Website Software?

[Paul93]

What kind of software/systems do you guys recommend for building a team website? We're currently running PHP-Nuke, which the reviewers from last year stated that it was odd to begin with. One of our mentors suggested WordPress, but I wasn't sure how well we'd be able to modify it. This is just my opinion, as I haven't truly used WordPress, but I feel like it wouldn't satisfy what we're looking for. I was thinking of just custom coding it, but if there's a common system that you guys use, I'd rather just modify that.

If you guys could recommend or suggest what we could use for building our website on, that'd be awesome.

[rogerlsmith]

If you have the time to learn it, I'd recommend Joomla!. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it, along with the many components and modules would certainly be able to do everything you need.

Drupal is another popular Content Management System. Some teams have used this with great results.

My suggestion is to not get too involved with either system. Keep it simple now and make it more sophisticated when you have more time.

[plnyyanks]

This summer, another team member and I wrote our own PHP/mySQL based website infrastructure that is easily editable and customizable. It took a while and is very complicated, but it works great and serves our purpose extremely well.

[Dustin Shadbolt]

There are several gosh. It's up to you really. I prefer wordpress or drupal. I would also use Joomla if I needed something that joomla could do compared to the others. There are Pros and Cons for any cms/software you use to power a site. Some others are CMS Made Simple or ModX or just good ol' Html. The classic debate is joomla vs wordpress vs drupal. Just find a system you like and run with it .

Wordpress is a great option if you have someone looking for an easy quick platform to keep information published. It's a very popular platform and there are countless tutorials. Wordpress is not that hard to customize. I might be able to help you if you headed down that route.

Joomla is based on an article system. I find that joomla is a great choice if you have a bigger site with multiple users submitting data. That's just from my experience.

Drupal is Drupal. Steep learning curve, but if you conquer it, you will be able to do anything you want. The White House's website even uses Drupal.

CMSMS is a new system that is actually pretty awesome. It's known for being simple. The theming system is the easiest I have seen. It uses something called smarty to help you theme. Where you want a page's content you would just put [content] and so on (or {content} something along those lines).

[2829ron]

Originally Posted by Paul93

What kind of software/systems do you guys recommend for building a team website? We're currently running PHP-Nuke, which the reviewers from last year stated that it was odd to begin with. One of our mentors suggested WordPress, but I wasn't sure how well we'd be able to modify it. This is just my opinion, as I haven't truly used WordPress, but I feel like it wouldn't satisfy what we're looking for. I was thinking of just custom coding it, but if there's a common system that you guys use, I'd rather just modify that.

If you guys could recommend or suggest what we could use for building our website on, that'd be awesome.

I use SiteSpinner by Virtual Mechanics. While you do have to pay for it, it's still a nice software. You can check out our site here (which is built with this software): http://www.2011.sirmachineryrobotics.com. Here is the Virtual Mechanics site: http://www.virtualmechanics.com/?app=spinner&ver=291g; and you can download A 15 day trial to see if you like it. It's basically click and drag website building that codes itself (although you can put in custom code).

David

[demosthenes2k8]

My team used CMS Made Simple last year, but is changing over to Drupal. It's an excellent choice, really simple to use but really powerful.

[Paul93]

Thanks guys!

I think I'll take a look at Drupal and Joomla!

[synth3tk]

Drupal is my weapon of choice right now, though I used to swear by Joomla! I'm loving just how expandable it is through all of the available modules. In terms of 3rd-party development, Drupal has a very large base, which means there are a ton of modules to cover just about anything you need. As demosthenes2k8 stated, it is a very powerful system, even right out of the box. I'm actually revamping our site with Drupal this year.

Wordpress, while having the potential to be used as a CMS, is obviously better-suited for a blog with a few simple pages.

[quinxorin]

Our site is entirely custom-coded. It's quite a lot of work, and probably not feasible in the time remaining, considering build starts in 02:08:49:02 (according to the countdown on our website). The site is http://www.lightningrobotics.com. I would recommend custom coding if you had asked this summer, but now you probably have to go with something like Joomla!.

[Scott L.]

ASP.Net 4.0 w/AJAX using Visual Studios and visual web developer express 2010. The later is free.