Feb 21 2007
Building a CMS
I’ve spent a great deal of time searching for a content management system (CMS). WordPress is a good application, but it doesn’t offer enough functionality for the full featured CMS that I wanted to build.
I was considering using Drupal. This is a very good CMS for quickly creating an integrated blog and forums. The forums aren’t as good as phpBB, but Drupal’s developers realize this and are committed to improving it. A new user will likely spend an evening setting up the software. Drupal 5 has a very nice default theme which can be suitable for use as-is until a better one is found.
I also tried using Joomla. This CMS will take some time to learn but its worth it. There is a great deal of functionality but unfortunately no integrated forums. However, there are third party forum modules that you can use, but I prefer phpBB. It would be nice to have one login for the CMS and forums, but I don’t think that its a problem for people logging in to use each application.
I was considering using symfony or CakePHP to write a CMS. Creating a CMS would be a great deal of work and could easily take a better part of a year to match the functionality of Drupal or Joomla.
After examining all of the options, I’ve decided to go with Joomla. It will allow me to create my CMS with the least amount of effort. Once the site is up, I’ll publish the URL.
Feb 22, 2007 @ 06:15:31
In the past I have set up (but never really used) PHPNuke. I thought they had some phpBB intergration, but I am not certain. Just something for you to look into.
Feb 22, 2007 @ 12:48:37
I thought about PHPNuke, but I think they are a commercial CMS now. The last time I checked, there were older versions that were free and a newer one you had to pay for. I’m not sure if its still the case. phpBB integration is important. I could get it to work with any PHP CMS, but it means learning their API. Its easier finding someone who already did it.
There’s also DotNetNuke which is interesting.
Sep 29, 2007 @ 08:55:45
I wrote something called Mixed Fuel.
It features weblog, forum and article style publishing.
If you want to give it a try: http://www.web2ls.com
Free to use, edit, improve, pass on etc…