If you *had* to choose another CMS for a project, what would it be?

Quote from: brianlarson at Jan 06, 2011, 08:35 PM

@einsteinsboi: Yay one of the MODx rockstars replied! The Coding Pad is fantastic. You were the first person that came to mind when I mentioned Drupal in my original post. Could you provide your opinion on the learning curve of Drupal for someone that is a designer before coder and knows primarily the basics of PHP? Is Drupal the choice for you mainly with projects that call for a great deal of functionality that’s already been built in plugins (or modules or whatever they’re called in Drupal)?

Glad you like the Coding Pad, hoping to make it even more fantastic in 2011, I just need 40+ hours in a day... LOL.
About Drupal, it definitely has a reputation for having a steep learning curve, but I tend to disagree in the sense that I think that’s a major generalization. I think the learning curve depends very much on where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to accomplish. Because it has so many core and contributed modules, you can go a long long way with Drupal before ever needing to learn to touch code, which is a great advantage for someone without much of a coding background. For basic site building you need to learn how to install modules, configure them, and stitch things together. If you want to get your hands dirty and get into the code, creating your own modules and extending the core, then it does become harder. But one could argue the same with MODx, or any other system for that matter Where Drupal gives me a bit of a migraine is in themeing . MODx is obviously super easy to template, with Drupal you do need to do more work and learn the innards to create a custom theme. There are resources out there to teach you, but it’s definitely what I personally find most challenging when working on Drupal sites. I tend to either work from one of the starter themes, or modify an existing theme. Bear in mind here that I’m talking mostly about Drupal 6 and before, not the recently released Drupal 7, which I am just starting to dig deeper into.
My criteria on when to use Drupal or MODx or anything else depends on a variety of factors, one major one being client’s budget, timeline, and preference. But yes, for complex sites with lots of functionality, particularly for anything that even hints at being a community site, I first consider Drupal. Similarly, for anything that’s primarily a blog I first consider WordPress. For most other sites my first thought is MODx. That’s just my algorithm and preference, and it’s bound to change and fluctuate over time as I learn more

You might want to read this good thread. It sort of touches on some of your questions...

http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,59238.0.html

@einsteinboi: This is tremendously helpful! I know others will find this insight very helpful as well. So much seems to come back to custom design integration with just about every CMS discussion and what that entails (or does not entail for that matter). I hope to use Drupal some day on a site where functionality and complex features come before design requirements. I’m sure it will be heaven given the fact that I’ve had to modify themes for... yes I’m going to say it... SharePoint.

Now I need a shower.

@Photowebmax: Ah... excellently fresh, juicy and relevant. I’ll read this for sure and thanks for posting it. Blogging is often a client hot topic, but usually only just a portion of their site needs.

I would probably turn down any project that required me to use another CMS.

If someone put a gun to my head, though, I’d probably go with WordPress.

Now there’s an honest answer I’m sure many will enjoy and is really helpful to where I’ve ended up on the whole topic as well (learn some WordPress, use it if you have to). Thanks, Bob! You’re always super helpful.

I didn’t *have to* chose another CMS, yet I switched from ModX to ProcessWire for my project. I like simplicity, and for now I’m able to do everything I did with ModX. Templating works the same, I can organize my files as "chunks" and "snippets" if I need, and it’s all simple php.

SilverStripe!

Why? I am more of a coder than I am a designer. I am often disappointed about how very static things are in MODx Evolution. While slowly getting familiar with SS I am intrigued by it’s power.

Sure, in Evo I can make a template and make a tv (or 2 or 6) for my custom content. But the amount of tv’s is determined by ME, not the enduser. Every variation in amount of, say rich text fields, needs a new template.

Take for example a grid layout with content in boxes. Now if I’d really need to allow a variable amount of boxes it is almost impossible to have good usability. I’d need to make a document for every single block. Then I have to come up with ditto calls like this. I’m sure this will cause problems for endusers.

SilverStripe on the other hand can be extended to manage it all in the same page. Consider this SS module for example: page-elements. Isn’t that sweet?

Also you can extend just about anything with your custom code. You can manage stuff stored in your own tables and validate user input in the backend. In Evo you can only do this in a module. A custom UI and/or Controller on a per page level is impossible. Even making a field required needs core hacking (Yes I know mm can do javascript validation but still no serverside checks).

I’m sure other cms’ can do some of these things. But at the very least it seems very rare in the open source cms world. So SilverStripe it would be!

Apparently you haven’t worked with Revo much. Those are some of the very shortcomings in Evo that triggered the development of Revo.

A few thoughts

Quote from: MrDutchy at Jan 07, 2011, 08:40 AM

Sure, in Evo I can make a template and make a tv (or 2 or 6) for my custom content. But the amount of tv’s is determined by ME, not the enduser. Every variation in amount of, say rich text fields, needs a new template.

After 3 years of modx I ended up liking this functionality because users don’t know what they are doing and can easily mess everything. A solution to allow users to add multiple elements of the same type is http://www.kunane.com/modx/multi-image-tv.html

SilverStripe on the other hand can be extended to manage it all in the same page. Consider this SS module for example: page-elements. Isn’t that sweet?

Although this is cool it’s kind of hard to manage and style. Most of the clients will abuse this functionality and break the site, so in real life is not that useable. This can definitely work for some projects but I’m yet to find one client that would take advantage of this.

Also you can extend just about anything with your custom code. You can manage stuff stored in your own tables and validate user input in the backend. In Evo you can only do this in a module. A custom UI and/or Controller on a per page level is impossible. Even making a field required needs core hacking (Yes I know mm can do javascript validation but still no serverside checks).

I somehow agree with you on this point but for 99% of my projects I don’t need this functionality. I like the way Evo modules work because it’s just basic html/css/javascript/php and I can have full control over everything. I also can easily set up eForm to make changes to modx documents and allow web user to participate. I can even use a custom php framework for modules.

In the end it comes up to you and the client to decide what is best for the project. Also have a look at MODx Revolution; I find it too much for the type of projects I work on.
If you plan to build another facebook, Evo is defenetly not the right tool.

Regards

I’d choose NO CMS at all then.
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,48476.msg284228.html#msg284228
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,48868.msg285972.html#msg285972