So I've returned from the dead to haunt you all with another of those 'what CMS for me' thread. Sorry if this is in the wrong category.

Basically, I used to run a website. About 4 years ago. Now I'm back to pick up where I left off.

I was farmiliar with phpBB2, using a mod, called 'fetchall' which basically made a portal focused around your BB. A Very primitive kind of blog thing at the time it came out. I got to know the code inside-out and genuinely enjoyed using that system. It all seems remarkably manual and table-based these days, though.

Anyway.
Problem is, 4 years later... I am stuck on where to turn. So many CMS systems have emerged it's hard for me to decide. I've been completely out of touch with it all, other than passive viewing.

My cPanel will allow me to easily install ones like Drupal, WP and Joomla through fantastico.
I have tried these out before but I think they're just too powerful for what I need. Would it be worth me learning one of these anyway? Drupal is my first choice. Then probably Joomla. NOT WP. Erm-

I also stumbled across textpattern but wasn't so keen on the chmod 777 issue; but did like the simplicity and wiki-like ability to caption images and such.
I remember coming across Movable Type and thinking wow; that was that.
And had, a brief look at vBulletin with a similar portal system to what I used before... Then a brief look at the price tags

For an outline of what I need my CMS to do:
PORTFOLIO - 3 galleries; two with images in, one with SWF's. All need captions and thumbnails. Ideally, the image galleries thumbnails being automatically generated but not required. Would also like the ability to have comments (+ star ratings?) on every item in the galleries, without things being shuffled around ('bumped').
BLOG - Plain simple blog, comments enabled, rss feeds.
HOMEPAGE - News & Updates, blog style, comments enabled, rss feeds.
DOWNLOADS - Just a kind of file repository... A kind of blog thing, which will 'index' to an archive page. So, ability to upload all filetypes within blogposts to be considered.
CONTACT - I have a contact script anyway, but if the CMS can do it too, awesome!

A multiple image upload capability would be useful for the blog posts.
SEO friendly, CSS output would be fantastic as I am in desperate need to get my CSS level up to par.
Similarity to phpBB2/fetchall's coding would be a great headstart for me personally.


Thanks for reading.
Is there such a perfect CMS/Portal system?

Cheers!

edit: oh yeah, built in captcha system for comments would be top rankin.

phpBB and vBulletin are more suited to being threaded discussion boards, which is what they were designed for.

Personally I would suggest that an installation of Wordpress would do what you need.

Ok.
Well I've tried wordpress but it seemed such a pain with the updates n that.
It seemed ridiculously over-coded at the time; but I did check it out about 3 years ago.

Well having had a rethink I reckon it's between Drupal and WP.
I'm still leaning towards Drupal because the power will be there if I do decide to expand my site.

As a Flash animator, I would like a community and a bit of a discussion about animation and such, as I will be hosting my own tutorials and all sorts - eventually.
So power to expand is definitely something I need.

In all honesty, if updating requires severe modifying of template pages then I probably won't be updating my CMS until I redesign, as all pages will be custom themed.

I am lazy which is probably why I want a CMS in the first place, ha.

Thanks dude.

Well if you think Wordpress is "overcoded", don't go looking at Joomla then

I can say from my experience that Wordpress is by far the easiest integration to a CMS and customization with use of plugins, etc that I went through.

The support forums over there are great too!

Joomla is just a pain.

Cool guys.
Yeah I've seen the thousands of plugins for WP... I guess it's a pretty standard choice for this kind of site.
I suppose there's always the option to launch another site for the community based stuffs. I would probably prefer that because my personal site will only update in content, til I'm more farmiliar with the CMS.
Plus a separate site would allow for input from other (admin) users, like my old sites... That would have to come in a year or two though.

Another CMS I've been recommended is Symphony CMS. I haven't been able to find any examples running on it, but it looks nice... With some great updates promised in 2.1, for summer time. GUI is clean too. I'm reading up on that atm.

Only thing is, I'll want them both running off either the same system, or two completely different ones - such as WP and the vB portal. Just for the learning aspect.

Thanks for the help.
Guess it'll be decision time pretty soon. I'm itching to get this up and running at last

Drupal and Joomla are well known, Wordpress is a blog that has gradually been somewhat turned into a cms.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Well if you think Wordpress is "overcoded", don't go looking at Joomla then

I have yet to find any OS CMS that isn't over-coded but if you decide you need more than Wordpress in terms of functionality I much prefer Drupal over Joomla.

Hey guys.

Thanks for all the help!

It really got me thinking about what was important for my CMS.
and, to me, that was customisabilityism.
Soo... I went ahead with the recommendation from a friend of Symphony CMS.

After some problems, involving me not having LibXSLT up and running on my server (and ultimately contacting my host to implement it for me), I finally have this wonderous CMS up and running already and am certainly feeling it's power. I've yet to integrate my own template (or 'workspace' as it is called here) but am certainly having loads of fun toying around for now. It's like the old times, lol.

Looks like it's time for me to really get to work now

Thanks again for all the help.

You guys should definitely check it out.
http://symphony-cms.com

Peace~
--[resolved]