Typo3

[Sysman]

Has anyone used it?

It's now on my big list of Things To Avoid.

[NickFitz]

Judging by the screenshots on their web site, the UI seems wretchedly clumsy, which is usually an indication that the underlying architecture of the "solution" they're implementing is also clumsy, or that the person who has been charged with creating the UI knows nothing about creating a UI.

Of course I have no right to criticise a web CMS that has been developed to cater for all kinds of complex circumstances without having done that myself.

However I have done that myself on a number of occasions and all I can say is that the last few times I did it, my UI was vastly slicker, and managed to let the users do complex things without confronting them with complex interfaces.

It's possible that Typo3 is actually a very good product in the sense of doing what it's intended for, but unless they get somebody with an understanding of the user experience/interaction design side of things involved, it's going to be like so many applications: stuck with a user interface that only the creator of the application can understand.

[doodab]

I'm actually about to start looking at this, tikiwiki and drupal as replacements / alternatives to something I started and haven't finished a while ago.

Any suggestions as to other places I should be looking?

[lightng]

I spent a while looking at CMSs for work and outside of work. Drupal and DotNetNuke are my favourites but your decision on CMS does depend on what you're going to use it for.

[doodab]

I spent a while looking at CMSs for work and outside of work. Drupal and DotNetNuke are my favourites but your decision on CMS does depend on what you're going to use it for.

Well, initially it's going to be a tinkering platform so that I can sharpen my front end web skills such as they are.

Longer term, I have some dated websites of my own and a few I did for friends and acquaintances based on some open source packages and now very dated static pages (css was still quite new, bugger all javascript or active content) & I would like to update those with something that was a bit more modern looking and a bit less labour intensive to maintain.

Even longer term, I'd like to have something that meant I could say yes to those people who ask me if I can "help them set up a website" rather than saying no because I'm so far behind the times that what I can offer them isn't worth the money offered.

So, something where I could bomb in, set up a site / account in the CMS, map a newly registered domain, set up the basic style of the site (I'm visually backwards but I know some freelance designers and expect to be able to pass the costs straight through) and some initial content and then more or less leave them to it would be ideal.

Lazy I know, and doubtless someone will come in here and slate me for that, but I have access to a niche where I believe can make some useful money if I can get the set up process down to an hour or two.

[Bright Spark]

would recommend drupal, it is powerful, flexible, easy to setup and use, I am using it in my plan B website before it was Joomla which was ok but lacks a lot more features that come with drupal.

[doodab]

Yeah, I got a basic drupal install up and running in no time. I think it's going to take a while to plumb the depths of it though.

[Sysman]

It's possible that Typo3 is actually a very good product in the sense of doing what it's intended for, but unless they get somebody with an understanding of the user experience/interaction design side of things involved, it's going to be like so many applications: stuck with a user interface that only the creator of the application can understand.

Yep, I have a copy of the end user documentation and the screen shots are so small I can't see how to drive it myself.

You are correct about Typo3 having a dated feel, and there seems to be a distinct lack of activity for several years. My first reaction to the installation procedure was that I could rewrite a better one in very short order, but quite frankly I don't want to get involved.

I did come across an analysis by IBM where they reckoned it could be ideal for a large corporation who had the resources to make it sing, but that's not the case here. It's huge by the way, coming in at 40 MB unpacked (cf the latest core version of Drupal at 4.5 MB), has its own programming language etc etc.

On the support side, ahem... From what I can gather Typo3 is very popular in German speaking circles, but the only English support I can find is via a newsgroup populated by those whose English is pretty basic.

I think its day is over.

[Sysman]

So, something where I could bomb in, set up a site / account in the CMS, map a newly registered domain, set up the basic style of the site (I'm visually backwards but I know some freelance designers and expect to be able to pass the costs straight through) and some initial content and then more or less leave them to it would be ideal.

Lazy I know, and doubtless someone will come in here and slate me for that, but I have access to a niche where I believe can make some useful money if I can get the set up process down to an hour or two.

I've got fresh installations of Drupal including the modules and theme I want down to less than half an hour. I can see plenty of scope for more automation.

At the moment I do this via some rather basic scripts. I reckon that if I expend enough effort on those scripts I could do largely similar sites in about 10 minutes flat. Obviously tailoring takes longer.

[Bright Spark]

drupal can handle mutliple sites with one installation, in fact it's also integrated with cpanel which comes with most servers/vps, so is very easy.

http://drupal.org/node/348619