Is it a dumb question?

artworkeruk

Junior Member
This may seem a bit of a dumb question, but would like to ask the webby's what they think is the best CMS system to master.

I have been in print for a long, long time and am seeing my opportunities dwindle by the day for newer projects. As another thread has already mentioned, agencies are looking for all-singing, all-dancing designers who can do it all these days, print, web, PHP, MySQL, Flash, Actionscript, you name it they want it.

Well the good news is that I am picking up HTML and CSS and use this method for any web work these days, I also know a little bit of flash, simple animations etc, but not any actionscript (especially actionscript 3) so these are skills that I can add to my existing skill base of design for print, illustration and photo retouching.

The next step is to pick up on CMS, I have had a look at Joomla, but found it a bit confusing (I need to learn PHP and MySQL) I got to the stage of installing MAMP and configuring my computer as a localhost, but then I got a little bit lost, especially when I logged into the admin control panel of Joomla.

So what do the experts think? Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, In Context Editing (Dreamweaver CS4) or a tailored method, such as Light CMS (where you can get a free service for 3 pages, 20 quid a month for up to ten pages).

Thanks
 
I would say take a look at wordpress, its pretty easy to pick up, free and easy for your clients to use! I looked at joomla too but just got a headache!

Wordpress tends to be the norm amongst designers moving into the web
 
I completely agree with the use of Wordpress.. It is the best one to learn from scratch :) then if you're feeling like you want to learn more, go towards Expression Engine :)
 
Funny you should mention Wordpress and Expression Engine. I have just been looking at other forums elsewhere and these are two crop up again and again. Thank goodness the consensus doesn't appear to be Joomla!
 
No.. Joomla is not very good at all... its not well supported from a community point of view.
 
Hi Gary,

It's not a dumb question at all.

I think it depends on the scale of the project, but for smaller sites I'd recommend Wordpress. It's very simple to use both from a developers and a clients point of view, has a very large community behind it and on top of that it's free.

Thanks,
Soren
 
Im not very clued up at all with reguards to any form of code/cms but I stumbled accross this guys portfolio from another site, I know he does a lot with word press and I think he may have even writen some tutorials. Great work so worth a click reguardless.

Paul Burgess: Brighton web designer
 
I just made the move from static sites to wordpress sites and im loving it. I have been using a shopping cart plugin for mine but for a simple CMS there are plug-ins that make it quite a powerful cms.

Another thing i found regarding wordpress is that there is a plug-in to make it do just about anything. Its amazingly good!
 
Textpattern has been getting a lot of good reviews (if anyone still wants to know :D ).
 
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