Technology to build website portal/community - any ideas?

Zascar

Hey Guys,

I want to start a website – a forum/community/portal for a specific type of group with a common interest. Mostly I just want a forum, but I want a small website at the front where I can have things like news, articles, links, downloads etc

I have some web design experience – I used to design site a while ago but it as all just HTML either hand coded or with dreamweaver. However this project will be different as I want to start small but see what happens as the user base increases, hopefully I can expand it considerably. I already have the domain and hosting etc, so I can create a basic site and install PHPbb in the /forum section no problem. However I just don’t have the time to create the site itself and if I did it would only be in HTML and expanding it would be quite laborious. I would prefer to start with some sort of technology (cms?) that will give me a website template to start with, which I can easily add pages to and modify, with a WYSIWUG editor. Preferably something I can get skins for etc and then modify the look myself.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for what I am looking for?
Thanks

smemon

I'd say wordpress would be your best bet.

Easy to manage, skinnable, can be used with static or updated content...

loads of plugins..

Zascar

Hmm, I already have a blog that uses wordpress. Perhaps I am just not using it properly but I tink its pretty basic. Great for a blog but not exactly what I'm looking for.
Any other ideas?
Thanks

aidan_walsh

No reason it can't be. You can already tag and categorise your articles, you an write paged articles, and manage drafts on the server.

Many sites already use it for managing news articles, its pretty convenient for it.

Goodshape

Something like Joomla maybe?

Zascar

I host with Blacknight and they have the Installatron and I've just noticed that they do all these cms/portal systems

Coranto - cms
Drupal -cms
TYPO3 - cms
Joomla - portal
Mambo - portal
ocPortal - portal
PHP-Nuke - portal
PostNuke - portal
Xoops - portal

Can anyone tell me which is the easiest to use for a newbie - or which one would be best for what I need?
Thanks

Goodshape

I've tried Mambo, Joomla (very similar), Drupal and PostNuke (haven't tried that one in ages though).

I'd recommended having a look at Joomla. It's quite featured, lots of extendibility, easy install and nice admin interface.

mick.fr

Joomla is nice but Subdreamer is far better in my opinion, much easier, forum integration, much nicer templates, www.subdreamer.com
Plus Joomla is a very old engine (Based on Mambo) they are trying to re-vamp but there are a lot of issues.

the Guru

this has everything you want and then some for a community site http://www.phpfox.com/

Zascar

Thanks guys. I installed Joomala and although it looked a little complicated at first, after playing with it for a little while, it really is excellent, looks and feel fantastic. It is extermely nice to use and quite intuative which I think is very important. Its pretty much exactly what I want in terms of easy admin etc.

I just now have to find an appropriate skin/template. Actually I quite like the default one - I'd just change a few graphics and I'm sure it will still look really nice, however its not good to use the standard install template, I'd perfer something a little more original.

Can anyone point me to a place where I can get decent (free) templates?
Thanks

mick.fr

the Guru wrote:

this has everything you want and then some for a community site http://www.phpfox.com/

Ridiculously expensive, awful plugins, and the code used is very old, even the Bookmark action does not work for Firefox.
Definitely not something I would recommend.

axer

mick.fr wrote:

Plus Joomla is a very old engine (Based on Mambo) they are trying to re-vamp but there are a lot of issues.

huh?

mick.fr

axer wrote:

huh?

Don't know the story of Joomla ?
Fair enough.

axer

mick.fr wrote:

Don't know the story of Joomla ?
Fair enough.

I do, ive been using joomla/mambo since the release of Mambo v4.5 a few years back.

How is the Joomla engine very old?
What are the issues they are having re-vamping the "very old engine"? They are just about to release Joomla 1.5 beta 2.