s9y, or other CMS?

Post by **Don Chambers** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:38 pm

Garvin, Carl, CoSTa, judebert, and many others have been very helpful while I did my first s9y install. While I was performing that install, which was complete overkill for my needs, I have had something else in the back of my mind.

I am thinking of creating a new site, and am wondering if I could use s9y, or if I will find it too limiting and need to consider some of these other CMS packages, such as Xoops, PostNuke, PHPNuke, Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, etc.

I need to spend some serious thought on the content of this conceptual site, but I know a few things in advance. I need it to run in a shared server environment. I definitely need blogging & rss. I want discusssion forums, but want login to the forums to be synchronized for the entire site (ie, login data from the homepage preserves user information for blogging, forums, etc. I certainly want maximum flexibility for any modules, templates, etc. I have noticed a few of the solutions previously mentioned have become overly commercial in terms of add-ons and templates. I need flexibility in customization, but want a crisp, clean, respectable, but contemporary, appearance. Definitely need menus - possibly tabbed menus, maybe dropdown, not sure yet.

The site might offer enhanced functionality for paid memberships. If the site can raise some funds, I want to find some way to give a good portion of that back to people who have difficulty paying for medical supplies related to this condition. I am being deliberately vague about the medical "condition" right now, but it is not all that uncommon.

The site is going to be very news release oriented, specific to a certain medical condition. There are a fair number of resources out there for this condition already, but the sites are poorly structured, and news is coming from dozens of dissimilar sources. I hope to aggregate much of that information in a single location, plus add additional content from multiple authors. The initial geographic focus for this is North America, but once I understand the implications for other regions, I would incorporate that as well.

I need to stockpile certain chunks of static data. Items like FAQ's, common documents, etc. Might need to maintain databases of information. I will need some kind of storefront, but I am not sure about whether that would be things linked through an Amazon affiliate site, or whether it would be a true shopping cart, with items stocked somewhere.

I know I need to get a better grip on my requirements, mission, etc, but I am listing a few ideas with the basic question of: Is s9y appropriate for this sort of site, or would my needs be best served by one of these other solutions, and if so, which would be on par technically with s9y. Or, maybe a combination of s9y with one of these others????

Also, I have never done anything like this. I can get more specific with others if you think you might want to become a creative, or technical resource on this project.

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:46 am

Don, I have been involved with many charitable institutions over the years, and commend you for wanting to take a stand. I've been involved in doing exactly what you're attempting to do, except it was for an aged care organisation, and was several years ago. My roll was in the overall management, planning, and strategic development of the concept. I am not prepared to divulge confidentialities either here or privately but the advice I may be able to offer might of use to you. You need to email me with more info.

I am looking for details such as, will your site also offer training provision for sufferers or care-givers, are you planning to offer accreditation to medical professionals at first-response, hospital or private practice level, do you intend creating a database of known medical symptoms, case notes etc. How much privacy control do you need?

Why are you looking at a shared server, are you not able to apply for funding from your local health department or university?

dk70 · Post by **dk70** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:46 am

I think more CMS than S9Y.

You need to test each and every one. Find out what their problems are. If someone suggest Drupal, and it is good, what will it help you if you cant stand the "nodes" mania?

Also if you want site to be stable in 1-2 years time you should get a feel of how supported/updated CMS is. Goes for plugins/extensions too. Xoops have had problems for example. A question of community as well but as with S9Y biggest does not have equal best. Where you get best help might even be a parameter. Takes a bit of time. Joomla, Drupal are most favorites and no problems there but what about E107? Or any of those you can check out on http://www.opensourcecms.com/ Most are superb and most are crap if you go by "advice"

Testing is a must but really only long term testing is worth much. Sometimes you do not see weak spots until later, could be you are more than happy with CMS but ooops hardly any plugins available and tweaking theme is a monster task. Or there are plugins, just not updated/compatible with new version. Problems like that can drive you crazy and is probably one of the reasons people gather around few popular proven to work projects like Joomla, Drupal.

If you look at Opensourcecms forums you see 100s of similar questions - there are no extremely useful answers

Lets say you have been working hard on Post Nuke for 2 years and someone ask you what to use? All this is very time consuming and of course most tend to prefer what they know about. Remember that and trust yourself. Quite a project it seems so you will have some work to do even before uploading anything. Good idea to get a local server like XamPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html online test-sites is not that great. Download the lot of them. Takes few minutes to install Drupal or whatever. But as said, all the surrounding online qualites means a lot. You know you get super support with S9Y right? But you did not allways know. Even more important if you are not good with coding, making your own hacks etc.

Post by **Don Chambers** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:24 pm

dk70 wrote:If someone suggest Drupal, and it is good, what will it help you if you cant stand the "nodes" mania?

What is "nodes" mania?

dk70 wrote:Also if you want site to be stable in 1-2 years time you should get a feel of how supported/updated CMS is. Goes for plugins/extensions too. Xoops have had problems for example.

What sort of problems with Xoops?

dk70 wrote:A question of community as well but as with S9Y biggest does not have equal best. Where you get best help might even be a parameter.

Well said - I looked at Wordpress vs. s9y, and it was clear s9y was superior even if Wordpress looked to be a more widely implemented blogging solution. I have never regretted that decision, and the support on this site has been beyond my expectations.

dk70 wrote:Takes a bit of time. Joomla, Drupal are most favorites and no problems there but what about E107?

I had never heard of E107 until you mentioned it. It looks like the developers are on the right track trying hard to produce a quality solution. However, it also looks like they are early in development, and therefore lacking much of the module and template libraries other solutions offer. I'll take a closer look when I can.

dk70 wrote:Good idea to get a local server like XamPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html

I'll look into this as well. Thanks for all the input!

dk70 · Post by **dk70** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:18 pm

Install Drupal and you find out

Xoops has been messy. First of all it has been target for some hacking. Secondly they have been shaky about development. Big plans and promises but not enough testing and now seem to have 2 series of releases, the old and new. More or less fixed now but you can find long statements from leading coder saying "we know this has been crap, sorry - we will now change policy, no more rushed releases etc..." But to get a feel of how "project" works is not something you do in 5 minutes but most only spend 5 minutes! (and why S9Y coders would get busy if they had a Wordpress like website

) Xoops actually very nice in many ways, works a bit like S9Y with regards to plugins. Piece of cake.

I'm no expert on CMS but I'm sure these "warnings" are important and as said also why many flock around a few favorites like Drupal, Joomla - before that Mambo. They have big support crew, well organized and wont make mistakes like Xoops. Does not mean there are no S9Y type of beast in CMS world, just hard to find. Often you can almost get a smell of project looking at website. I mean try Post Nuke

What a mess... I have played with that a bit, easy enough to get started but when you look for help and tips you soon give up.

I have seen your site and that is not default graphics - so you will hack away for sure. Just knowing that will probably exclude quite a few. Xammp is really nice, just install and you get it all delivered on a plate. Sites you install under xammp/htdocs folder. You have own Apace server so use "127.0.0.1" as url in browser and you are in business. Use PhpMyAdmin to make database, run install.php or whatever readme.txt say. Site is up and you can test 100 times better than on online test-servers.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:40 pm

Just to add my $0.02 on this:

I can only agree to what dk70 pointed out.

Most certainly, Serendipity can satisfy many needs of a CMS driven website. But not all, and it depends on how much you want to fiddle with creating your own plugins or templates.

I for one, since I know Serendipity by heart, would never pick any other CMS again, because I'd know how to build a plugin for everything I require.

But other people might appreciate that Typo3 offers a bost of existing plugins. Then again, Typo3 has a very high learning curve and is hard to tame.

As you see, every CMS has advantages and disadvantages like any Blog application. In the end it all boils down to what you FEEL is the best way to go. Which utility you trust the most to "do what you want" or "bent like you want", where you think you find the most help and what you think is easiest to use.

You should really have a look at existing competition and make a choice for that - because choosing the right CMS/Blog is basically like choosing a religion or the best car.

If in the end you choose Serendipity, we would like to hear your feedback on how well you were able to use it, what you were missing and what worked out pretty well. You have seen that we are acting much on what the community requires (if it can be done technically) and that we highly value feedback.

Best regards,
Garvin

Post by **Don Chambers** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:09 am

Garvin - I wish I knew half of what you already forgot!

I really need to collect my thoughts, and see what I really need. S9y has my top vote, but what I am considering is far beyond blogging. I wish I could just code the plugins I need, but I simply do not have that talent. I've been a fairly quick study of this stuff. Perhaps, my needs WILL make s9y possible. I will try to put my needs together within the next week or so. I would love s9y to be the solution, even if I need your help in customization!

Post by **Don Chambers** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:58 am

I have been test driving some of the other CMS offerings out there for the past week. Lots of power there, but also lots of confusion.

Let me tell you what I really miss the most - RESPONSE! So many of these apps seem like they are great, but for a non coder like myself, I need help understanding how things work, and how to customize things to suit my needs. The s9y community was AWESOME in this regard when I did my last site - answered every single question, and did so quickly. Incredible commitment by you guys & ladies!!!!! That commitment seems unmatched in the balance of the CMS world, or at least, the tiny slice of it I have reviewed recently!

I go to these other sites, and you are lucky to get any reply whatsoever, and it is never by a developer!! You can see the potential power of the application, but if you cannot get a question answered, you are left hanging on so many issues!!!!

Another thing I noticed: I'm not a coder, and some of you guys have taught me 90% of what I know about CSS & php, but the s9y code seems really clean to me by comparison to what I have seen elsewhere. Simple, structured, elegant. I'm not saying everything else is crap, but there is a consistent level of perfection to the s9y code!! Again, another testament to you hard working developers!!!

So, hats off to Garvin & the development team, plus so many of you hard-core s9y users who make sure that users get what they need from s9y!!! I really wish s9y would fulfill my current needs, but it just does not really look that way, and I simply do not have the talent to modify core files and write plugins to do what I need.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:36 am

Hi Owen!

Many thanks for your praise! Indeed we strife for perfection. *g*

I understand if s9y may not be your top choice - I do agree that you tend to need some coding skills if you want s9y to show off all flexibility.

Best regards,
Garvin