galahad

More and more of our clients are asking about the possibility of editing areas of their sites, but are understandably wary of FTP and manual editing (as are we of providing it to them!)

So we're looking for a PHP-based content management system which is easy to use (and easy for clients to use), adaptable and can be set up quickly with the minimum of fuss.

There appear to be *loads* out there, so:

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Any particular ones to avoid or beware of?

Thanks

percepts

it's a catch 22 question and answer.
One of the most popular and most powerful is Joomla BUT it has such sophistication that your users may have problems finding their way round the cms functionality unless they want to spend time learning it and you spend time teaching them. Then if they only do updates once in a while, they will forget how to use it and you will end up doing it for them anyway.

cms can lead to more problems than it solves. Depends on type of site and each particular user.

__________________
An old dog learning new tricks

pursuit

yes I agree it Depends on type of site. many times a db and some custom code plus a WYSIWYG editor (open source) would do just fine as for example oscommerce sites.

galahad

Okay, well for the sake of argument let's say a basic site, of about a dozen pages or so, where the user wants to occasionally change some images in a gallery, or edit some text in a few paragraphs, without actually opening up a code editor or using FTP...

red-defender

I use SnippetMaster in most cases, but some want the ability to add extra pages themselves, and for that I use Joomla. Joomla 1.5 is a big improvement and I have found that with about 2 hours instruction clients can handle most of what they need.

A common problem though, and this affects all systems, is that the average client is not very good at preparing images for use on a site. So be wary if they want to change images frequently.

__________________
Kelvyn,
Jenkin Hill Internet, Keswick in the North Lake District

galahad

True about images- we have a PHP script for trimming / resizing images which we could in theory use with an enduser's form for when they want to add images, but that's a bit self-defeating in a way as we're still doing much of the groundwork.

I'll check out these apps and see how feasible they are (for users...)

pursuit

for a simple site with 10 (20,30) and so in question, a db (to store pages info) and a admin panel where users can edit/add pages and upload images, is my answer.

yatesy87

i recently downloaded a simple cms system for a client of mine

Simple CMS

its extremely easy to install and instructions for it are very straight forward, only requires minimal php knowledge from the designers point of view.

has WYSIWYG editor for the customer side control panel only thing it doesnt have photo uploading function but could most probably add that in if you wanted it

__________________
You learn something new every day!

masterplumber

Have used a couple of different approaches. As above, it kind of depends what you need. And quite often - as you know - users think they want one simple thing but then it rapidly changes into a lot of complicated things. I'd try to go for something that offered you a bit of growth if required.

Best one was building it myself from various different components. Used coranto for news input but it's a bit of a dog to set up. Loads of tools out there.

Have also tried a couple of cms packages. Here are three that I think are worthy of consideration

Joomla - quite good if you want to get a fancy looking site set up fairly quickly. Good workflow facilities for add-approve-publish etc but bit of a learning curve from both a setup and user point of view. Can provide fairly spectacular results though and could conceivably work 'out of the box'.

Drupal - fantastic features and can be customised into whatever you want. Bit of a learning curve in terms of setup though (similar to Joomla in that there's a lot to it). Once set up it's very user friendly. On the downside it is bit of a resource hog. It's extensible through modules but you can't add too many before you hit the white screen of death. Needs a max script size of 16Mb (as a minimum I would say).

cmsmadesimple - had a quick look at this a couple of months ago and was quite impressed. Easy so set up and administer and reasonably clean interface. Can also be extended and customised if your requirements change later.


All 3 of the above have good support and excellent user forums.

There's also quite a good site for comparing cms at Home - OpenSourceCMS. Online demos etc. so worht a look.

__________________
be afraid of the old, they'll inherit your soul

Paul_F

modx is worth a look: MODx Content Management System | Home

__________________
Paul
Website design Kent
english coast - seo kent

CVW

Sorry to drag this thread up.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert but I am surprised that I don't see a mention of Wordpress. Although designed as a blogging platform, it can handle being a CMS and is pretty easy to use. It's not Joomla but is has some great in built features, good plugin development and following.

Quite good for a simple CMS and news managment.

Vger

Innova Studio WYSIWYG Editor gets my vote.

Vger

__________________
Working with computers is a bit like getting old - the longer you're around the more wrinkles you find!