitezen is fairly simple as well but on this for a newbie I would have to go with Soholaunch since thats what my son started using a few weeks back and loves (and no believe it or not he didn't watch any of our tutorials). Took me about 10 minutes of explanation and he was off to the races (only thing I helped him with was a Sonic the Hedgehog template - his favorite television character). Might not be fair though - being my son he is bound to have inherited ny genius :emlaugh:

2. PHP

You are in luck almost all the sitebuilders I have seen are PHP based

3. WYSIWYG

At the moment I think SItezen and Drag and Drop have the best editors I have seen. Swsoft's sitebuilder is competent as well. Soholaunch uses a hybrid approach which some people hate but i find again Newbie's have no problem with and love. it uses a layout grid AND an editor for blocks within the grids. IF you are used to using Editing tools you will find it clunky but if not then newbies like the instant layout guidance.

4. Ecommerce

Soholaucnh hands down. No other sitebuilder I have seen has drag and drop ecommerce. You literally drag a product onto the grid on any page and thats where it appears on your page - any page. Not just the catalog and its fully linked into the cart automatically.


5. Templates

Really like Swsoft's templates and Sitezen and Drag and drop are quite good as well. Soholaunch has an incredibly easy system to design for so it meets that criteria but for out of the box templates is the weakest by far of the group. My understanding is that that will soon change but a seperate company called Sohotemplates sells ready to go templates for it.

6. Database

Here I have to decline too much comment. I would think most if not all operate with Databases so I am not sure what you are referring to. I have used sitebuilder but never installed it personally. I knw drag and drop has an architecture that opens it up to all kinds of extensions and so does Soholaunch the rest?don't know

7. Brochure site creation.

Your call. The question I always ask is whether my customers want something that looks like it came out of a box or do they want to customize it. Straight out the box look at sitebuilder. customers want freedom to break out the box sometime in the future? - Soholaunch. depends on what your market is

8. Cpanel

Looked around WHT and see alot of problems with people trying to install sitebuilder. I think the install process for Sitezen is straightfoward and Soholaunch is probably the happiest on a Cpanel server since its made to be auto installed through Fantastico. For the immediate future you should however be informed that site building in Soholaunch can only be accomplished in IE - similiar to Sitezen (when last I checked). All sitebuilders can be viewed in any browser but among the ones mentioned on WHT only Sitebuilder, sitestudio (which I find useless) and Drag and drop (which I find unstable in ther pricing) can design in Firefox/Mozilla

Another question you might ask is in what direction is the software going in? You don't want to be changing systems every year. If you find one sitebuilder with most everything you want but missing key ingredients then contact them and find out if the next versions is on track to meet your objections.

Problem with soho: Windows IE only. No good to me.

Yes. I mentioned that. That will leave you with Swsoft's sitebuilder which you don't seem to like, Drag and drop creator and the relatively new Sitebuilder CX which does look promising. By the way - there are no free options.

Great reviews, demostorm. Thanks!

:)

Well we went with Site Builder CX. Simple to use yet has all the features customers would want in a site builder.

Originally posted by WebzPro
Well we went with Site Builder CX. Simple to use yet has all the features customers would want in a site builder. Url?

http://www.sitebuildercx.com/

Impressive. Thanks for the link!

:D Bailey