I am looking for a CMS. I posted on sitepoint and was recommended joomla and DNN, so was thrilled to see we can have them installed :up: I already have a wordpress blog but have been told I need something 'more powerful' lol So anyone used/using Joomla or DNN or any other recommendations? Sharon
I've used both and don't like them, too bloated, difficult to use Andrew a member here has his own, it's very 'light' and not difficult to use. https://www.web-pa.co.uk/cruxcms/
Too be honest I think theyre both really really good, one thing I dont like about DNN is that alot of the 3rd party modules need to be paid for if youre going to use them. Sure they could be described as bloated, but another word that could be used would be 'complete'
I use joomla quite a lot. advantages Flexible open source low cost large developer support extensible It is ideal for a large cms project, but due to the way joomla 1 series runs it can be far too bloated, both in terms of a confusing adminstartion area for the clients and for the repeated server code to be processed on each request to the server. It is always best to cache joomla, and depending on how often its updated depends on the cache time. On a dedicated server with lots of guts you could even cache it into ram. But for some simple cms websites that dont needs loads of options, a thinner and leaner cms is more appropriate. Ive looked at quite a few before, some have very well layed out admin areas others are more confusing than joomla (with far less options). One thing the small cms's have in common is the admin area's all look crap so if you go down this route it may be best to check the software license and see if you can skin the admin area and maybe add your branding.
Thank you for your replies. I am not sure yet what will be the best thing to do. There are a few things 'wrong' with our current website so we are looking at different options, one of them being re build the website using a cms. We have around 120 products at the moment, we add more every week. There are about 8-10 category/subcat pages then 5-6 misc pages, plus a seperate blog (mainly for search engines) I can't decide if a cms is the best way to go or not :unsure: Sharon
As good as my CMS is , it isn't designed for e-commerce stuff (yet) If cubecart is working ok, why not just sort out what you don't like about that? I'll be happy to help out along the way if you need it, I installed cubecart onto my development server so can try things out without making any direct changes to your site
One of the main problems with cubecart is that we can't have different thumb nail images and product images, which we really want. The thumbnail image is created by cc from the main product image and automatically added to the database. The images can't be over written (if that is the right term) as I did try uploading new thumbnail images with the same name but it wasn't possible. I am guessing it means adding some sort of thing to the database and changing the code that gets the thumbnail images from the database, but I am not sure. I've asked on cubecart forums but no one seems to know. Another problem is the urls aren't SEF. (not a HUGE problem as we are ranking quite well in search engines for various key words and phrases) Also the title tag is the same for each page. The search facility is poor as welll. There are a few other little things that I can't find ways around either. I was planning on using roman cart instead which involves bascially adding buy now buttons to each product and having an externally hosted cart (with roman cart). It means the design and functionality of the site is totally in our hands then (bit scary lol) but the features of roman cart seem quite good, particularly for the gold package. itsolutions-I am not sure the cms needs to be made specifically for ecommerce as roman cart is designed to fit in with existing sites just by adding the buy now code. Sharon
I can look into the thumbnail problem if you want, see if I can find a way around it If you definitely wanted to move away from cubecart, I could look into modifying the CMS to work with RomanCart
