Content Management

  • Thread starter Blake
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Blake

Blake

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haswell00
I need some advice on selecting a CMS (for a blog*).

Needs to be free, relatively easy to customize, and, uh, yeah. Obviously I’m looking at Movable Type and WordPress.

But I need some other suggestions, too. :P Also, if there are any must have plug-ins for any CMS please mention them. Links are good.

Thanks for any help. :)

*Happy Sage?
 
You mean CMS for a blog? ’Cuz MT and WP make great blog CMSs, but are lousy as general-purpose CMSs. ;)

Moveable Type is absolutely awesome in terms of customizability – their templates and tags are perfectly intuitive, and work exactly the way you’d expect. The only problem is that there are now fewer plugin developers (though still plenty), and it is (or at least used to be) a [beach] to install. I don’t know if they’ve streamlined the installation process since I last used it, but it took me two full days to install it.

WordPress is great too, although it’s somewhat less intuitive – you have to have more of a programmer’s mindset (loops and parameters and what not) in order to work with it effectively. You’re more likely to find plugins for it, and installation is stupid-easy.

I would go for MT, especially now that they’ve relaxed their licensing scheme. MT gets gigantic kudos from me for their templates and tags – it’s really how a templating system should work.
 
What about uninstallation? I used something a while ago that I could not completely destroy no matter what I did to it.

If I’m happy with it there will probably not be any uninstallation for some time, but it’s something that’s good to know.
 
Uhhhh, dun ask me. ;) If your server uses cPanel X, then it might have Fantastico installed, which does a swell job of installing and uninstalling software. If not, then I can’t really comment, except that wiping the files and the databases should be enough.
 
Sage
The only problem is that … it is (or at least used to be) a [beach] to install. I don’t know if they’ve streamlined the installation process since I last used it, but it took me two full days to install it.
Click to expand...

Oh heck. I’ve just downloaded the installation manual and I really don’t doubt you at all. Not looking forward to that. :nervous:
 
Yup. You know it’s not the most streamlined process when you need a 520 KB manual to do it. It’ll be worth it though.
 
Okay, I’ve decided to go with WordPress. I understand programming, I just don’t know PHP. But I feel I’ll be able to work with it.

Time to spend a few days under the hood, then…
 
WordPress is the best way to go...so easy to get working that I could do it.
 
Pupik
WordPress is the best way to go.
Click to expand...
Word.

I know absolutely nothing about PHP; if, else and any other conditional dohiggity, and it worked for me.

I’d recommend reading up on the WordPress Codex, and if you’re planning on attempting your own theme, find a complete one and slowly refine each template to your liking. The only problem that I’ve had is upgrading; partly my fault. I changed some of the core files to output code I wanted, as opposed to the default WordPress limitation.

As a tip, WordPress automatically wraps elements in <p></p> tags—even images, which adds unwanted padding. Open default-filters.php and comment out the lines that contain the wpautop function.

So
PHP: 
add_filter('the_excerpt', 'wpautop');
becomes
PHP: 
// add_filter('the_excerpt', 'wpautop');
Awesome.

I write my articles in (X)HTML first (Sage; I’m not worried about delivering the incorrect MIME type), then post them to WordPress after disabling the WYSIWYG input. It’s worth the extra effort to be in control of your markup.

At the very least; unless you’re using an anti–spam plugin; I’d recommend that you moderate all comments, or disable them all together.
 
Hehe, I never got the hang of Wordpress. I've stuck with Joomla since I first installed it. It's easy to use, you can use it like a blog plus a ton of other things.
 

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