Help me choose a CMS

[Utech22]

I definately want to put this fresh site www.champsjamaica.com
on a CMS.

I am looking at:
Joomla | Plone | Wordpress

I am also for a simple open source ecommerse s/f
- oscommerce looks too crowded to me.

[Anubis]

Whoa thats sad the forum doesn't look bad though well to my knowledge for overall simplicity go Wordpress its almost disturbing how simple it is and what you can get out of it I really don't know the disadvantages of CMS which I am sure may be quite a few but I jumped on Wordpress rather easily but that simplicity would also provide quick limitations Joomla is something you have to learn but when you have learned it, its seems to be a good was about to read up Plone some time back but I lost interest you may also want to check out "Durpal" so I say if you want to fix that VERY VERY SAD site like NOW like IMMEDIATELY like AT THIS POINT IN TIME jump on to Wordpress and then you can check out Durpal, Joomla and Plone in the background and if you prefer one of those then you can replace Wordpress.

[Utech22]

I did not even remember to add drupal to the poll.

[Krems]

im a major, major Joomla fan, but let me give you my unbiased review.

Wordpress - Predominantly a blog, but people use it as a CMS all the time. as Anubis said its learning curve is close to flat, and there are a gazillion skins and extensions out there to use, however, as extensible as it is, it has blogging roots, and you are constantly reminded of it. That, and its E-commerce extensions are nowhere near the level of Joomla's and Drupal's

Joomla - Powerful and easy to learn, takes a while to master. Getting a basic site up is very simple. Also has a lot of extensions to choose from (Kunena for the forum and Virtuemart for the e-commerce).

Now the bad side, in its current release (Joomla 1.5), its very limiting as it relates to access control, content breakdown.....ect. Also, its simplicity in operation tends to make a lot of admins lazy. Please please PLEASE if you're running a Joomla site, keep current with updates, change passwords, use only longtime tried and tested extensions, backup regularly, else you will eventually get hacked/spammed. Lastly, in comparison to Drupal, its slow.

Drupal - Frankly a ridiculous learning curve, not beginner friendly at all. If you're looking to get a site up quickly and/or cheaply then skip this part. However once you actually get the site up its a dream from there on. Ubercart is very good, not quite as good as Virtuemart. but it can work.


Plone - A bit overkill for your needs, Plone is more an enterprise intranet system than a conventional CMS.



my recommendation is that you go with Wordpress or Joomla

[Utech22]

I am going to create 2 directories, install joomla in one and wordpress in the other.
Then I do some playing around, I want to grasp the template editing.

[Anubis]

Well Wordpress is so straight forward there is really very little to grasp so don't expect to be playing with the templates for too long but I don't recall every messing around with the extensions I have dabbled in a Widget or two but not any of the extensions unless Wordpress version of a extension are their Widgets.

[Utech22]

I want to edit the wordpress default theme to my style, instead of installing a custom theme.

[Anubis]

To do that Tech there is a section of the "backend" that allows you to edit the CSS code you need to find that it should be under the administration section.

[Utech22]

Yes, the css files are in a css sub-folder inside the admin folder, but which of the css to start with?

[Anubis]

Can't help you there I don't have web coding knowledge but if you want to customize theme's to your liking I think that there is where you would have to do it.