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We're considering a new CMS for our huge 10-20,000 page site. We are not currently using any CMS, but have individual html pages with the content embedded(!).
Our site is mostly 'regular' content types, with a few discussion boards and some document handling. We also have a number of news sections/blogs and some profile directories.
We have few developers with limited coding skills and even fewer coders on the team. We've considered WordPress (which we're already using for a few sites) and also CraftCMS. CraftCMS seems more fitting to our needs because it's flexible and lean; we're impressed with what we've seen so far but are concerned that it's not open-source and that it's so new. WordPress seems cumbersome to the coding developers as much of the system is 'out of the box' and requires loading lots of plugins and things that you don't 'need' for a page.
Are there other similar CMSs that people can recommend for us to consider? Please don't tell me about your favorite CMS; please DO tell me about a CMS that you know of that may fit our needs. Comments on the CMSs mentioned above in the context of our needs are welcomed as well.
Thank you.
CraftCMS is as impressive as it looks, I've built 4 sites so far with it and the more I use it the more I discover thoughtful little details that make development easier. This is particularly true for content rich sites with lots of variables & different article types.
Compared to Wordpress and other similar systems I have used, you will be amazed at how few plugins are required even for complex layouts & implementations.
The newness concern is totally valid too. I waited for almost 3 years before doing any client work for that very reason. Wanted to see if a stable dev community would develop around it and to be sure that it would be financially viable for the developers. The creator recent addressed this issue and open source concerns on Hacker News here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12009552
ExpressionEngine 2 was always the choice for bigger, more robust sites. But when CraftCMS burst into the scene we felt it addressed some of ExpressionEngine's shortcomings. We we waited until Craft 2.0 to switch. Here a few reasons why:
TWIG templates: believe me, you want your templates to be as modular, and as clean, as possible. Twig is incredible powerful and it has great documentation.
Matrix Field: If you not used to, it takes a while to wrap your head around the concept of "Content Blocks". But once you do, tackling complex content is a breeze.
Great community: I know Wordpress has a giant community, but that is actually bad IMO. Of course you want the community to be big, but once it gets to size, it can be hard to know who to ask for help. Craft community is in that sweet spot where you can find (good) help pretty fast. I also find that projects that have a person/company behind the product are great on raining in community issues.
First Party E-Commerce support: about a third of the projects we work on it has some kind of commerce in it. Not having to rely on third-party plugins is refreshing.
We've also checked other offerings, such as Statamic, ExpressionEngine 3, and even some Node based CMS's. But Craft really does mostly a better job then the others.
I hope it helps!
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I just started out trying to put a web site together for my own business. Web design is not my primary job so I basically wanted it to get it up running as fast as possible. I wanted some flexibility with the layout design so I avoided cookie cutter templates.
I started out choosing Wordpress Thesis theme. As the time goes on, I have most of the site content lined up. However, I am struggling to put all the pieces together to make the site design look uniform and professional. I tried CSS a little bit, spending a lot time on aligning web elements, font sizes, color coordination that sort of things and felt it would take me forever to finish the site.
Does anyone have a suggestion of a free tool suitable for beginner's skill level to reduce development time & compatible with Wordpress Thesis theme?
My line of business is selling products. So the site is pretty much like a product catalog with images, contents, news, & blogs.
I read a little on this site about CSS framework, also checked out jQuery-UI. just not sure if they are the right approach for what I want to accomplish.
Any suggestions are very much appreciated!
WebMatrix is a free and lightweight web development tool.
Create, publish, and maintain your website with ease. It is from Microsoft free tools.
you can download from Microsoft official website
http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/
Checkout Artisteer, it does a WYSIWYG theme edition and can render Wordpress themes. 99$ but worth the money.
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I have been tasked with making a decision on whether to maintain a current website in Joomla or port it over to something like WordPress. The site currently uses Joomla 1.5 and I have been able to make the immediate updates needed by modifying the template and changing articles as needed. However, to really maintain this site properly I am going to need to understand Joomla a whole lot better, which means an investment of time and resources.
What I am wondering is if it is worth the time invested to delve into Joomla. I have read articles about a lack of leadership, long release/update cycles, and bloated code. Is Joomla in it's current state (v2.5) still competitive when compared to CMS platforms such as WordPress and Drupal? Are the problems mentioned issues of the past? Does Joomla bring any advantages to the table? Or is it pretty much past it's prime and no longer competitive.
I would really like to hear from other developers who are familiar with Joomla. Your thoughts would be helpful in deciding which path to take. Bulk up on Joomla or port it over to WordPress. Thank you kindly.
Joomla is really good CMS.
Its leadership issues have been resolved 2 years back. Now they are following attractive release strategy i.e. every 6 months they release a minor release. Every 18 months they release major version. With all such quick decision and implementation, Joomla is getting ready to explore its full potential.
Once you invest time your time in Joomla, you will love the way it handles lots of functionality. A lot of professional quality extensions are available with Joomla.
Maybe my answer may not help you very much. But I will say what I know.
Short answer can be that it depends on your needs but I advice you to study Wordpress and Joomla for a couple days and decide to understand which one
is better for you.
I have website based on Joomla, I am happy with my choice, however many things I must do manually (edit core files).
Both platform have many good things and couple of bad things.
Good luck.
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My company is smaller. So unfortunately, we don't have the budget to afford a good (or bad) UI designer/developer. So we do programmer's UI. As you can imagine, it gets us by but it's not good at all.
Well what I'm looking for is a good resource that shows or explains how to have good layout and intuitive control placement in an Web app (or even Desktop app). Are there any tutorials or web sites that any of you would suggest?
If you need some help about software UI , Apple wrote this doc', i think it could be a good beginning :
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/XHIGIntro.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000894-TP6
More generally you can also throw a look at these websites : http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/20-websites-to-help-you-master-user-interface-design/
http://dzineblog.com/2010/03/best-user-interface-design-resources-the-round-up.html
Read up on Information Architecture. This will give you some understand behind the science of UX/UI which will in turn help you design your UI. I am a programmer myself, and have only read a few books but I now understand the impact of design. Especially since to your users, the UI is the application.
For example, there are some defined ways on which a user interacts with a site - browse, search, and interactive. A site should accomodate all because each user has different preferences.
IA Institute Reading List
The Humane Interface - this book can get very detailed talking about how many clicks someone has to do to perform a task, but this makes a huge impact if they have to do it all day long!
When it comes to design and UI then you should take a look at Microsoft's Toolbox site. It helps you learn the design principles and do design practicals using Microsoft Expression Studio (a UI prototyping tool). Check out the site here: Microsoft Design Toolbox
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I'm diving into CSS and would like to practice coding from PSDs. Any sites where I can grab free designs in PSD format?
Or any other suggestions for practicing?
Take a
screen shot of a website you think
would be challenging, slice and dice
any images needed yourself in
Photoshop and then re-create it via
HTML/CSS. Of course most websites are
under copyright and you could not use
any of their intellectual property
(e.g. images, design, code, etc...)
in any public manner.
Practice/improve
your CSS skills on the CSS Zen
Garden. The site
was created in such as way that
developers can dramatically change
it's presentation purely with CSS.
Look through the designs and see how
that developer accomplished it. After
you are done with your own design you
can submit it to be shared.
See if you can find a sample/demo template from one of the many template retailers on the web. Discard their HTML/CSS and recreate yourself.
You may need some "filler" content to make your design more realistic. You might try a lorem ipsum generator.
I may be not really helpful, but I truly remember myself struggling with no production experience.
And, as I did, the best way to get it, was to give free of charge services of html/css coding.
as long as you're not publishing the designs as your own, copying for the purposes of education is protected as "fair-use".
Copy Copy Copy
Practice re-creating everything. Read through the stylesheets of sites you like, and take notes on what elements are present in them.
Don't limit yourself to just sites like what you are planning on creating, copy completely unrelated pages too. There are many companies that will publish images of designs: copy those too.
When you've crated a clone page, start tweaking styles. Add a border here, tweak some margins there. The more you play with it, the more you'll understand it.
Also: read through the CSS specifications:
CSS1
CSS2
CSS3
And make sure you've got a good grasp of HTML by reading the html specs too.
It can be slow. It may be boring. It will be worth it.
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I know the huge community of people behind WordPress has pushed it towards full-blown CMS territory over the past couple years, but I'm still unclear as to what extent. Would it be a good option to handle something like a small biz website with simple shopping cart for example?
Yes, you can use a spanner to bang in screws if you need to, but you might be better reconsidering.
WordPress may well be capable of running a small website with a shopping cart, and that's probably useful for people who have grown a blog up and are branching out into sales.
But why would you choose a blogging platform for your CMS when there are perfectly good CMS systems that target that role?
That depends on how small the site is and your intentions; Wordpress is perfectly fine as a cms. If you want a fairly simple site or need to have it moderated by non-techies, its perfect. Wordpress has amassed a huge amount of plugins, taking it from a blog engine to an entire platform. Here's a very rough power vs simplicity scale:
easiest to use
ascii art
microsoft paint
wordpress
joomla
drupal
self written cms
Tapping out your own html in binary on a telegraph key for each HTTP request
most powerful
Its advisable to use the simplest one that will fit your needs for a long time.
Something to consider—something I've come to notice, at least—is the savvy-ness or level of familiarity the client may have with WordPress. Directly related to it's growth is it's saturation. It's likely that whomever is in charge of managing the sites content has spent some time with WordPress and would be more effective continuing with it.
That said, from what little I've read about WordPress 3, one of the biggest hurdles to clear, custom post/content-types, is present in the core. To what extent, I'm not sure. Probably better to leave that in the hands of a diehard WordPress dev.
It's certainly true that there are dedicated CMS that pack more of this, or more of that, but don't discount the value of experience. The right tool for the job needs to be the right tool for the job.