I am working on getting http://contraildesigns.com up and running as a personal website of mine. I want to find a content management system that will allow me to login and post news inside the white content box on my page, while keeping the CSS styling already in use. I have messed around with a couple, so far wordpress and mambo. Mambo is currently installed on my FTP but i am having trouble figuring out how to get it to do what I want it to... im not even sure if it has that capability. I am sure this is a very common thing for webmasters to do, I just don't have any experience with it. Any clarity you can bring is much appreciated

-Dustin L

It sounds like you're trying to do things a little backwards. If I'm understanding right, you're wanting to fit a CMS into your html site. That's not really the right approach.

What you would want to do is install your CMS of choice and then customize the theme if the CMS to look however you want. Based on your needs for the site I'd recommend WordPress, since I think it will be easier to use and customize.

It's not difficult to customize a WordPress theme, but you will need to learn your way around WordPress a little. Here's a link to the WordPress Codex Section on Design and Layout. It should have what you need in there to learn how to take a WordPress theme and customize it to look how you want.

http://www.joomla.org/ I would say is very good and best of all its free!

so are you saying most people decide on a CMS first, then build the CMS template?

say i had a website that was already built and i wanted a simple script that would allow me to login and post news in a certain area, while still keeping the same styling i already had.

joomla, mambo, wordpress, all of these are way overcomplicated for what it is i am trying to accomplish. the only features i want is to be able to control the format the DMY is in. that is it. no comments, no archiving, etc

although if a page got too long it would be nice to have one that could setup links to the next page etc

When you have an existing site it could depend a little on how you handle things. For example many people have existing static sites and want to add a blog. In that case the usual is to install the blog in it's own directory and then customize the theme to match the rest of the site.

The other option is to install WordPress or whatever CMS, customize the look to however you want, add the existing content, and then replace the current site.

The idea behind a CMS is that all your content is stored in a database and there's an application that reads from and writes to that database. The CMS becomes the site, not something you try to fit into part of a static page.

Looking at the site you linked to it would be fairly simple to customize a WordPress theme to match the look. You could turn off the comments, the archiving, etc. on the admin side of WordPress. It would take a lot less time to customize a WordPress theme than it will to write something custom to fit inside your existing page.

i have been playing around with wordpress for a few days now, and as cool as it may be, it isn't what i was looking for. wordpress basically IS your website. i want to do it with a little more control... design each page myself. all i want is a SIMPLE script to make posting news on my front page easier. i had the wrong idea of what a CMS was before i started using them. they are cool for people looking to make a website that dont have any experience, but are not at all something i want to use. so i guess i need to rephrase the title of this thread.... help me find a suitable news posting script

thanks in advance

You have a lot more control over WordPress or any other CMS than you might think. You can change the design of the different pages inside your CMS. It's just not going to be the same as you would do it for a static html page.

I'm not sure you're going to find a script that does quite what you want, but you can check hotscripts.com to see if there's anything close.

Hey, this is very similar to what I need. Have you considered finding a PHP script that will add a blog to a single page? I haven't looked, but based on the answers here, all the CMS software is HUGE.