[e.boal]

I am creating a church website at the minute. I am a designer but not a developer and need to know the following (I am doing it for free and need to keeps costs negligible). I use Adobe GoLive CS2 and the site needs mailing list registration, search feature and login system for a CMS:

What server technology is the best on limited knowledge (ASP / PHP - I found some ASP free mailing list / search thingys which are precoded and seem alright and I have Microsoft Access and can use it well)?

What testing server should I have like IIS / Apache?

Is there a basic CMS programme that will allow alteration of text areas and images by a few authors without messing up my CSS setup?

Many thanks in advance to everyone,

Ed Boal

[pgo]

As a general rule, Apache, PHP and MySQL on Linux are going to be better - why? Because they're free (basically). Windows/Microsoft server technology isn't. You'll save money by going the open source route.

Check www.opensourcecms.com for many CMS options. I've been playing with CMS Made Simple some and liking it relatively well.

[e.boal]

Cheers for your quick response!
Pardon my ignorance but Im running Windows XP so I need to download PHP and MySql then integrate the PHP frontend into my page by a php include? I hope no-one thinks I am asking to be spoon-fed - I just have no idea! I seriously intend to give as much back to the forum as I get out of it!

Thanks for all your help,
Ed

[Dusteh]

'CMS Made Simple' gets my thumbs up as well, the new version just released is excellent, not only is it easy to modify for you as a designer, but its intuitive for your client to edit content in (unlike many other CMS systems which just give your customer a headache) and also it generates very clean, standards compliant code.

The only downside for you is that I don't think it has a search feature built in yet, but there is nothing to stop you bolting one on yourself.

[e.boal]

Thanks for your feedback - I have heard of CMS Made Simple and will look into it more.

[datahound]

PHP is supported on your webhosting. You need to register a domain and host it on a Unix/Linux box with PHP and mySQL database support.

You create on the PC then upload to your webserver to view the results. Only on the webserver will the PHP function so it cannot be viewed on the PC like html. You can install PHP and mySQL on your PC but web hosting is far simpler.

From there you still have a lot to learn. I am not sure just how easy CMS made simple is to install but if it is anything like Wordpress (www.wordpress.org which is an open source blog), it will come with "fool proof" instructions which if you read them slowly and follow them to the letter should get you going.

[e.boal]

Thanks - the main problem I am finding is how to integrate pages I have created in GoLive with a CMS which usually has a WYSIWYG editor - I dont want WYSIWYG in my CMS I just want a way of allowing a small number of people to logon, access their relevant page for their particular group and change the text / image (which i want in placeholders that wont mess up the style of the page) or alter a calendar then save it. I used to use Dreamweaver and so Contribute would have been good but now I prefer GoLive.

[pgo]

CMSMS is quite easy to install. Only difficulty I'm having with it is trying to think of a way to have Stylesheet A import Stylesheet B and have both editable. Now, it generates some nasty dynamic link for the css file. Not too convenient.

[Dusteh]

Can you not just hardcode that nasty link into the stylesheet, based on the ID number the CMS gives it? Not the best of systems but it will work - the ID number will not change for the css file. ie:

href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/stylesheet.php?templateid=2"

[pgo]

I'd just rather be able to manage multiple stylesheets that may or may not be importing each other from within the CMS. Overall, CMSMS is quite good.

[Dusteh]

Picky sod ;P

[smallbeer]

what's this about?

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