[druber]

I'm setting up a personal site which is partly portfolio, partly picture gallery, and partly news/blog. I'll likely add forums (phpbb) as well. Considering using Dreamweaver to build the pages myself, but for interaction's sake, a PHP CMS might be nice. I want something simple, though. Both visually and user-wise. *Simple*. If I could use it to build photo galleries, that would save me a lot of time. Organized news, also very nice.

A quick glance at hotscripts, though, shows a multitude of systems out there. I'm not even sure I want a CMS at all, and I sure don't have time to sort through a couple hundred to find one that would meet my needs and not give me fits. Any suggestions for

1. whether to go with PHP et cetera or code in Dreamweaver?

2. which PHP CMS solution to try?

Thanks

[Peter]

When you say CMS, do you mean like pMachine, or like PHP Nuke or somthing different?

[ameat]

i've heard of a lot of people using moveable type recently...

check out this guy's write up:
http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2003/0...portfolio.html

[druber]

Thanks for the MT link, good stuff. Granted, I'd like to find something more in the "free" category. (I'm hosting a portfolio to try to pick up some freelance work.)

PHPnuke, Typo3, CMSimple. Yeah, that's the kind of CMS stuff I've been looking at. I really dig CSS, but I'm not sure it'd be sufficient when it came to the photo gallery. Can CSS alone be used to make columns that occupy the same Y space?

[ameat]

Originally posted by druber:
Thanks for the MT link, good stuff. Granted, I'd like to find something more in the "free" category. (I'm hosting a portfolio to try to pick up some freelance work.)

PHPnuke, Typo3, CMSimple. Yeah, that's the kind of CMS stuff I've been looking at. I really dig CSS, but I'm not sure it'd be sufficient when it came to the photo gallery. Can CSS alone be used to make columns that occupy the same Y space?

for what you're doing, moveable type is free (you're not technically earning money from its deployment or using it on a commercial site per se). it won't be as integrated as something like phpnuke when it comes to bulletin boards, user accounts, photo gallery, etc...since phpnuke and other cms have modules for stuff like that already. moveable type does allow for more visual flexibility though...i'm still playing around with it though...

as for css, you can pretty much do anything you want in a leaner way than you could have accomplished with tables. and if you do it right, when it comes time for a redesign, all of your design changes will be in the css file and you won't have to touch your content.

for the best example of this, check out the css zen garden. however, make sure you realize the limitations of the older browsers. you have to decide if supporting them for accessibility is good enough or if you want to support them visually too. the only real browser that this applies to currently is netscape 4...rarely is anyone using ie4 anymore, but for some reason, netscape 4 seems to be persistent.

using css only design is a total mindshift if you're used to using tables for your layout. but i must say that after using it on the last few sites i've done, maintenance and updates and design tweaks post-design phase have been extremely easy.

[Synotic]

Originally posted by druber:
I really dig CSS, but I'm not sure it'd be sufficient when it came to the photo gallery. Can CSS alone be used to make columns that occupy the same Y space?

<div style="width: 198px; font-size: 10px; clear: right"><div style="width: 99px; height: 99px; float: left; background-color: yellow">yes</div><div style="width: 99px; height: 99px; float: left; color: white; background-color: blue">css</div><div style="width: 99px; height: 99px; float: left; color: white; background-color: blue">can</div><div style="width: 99px; height: 99px; float: left; background-color: yellow">If I understand you anyways </div></div><table border="2"><tr><td>CSS is great...</td></tr><tr><td>But seriously, for tabular data, you should use... tables!</td></tr></table><br><div style="width: 250px; padding: 5px; border: solid 1px black; background-color: #aaa">ok well i think macnn screwed up this code but for the most part it should show up fine... lol.. but i have to go!</div>

[ameat]

yeech. you'd think the forum software would strip stuff like that out. i never did pay attention to the HTML code is ON comment on the bottom. hmm...

you really could hijack a thread with some absolutely positioned elements.

[druber]

Looks like I've got some research to do tonight if this day will ever *end*! Cripes, I need to shut off the clock on my menu bar, I feel like I'm seeing every tic go by.

I'll take a good solid look at Movable Type. It'd be nice to have a single solution for all parts of the site, but I want to spend more time producing content than adminning the site. I'd rather have a few options I can use than tons that I can't really figure out.

[Synotic]

Originally posted by ameat:
yeech. you'd think the forum software would strip stuff like that out. i never did pay attention to the HTML code is ON comment on the bottom. hmm...

you really could hijack a thread with some absolutely positioned elements.

Actually it does, it is simply enabled in the web developer forum, because we're well.. web developers and it can make it easier to show code But yeah with css you could <div style="position: absolute; bottom: 0; right: 0; background-color: red; padding: 3px">really screw with a thread...</div>

Not that I'd do it or anything

[druber]

Installing Movable Type: repeated blows to the head.

Installing phpbb: easy as thumbin your own nose.

satelliteroad.com
Well, at least there's something there now.

[Peter]

Originally posted by druber:
Installing Movable Type: repeated blows to the head.

Installing phpbb: easy as thumbin your own nose.

satelliteroad.com
Well, at least there's something there now.

Movable Type is very easy to install!
You edit about six lines!

[ameat]

Originally posted by PeterClark2002:
Movable Type is very easy to install!
You edit about six lines!

...unless he doesn't have all of the necessary perl libraries installed. though, their instructions are pretty thorough.

[druber]

I'm glad your install was easy, but mine was not. Partly because my hoster needed to change something on the back-end so that MT could connect to the SQL server. Who knows, maybe web sages find it as easy as watching tv, but their install forum gets quite a bit of traffic.

Comparing the two, I found phpBB was easier to install in every way.

[Avenir]

Originally posted by ameat:
for the best example of this, check out the css zen garden.

Holy ****

now I have to redesign my entire site! about a million new designs / possibilities just slammed into my brain.... ahhhhh