Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and other CMS

by the way, I'm curious as to what CMS door64 is running on? It's about the best implementation I've seen if it's something off the shelf. If it's homebrew they ought to bottle it.

I've seen hordes of people using Excel as a database, and they can truly say it does everything they need it to.

That's a kind of snipey way to say that using what you know is definitely natural and may work just fine, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the tool you use is better than the one you don't.

I'm suspecting that maybe you don't have a deep need for complex content management. I can't say I know much about the sites you mention, but I would think that managing a community of bloggers is not as complex as say, multi-author documentation, multi-tiered project management, or a collaborative website with public/private faces. I wouldn't even say Joomla excels in these contexts, but I think it's closer to a tool designed for that kind of job.

I have a feeling I'm stepping into an age-old debate between tool users and makers/hackers.

(FWIW, I'm a lumper, not a splitter.)

~ Ms. G
Yet Another Austin Wierdo
@NoitacudE.com

Let's pose a hypothetical then, Ms. G. Could wordpress be used to generate a complex, yet user friendly site, like door64? What cms is door64 based on and what decisions went in to choosing it?

I actually am seeking to extend wordpress beyong just a multi-author blogging platform.

Drupal *isn't* an easy install, imho, Matt. Joomla is. Wordpress is.

Drupal is no more difficult than WP or Joomla to install. Again, it's the configuration that sets each apart. But nothing is for free. Yes, you've stepped into the age-old debate: Ease of setup vs. flexibility. If you want minimal configuration, you have minimal flexibility.

I will state that Drupal has a different paradigm than other CMS's I've seen, which may attribute to it's so-called learning curve. But out of the box, I found it rather intuitive. It's content-centric versus feature-centric like other "content" management systems out there.

What do you want out of WP that isn't already out there in other CMS's?

Matt
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Glad you asked, Matt. What I want to do is very much like what is done with http://twit.tv which is co-incidentally a drupal site. The have a 3 column format. On the left column you'll find "Our Shows" and if you click on one of these shows in the left column then the far right column populates with a list of the shows and the center column pops in the most recent show. I have tried several wordpress themes but have yet to duplicate this yet. And I have also searched for a drupal plugin that will provide this funtionality with no luck so far.

I'm not going to argue about how hard or easy drupal is to install, that's really easily dealt with. The key issue is getting the kind of functionality I'm talking about.

You're essentially describing a theme + functionality. You want a 3 column theme, from a display point of view. As for functionality, that can be done with the Taxonomy, CCK, and Views modules, for the most part. Taxonomy will give you the autocategorization of content (shows, in your case). The views module will list them. The CCK will allow for custom content (which you may or may not need, depending upon how the show is displayed). That's just my off-the-cuff assessment.

Just to reiterate, if you're doing something off the beaten path, chances are you will have to get a little dirty. Maybe in 5 years what you're looking for will be standard issue with CMS's....but then again, everyone also will be doing it.

Matt
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Cool Matt. I'll revisit my drupal alpha test site and install these modules and see if this works. I don't mind getting a little dirty, I just don't want to fall into quicksand.

I was listening to some podcast last night and there is a guy who put up a Wordpress 2.5 test site and it was getting hacked so often and redirected to porn sites that he had to become an overnight security expert.

It's at http://wp.chrisjohnston.org/ if you want a peek at the next generation of wordpress!

I finally. Finally. Got a good drupal install. Now, matt, what module are you using for this bbs?

Using lots of modules. Too many to enumerate. What are you going for?

I've looked at both WordPress and Drupal... but they don't quite fit into my preferred technology footprint... I'd prefer something that was written in Perl and backed by PostgreSQL, but both of those are PHP on MySQL. I've used MySQL in the past, I just strongly prefer PostgreSQL and I'm already using it for other purposes. PHP is similar to Perl in some ways and since I work with Perl pretty much all day I don't really want to "switch gears" all the time. Getting a little more comfortable with PHP might improve my marketability so I've thought about it, but it seems like all the PHP related jobs pay poorly, which reduces the attraction.

I'm going for the same functionality that I see on the drupal site, http://twit.tv

I'm using the native bbs module that comes with drupal and it's working fine.

Wordpress has changed my life. I got sick so I couldn't work anymore so I started building links links from home. Then I studied about CMS and all its possibilities and I realized that blogging is the future.

Have you ever heard of Plone CMS? Building customizations for this CMS has a bit of a learning curve (unless you're proficient in Python) but when you get up and running there are tons of features which really useful. Also, the open source community has embraced it and written a lot of free plugins that could add the functionality you're looking fore.

http://plone.org/

-Edmund

I have heard of Plone, but at the time I evaluated it, it didn't look ready for prime time. I gather from your comment that Plone has really taken off.

While we're listing promising CMSs, one that I've been watching professionally is Alfresco. This seems great for a professional organization, and has a professional (IE not free) support model while still being open-source.

The thing is that there are SOOO many flavors of CMS now. Some are the "swiss army knife" type that do a little of everything, while some are better, or more popular, with one user group or another (usually because of history more than design). So I just caution anyone from comparing CMSs broadly. It's like comparing "transportation" as opposed to "motorcycles." Or maybe comparing Excel to "database programs."

~ Ms. G
"Content Schmontent"

I do not know about wordpress, but I have been using blogger (google's blogspot), and find it really easy to use. I have heard excellent things about wordpress. I guess, whatever your most comfortable using. I got my blog (http://macromental.blogspot.com) up and running in less than five minutes, and it is super easy to edit and manipulate.

My 2 cents....

I use blogger as well, and it works quite well. I willing to bet hosted Wordpress gives you more configurability.

Ms. G is right: There are a ton of CMS's out there. You have to evaluate them to see what works best for your needs. I am very happy with Drupal.

I really like joomla it is a nice CMS with great addons i've just recently started using ready made joomla sites for customers to get them setup quicker.