I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a CMS for me? I have tried the usual suspect XOOPS, Joomla, Nuke and like and didn't really like them. "Too much square peg in round hole syndrome" as one of our staff said.

Well the site I am trying to convert is the old AnimeInfo.Org page that hasn't had a proper update in like 7 years. We wanted to stop relying on our main webmaster to update the static pages so we are looking for a CMS but most of them seem geared more toward blogs and info pages and ill suited for the content we host.


Reviews
Cookbook
An "otaku" Dictionary
"fanart" Image Gallery
.txt file "fanfiction" Directory
Misc Info Pages


I can probably hack the carp out of the blog and static system to MAKE reviews work but if you guys can point me to a CMS that has a review module or add-on that would be awesomeness.

The second thing I am looking for is an easy templating system. I like phpwcms's "replacement tag" system where injecting content was a simple as inserting "{content}" "{header}" "{left}" or "{right}" into a template you made in Dreamweaver.

check out http://www.cmsmatrix.org since that keeps a fairly up-to-date list of almost all the CMS platforms out there. It almost sounds like you could use one of the wiki projects out there and somehow merry it to a simpler, less complex CMS front-end.

A wiki? That sounds like a good idea. I mean it sounds better than hacking frustrating over Joomla/Xoops. Will probably have to get creative on the templating so it doesn't look like a wiki but that sounds easier than abusing WordPress's "Page" system.

You might want to check out http://www.expressionengine.com

It will easily handle your reviews, cookbook, .txt file directory etc all categorised if you wish.
It has an inbuilt gallery system
It has an inbuilt Wiki system
It will handle all your extra info pages as well :)

Plus it runs on xhtml/css templates so you are totally free to design your site your way

Drupal (drupal.org) is more than capable of handling the information that you want it to handle and any additional items that you might want to add down the road. It is a powerful, extensible system with several options for theming available.

Edit: Sorry for the short reply. Assuming I survive exams and you haven't found a system yet, I will post something more meaningful later this week. I definitely think that drupal is something that you should look into though.

You could try WP with a wiki bridge. Also take a look at ExpressionEngine. Eveytime bluedreamer post that I get closer to trying one of the paid versions.

heres one for you, http://www.monkeycms.com/

By god I was reading their documentation and that CMS templating system has the simplicity of PHPwcms's "{content}", "{left}", and "{right}" replacement tags but the power of a scripting engine.


As for Drupal I gave it an install but didn't go very far.



I think someone mentioned a term called "content prototyping" and I liked the sound of it. While most CMSs have you know have menues and customizable templates what I wanted was customizable content areas. So rather than a title, subtitle, and then a massive "wall of text" I could customize content I.E. when I have a review beyond the review's text there could be a block that houses a cover image, publisher info, genre, and then overall scores without having to insert divs and formatting manually using HTML because the CMS only supports "wall of text" type content in an almost blog-ish way.

I sorta achieved it with phpwcms for the quickie guides (http://nekomode.com/animeinfo/index.php?id=22,7,0,0,1,0) and less well for reviews (http://nekomode.com/animeinfo/index.php?id=17,1,0,0,1,0) where you can see how exactly half arsed everything is.

I know I am using phpwcms's content sections like they were never intended but I was wondering if maybe another CMS had an article posting system when the article rather than a "wall of text" has different content sections that when posted go into the related "content areas" of the template like is being done here:
[Screenshot of Backend] (http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5298/articleinfolv6.jpg)

I think the closest thing to the kind of content customization "content prototyping" I have seen is Wikipedia/MediaWiki and its infoboxes.

Did you try Typolight (www.typolight.org)
It is very similar to phpwcms, but have more option and a little easier. You have online demo (url above) so you can try.

Did you try Typolight (www.typolight.org)
It is very similar to phpwcms, but have more option and a little easier. You have online demo (url above) so you can try.

Wow! That is... awesomeness. Its like phpwcms but a lot cleaner on the backend. I really like this and the custom layout sections are exactly the kinda things I am looking for to avoid the so called "wall of text". Also I like the search engine friendly URLs. Read up on templating and I can convert my layout in mere minutes. Painless templating is always a plus.

I think I am gonna install this and give it a stab.

I am glad if I help you.
Typolight is my favorite CMS.
I tried more than 20 CMS-s and there is nothing even close to Typolight.

Just checked out Typolight, and found its really good. I dont like joomla and was looking for replacement, looks like i found one.

Let me try customising it and see how it goes.

wow, looks very clean and nice. Most of the time users complain about page/structure editing complexity. This one looks to be good at that.

Heh Typolight ended up not being for me. I guess I fell in love with phpwcms's functionality and with the help of the dudes on their support forums I finally got what I wanted out of it. Just wish it has the awesome url rewrite hacks that typolight has.

At least some other people here got helped :P

But yea more CMSs need to be as intuitive as Typolight & phpwcms. I like it when things just work.