Software sugestions

[N_Jay]

I am building my first site (Be gentle).

It is for a No-for-profit organization similar to a software users group.

It is supported by a few corporations, so I don't have to worry too much about the cost of the development, but am very concerned about the ease of set up and long term maintainability.

I am looking for sugestions for the Content Management software and the discussion forum software.

Thanks

[Chris]

I've never seen a CMS that I liked out-of-the-box so I can't give you recommendations for that.

Vbulletin, the forum software that this forum uses, is excellent though.

[N_Jay]

Originally posted by Chris
I've never seen a CMS that I liked out-of-the-box so I can't give you recommendations for that.


Working backwards, what is the "least bad" of the out of the box CMS packages?

[chromate]

I've always built my own CMS's. I use HTMLEditBox (much cheaper than Editize) for users to create the content. I then just serve that content up from a database into the page template.

But as far as complete CMS packages, I shouldn't really comment.

[GCT13]

Finding the right CMS can be a huge pain. A few months ago I embarked on a quest to find the right CMS fit for me. All I wanted was an open source solution that would grant me complete control of any number of templates and complete control of the URL for each page.

I started out testing open source CMSes here-
http://www.opensourcecms.com

..but found most of the popular open source stuff to be way too rigid and not even close to meeting my needs.

I joined a CMS list-
http://www.cms-list.org/

..to get feedback from CMS professionals, and got some good recommendations regarding "enterprise" open source CMSes, but for one reason or another (resource hog, ridiculous setup, pathetic documentation, etc.) I abandoned my search and yes... create my own CMS from scratch.

Anywho-

Back to your question N_Jay. Since you can spend some cash I'd recommend you find a consultant or a company that specializes in finding you the right CMS solution. There is so much open and closed source programs out there, it's best to have some help along the way.

(For example, a place like this-
http://www.sprinc.com/services_ecm.html

I haven't used them, but I've conversed with one of their technical reps on the cms-list.org list and they have a lot of CMS know-how.)

Good luck!

[N_Jay]

Maybe I am going too deep on this.

I want to put a site together that is just a bit better than the typical "Newbie User" of FrontPage.

I realy like the functions in VBulletin, and would like to have that profeshional a look to the non-discussion pages on the site.

Is CMS more than I need?

Does someone have a recommendation other than a consultant.
(Unfourtunatly, I am the consultant)
The Web site is just one piece of a larger project. It just happens to be the first thing that needs to be addressed.

For all I know, maybe FrontPage and good book on FrontPage is all I need, but I don't want to go down that path if others know it is a dead end.

[Chris]

Design and content management are seperate. If you want a good design hire a great designer.

For content management a simple database can work fine. You don't need a complicated CMS.

I also develop all my own, the one for this site included.

[N_Jay]

Originally posted by Chris
Design and content management are seperate. If you want a good design hire a great designer.

For content management a simple database can work fine. You don't need a complicated CMS.

I also develop all my own, the one for this site included.

Maybe I am thinking too hard about this.

I guess i need to learn a bit more to ask better questions.

Is there a good book for non-programmers to get started assembling a decent web site (I will be keeping the "design" simple).

About 75% of the site will be static pages for now.

The two areas I am concerned about are getting a decent sign-in system to restrice certain pages, menu items and links based on sign-in class, and the discussion forum system.

I think I have decided on VBulletin for the discussion, but the rest is up in the air.

My bigest concern is going down a path that I have to abandon later.

[GCT13]

First, figure out what you want on the site. What pages will you have, and what will be on each page? Then, pick out a design for the site. If you don't have the know-how to design it, then there are numerous template sites out there or you could go to DesignOutPost.com, describe what you want, and have people compete over the design for a few hundred bucks.

Next, build it out.

Webmonkey
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/html_basics/

and

Sitepoint
http://www.sitepoint.com/subcat/88

have some pretty good tutorials on html.

(Perhaps for now, if most of the site will be static, you don't need to worry about a CMS and can make do with simply updating .html files direct. Might be one less thing to worry about.)

[Mike]

How complicated do you want it? Just to update news, or to update the whole site?

[N_Jay]

Originally posted by Mike
How complicated do you want it? Just to update news, or to update the whole site?

Not very.

A log-in system with at least 4 levels of access, with a customizable membership request form.
About 10 fairly static pages.
A discussion forum.
A site search function.
Was goingto have a file upload/download page, but I think I can do that in VBulletin.
Would like to have menus that are tailored to the acess level on each page.

Thats about it for now.