The Content Management System
It's time for the nerdy entry. Behold the nerdyness of Alexander Radsby! The University has made me a programmer, but I guess I'll stick with designer anyway. But it's beyond my control now...I've decided to write my own Content Management System with CodeIgniter for PHP. (More of that below)
I'm growing kind of tired of the current systems out there, I don't like the look of the interface and it's more complex than it has too be. I always tried to use Wordpress for all my new projects, but it was way too time consuming.
So I'm making a CMS that has the basics: news/posts, pages, user management, categories, file browsers, file uploaders, templates. Basically a slim version Expression Engine.I will also make a couple of extra helpers/libraries for tour dates and that stuff (if I'm making making a band site). The only thing I need to think about is how to hook on these modules.
Lots of work to do, but it will be a great project before I attend Hyper Island.
PHP Frameworks
This is the new love of my life, I actually tried to use Ruby on Rails for a couple of projects and it's great. But to install it on my host and everything with the command/terminal window just sucks every little bit of fun out of the every project.
So I went looking for a PHP Framework that would fit my needs. I looked at CakePHP and CodeIgniter.
CakePHP is a framework inspired by Ruby on Rails. And CodeIgniter is the spawn from EllisLab, the makers of the famous Expression Engine.
The first framework I checked was CakePHP, great website, big community, NO GOOD DOCUMENTATION. With that CakePHP was off the table, there weren't any books about Cake that I could buy. I still haven't given up on Cake, but it will have to wait until another time.
The second framework I checked was CodeIgniter, great website, big community, working and good looking forums and GREAT DOCUMENTATION. And they have one book out but the video screencasts and the documentation is good enough to get started.
Both use the principles of MVC (Model, View, Controller). Cake is more strict about this than CodeIgniter, you don't even have to use the model in CodeIgniter if you don't want, it's only used as a code separation. (Not sure about this though).
My choice
CodeIgniter has great core functions/libraries, ftp, email, validation, session etc. So for me it was an easy choice, It's fast and lightweight.It is probably a better choice for php beginners and developers that are new to the MVC way of doing things, a easy transition to Ruby on Rails too. Because it has such a easy syntax and good documentation.
Comments
The "NO GOOD DOCUMENTATION" cry is levelled at CakePHP quite a bit. And it's just not true!
Granted, the documentation there is doesn't answer all the questions you might have, but there is an excellent user community who will and many, many tutorials. Check out the CakePHP tutorials on the IBM website for a starts, and the screencasts linked on the CakePHP website too.
There's a bit of steep learning curve for CakePHP at the start, especially if you are new to the MVC concept but don't let that put you off! You will be more organised and more productive (with less code) with Cake than CI.
Oh, and another thing: All those cool CI libraries (and other 3rd party libraries) can be used in a CakePHP application.
You really CAN have your Cake and eat it ;-)
@Richard, Thanks I didn't know that, I'll get into it as soon as possible.
Ohoh...training for Hyper! :)
Ahhh! This sounds exciting =) I hafta agree with you on the whole WP taking too long for projects, it's incredibly time-consuming =x
GOOD LUCK ALEX!
What you're describing is not a CMS at all. Joomla, WordPress, Drupal... those are all publishing systems.
I'm actually about 70% done with a true CMS that supports internationalization and site configuration options. I should have a publishing system built on it within the year.
To be really semantic, wouldn't those be a sub-group of CMSes? ;)
@Kristopher, Thanks a lot mate :)
@James, Haha, you got me. What defines a true CMS? Would be great to see if you are going public with your CMS :).
Great man! I want to hear more from you about this. We must "fika" together soon ^^
Good luck, it will be good to see what you end up with. We coded our own CMS from scratch before there was such a thing as wordpress. I'm now on wordpress and find it a hell of a lot easier than any other solution thus far. There's power in the herd. But I think it'll be a very worthwhile experience to create an app of your own.
thank you, dude