Do any of you know of a good, EASY content management solution that's either opensource or inexpensive that's easy to use and implement ? I have a few non profits that are looking to use a system like this......

How about postnuke?

Or ezpublish if you don't mind going through the learning curve. (I have not).

Peter

PostNuke (http://www.postnuke.com) is excellent. I've been using it since they ported from Nuke and the last clean install took less than 5 minutes.

phpnuke is better I think

We use a lot of the tools from http://www.interactivetools.com

They have a great content management solution called "Page Publisher"

Originally posted by IT Hosting
phpnuke is better I think
How? Why? It's only semi-open source and the last time I looked the code was an absolute mess

I have a content management program that I made, and I'm currently working on other types of these.

The one built right now works for real estate companies and used car dealerships. The only catch is that the system is fully dependant on my server, so its not something that can be moved. I built it that way so 1) people couldn't steal the code and do what they want with it and 2) because I planned on providing hosting services to the clients that I would get through it.

Anyway, its at http://www.kytroweb.net/re for those of you who are interested. I don't have a web site part made up for the used car part yet, so I can't give a link to that, yet.

Nice little system you got there Webmast Troy.

EZ and *nukes - both are awful. Too slow (ez makes up to 100 mysql queries), lots of useless features, HTML is messed with PHP code...

Try Mambo... www.miro.com.au, www.opencms.com.

I think Sitepoint.com released one - it's called Editize or something like that...

There's also something that is being constantly advertised on aspin.com

Editize isn't a CMS, it's just a rich text editor written in java.

Originally posted by caS
EZ and *nukes - both are awful. Too slow (ez makes up to 100 mysql queries), lots of useless features, HTML is messed with PHP code...


They might not be the best solution out there, but to say they are awful, would be unfair. Useless features, you can turn off. And isn't that the point of php -- you want it to interact with your HTML.

Regards,

Jeff

Originally posted by Jeffyt
They might not be the best solution out there, but to say they are awful, would be unfair.

They are awful because they are very slow. I can easily use 1 simple DB query instead of 3 or even 4 queries used in *nukes. And I don't see any reason why authors did use 3 or 4. The algorithms used in them are very simple and slow...

Yes, developers are trying to optimize 'em, but it'll be faster to re-write these systems.

Originally posted by Jeffyt
Useless features, you can turn off.

They are mostly integrated, into each other.

Originally posted by Jeffyt
And isn't that the point of php -- you want it to interact with your HTML.

Well, but it's very difficult to change the layout if you have PHP sode inside HTML. It's difficult to apply a new design if you don't know PHP at all. CMSes should be fully template based (when templates are htmls with tags, and these tags are later replaced with the content).

But they have one big + - their price.

So if you want to build something serious - do you best to forget about nukes.

Originally posted by caS


They are awful because they are very slow. I can easily use 1 simple DB query instead of 3 or even 4 queries used in *nukes. And I don't see any reason why authors did use 3 or 4. The algorithms used in them are very simple and slow...

Yes, developers are trying to optimize 'em, but it'll be faster to re-write these systems.

Agreed, they are slow.

Originally posted by caS

Well, but it's very difficult to change the layout if you have PHP sode inside HTML. It's difficult to apply a new design if you don't know PHP at all. CMSes should be fully template based (when templates are htmls with tags, and these tags are later replaced with the content).

I wholeheartedly agree with that. Trying to create a new theme for, say, postnuke, can be a bear. I think that the programmers (of postnuke) are currently looking into changing the way that themes are handled/created. Seems like I read about maybe the potential for a webbased themer, then again I could have just been dreaming.

If you are creating a site for someone that needs maybe a little dynamic content management mixed with some static pages, certainly writing a custom solution is the way to go.

Originally posted by caS

But they have one big + - their price.


Exactly ;) . I think ease of use out of the box would be another plus, since successful was looking for an easy cms to implement.

Regards,

Jeff

Originally posted by Jeffyt
If you are creating a site for someone that needs maybe a little dynamic content management mixed with some static pages, certainly writing a custom solution is the way to go.

Agreed. You've described a common corporate site... And these scripts are... well, portals :emlaugh:...

I agree too. I do not need all those things. I just need some of those features and I think I can write a more faster system (less features).

I have changed one of my sites to a postnuke based system but I was wrong.

See how much it takes to load and decide :

http://onlineprogrammer.org

It used to be a full html site.


Mac

I would recommend such systems that generate static htmls based on a DB.

To see how much time does it take to generate a page add this to the beginning of your script:

// timer
$starttime = microtime();
$starttime = explode(" ",$starttime);
$starttime = $starttime[1] + $starttime[0];

and this to the end of it:

// timer
$endtime = microtime();
$endtime = explode(" ",$endtime);
$endtime = $endtime[1] + $endtime[0];
$totaltime = ($endtime - $starttime);
echo "<br><font size=-2 face=Verdana><center>Processing time: $totaltime seconds</center></font>";

Postnuke has great developers and a great community, the code has been completly rewritten and is solid and fast.

I am not a postnuke developer but have been on the dev list since the start of the project and must say that they have a good project going on.

The theme/block system is being rewritten and the .8 series is on it's way, i suggest taking a look. It might not be what you are looking for but the code is good, modular, open, great support and is under constant development.

If you are going to go with a *nuke, i strongly suggest postnuke but no matter what, always try new software even when you are happy with whatever you are using at the time.
:D

Was there a decision as to a content management system here? I noticed that the nukes are pretty common. What are some of the other differences between the two? Is there a better freebie out there thats fairly common?

Try Whiteboard... It's not open source, but it is cheap enough for just about anyone to purchase, unlike Microsoft CMS 2002 or many other comparable solutions. You can sign up for a demo at http://www.thinkcomputer.net.

Beh - you don't need all of those features... i'm writing my own for my hosting site at the moment, all it has is a small admin panel for the CMS, and a few other things like that. Thats all I want so why go the whole hog!

It's like buying an Elephant when all you need is a hampster ;)

I've been working on a CMS myself. It doesn't have much special, but here is what I have right now:
- Completly modular with classes
- Security is a high priority
- Should run on any PHP4 version (no register_globals or use of $_* vars)
- Nice looking URLs (not "module.php?x=module1&y=page1&param1=xxx" but "html/module1/page1/?param1=xxx")
- Easy to use and fast template system: faster than smarty (cache off) and a very easy syntax

It's still in the early stages, but I hope to make something that will be easy to use and yet very powerful.

What are thoughts on xoops, ttcms, phpwebthings, mambo, and phpwebsite?

Has anyone used any of these other portals/cms systems? What about tikiwiki or phpreactor? Any resource usage problems with any of these? I noticed that e-xoops, a variant of xoops, was using 30+ queries for each page, ttcms was using yabbse for its forums, and the avg tikiwiki page load time was 2+ seconds when all the others seemed to be less than 1. I wonder if these may cause problems.

well i like very much

www.phpportals.com which a cms addon on www.vbulletin.com forums.

it is very very good and it is evolving very fast and very good.

anyway you phpportals is lienced under the GNU whereas vbulletin.com costs 160$ something like that.

Hi,

Yes, postnuke is good

Originally posted by Jeffyt
Agreed, they are slow.

THe Nuke sites I run are sometimes slow, but I'd hardly call them slow enough to merit an "Aweful" comment for the system.



I wholeheartedly agree with that. Trying to create a new theme for, say, postnuke, can be a bear. I think that the programmers (of postnuke) are currently looking into changing the way that themes are handled/created. Seems like I read about maybe the potential for a webbased themer, then again I could have just been dreaming.
PostNuke is moving to a new theming engine, supposedly, in the next major release. Until then there's a system called AutoTheme that allows you to create the theme in standard HTML & use codes stored in HTML comments to add the Nuke stuff to the theme.

AutoTheme is great (obviously I'm a fan), but I'd use it on PHPNuke or MDPro (maxdev.com), rather than Postnuke. In my opinion, Postnuke's headed for oblivion. It lacks management and direction. It manages to grow ever more complicated and obtuse without adding any useful features. Its actually rather an amazing, if disappointing, thing to witness.

We're working on a CMS too which we will be offering to our hosting customers on a semi-bespoke level (90% complete right now). The way we see it, most open source CMS solutions these days are too bloated for the average user.

We're going for a template driven, SEO friendly (ie: nice URLs) product with enough basic features to satisfy 95% of users but with unlimited custom plug-in ability.

On the upside it will also be available to our resellers under private label.

I use Mambo and its easy for the user as well as stable etc.... Look at mamboserver.com for more specs...

google liveSite by Camelback who makes it...

-ltd

What are your toughts on Expression Engine? They are the creators of pmachine.

Sorry for the late reply DaBoss...

I haven't experimented with Expression Engine yet so I really can't comment.

I would, however, also be interested if anyone else has...

I like subdreamer myself. I am redoing my whole site with it right now. I am moving from phpnuke because I hate it.

www.snippetmaster.com

I second the www.mamboserver.com recommendation!

Definitely give Mambo a look and another CMS we are keeping our eye on is Exponent (exponentcms.org)

I'd recommend Exponent, though it is different from the usual module-based CMS 'portals'.

The 'nukes... I'd avoid them, one or the other is a horrible insecure nightmare. I can never remember which, so I avoid both. If I had to go for somethign similar, I'd use XOOPS which looks good, is popular, and has some decent documentation.

Mambo, however, looks very good - and has docco too! Always the sign of a good development. It also had a link to www.cmsmatrix.org (compares CMSes) and www.opensourcecms.com (which has a lot of CMS demos running)

Originally posted by caS
I would recommend such systems that generate static htmls based on a DB.


Any recommendations on a CMS that works like this?

I use ExpressionEngine almost exclusively now. I've yet to come across something else that is as powerful and flexible. The performance is great as well.

Jamie

Try snscripts.com - they have a few different cms related scripts...and the owner Mike is good at doing custom work too. If not try e107