Looking for advice on CMS and suggestions

[rogue_77]

Awhile ago I drew up what I wanted my site to be. Basically an all around site for everything about me. Blogs are one sided as they are journals. I want to share my picture collection, my favorite files, have a forum, have my blog, have a place to host my "projects"(webcomics, videos, etc), have a place for movies and some articles I'd like to write.

http://doomedtoreality.com/files/Website/sitemap.jpg

I'm familiar enough with drupal(ran it and setup a few times) to know it can do all this. I'm just wondering yours all opinion on having a site LIKE this and how well a CMS could handle this. I've been debating lately over which CMS could handle this best without being overly complicated or if I should just build it by hand(keep in mind I know little about dreamweaver so I'd have to use a WYSIWYG). I'd like to build it with Flash but know less about Flash.

My main problem is setting up section homepages where they look a bit different and not just have the entire site a ton of links to every other section. Ideally I'd want it looking SORT of http://weareall.doomedtoreality.com/drupal5/ (this is an early version of the site done in Firefox and no finished). I'm don't like having a "normal" website, with side navigation, and white backgrounds, I like dropdown menus.

My other concern is for comics I'd make I'd want them to be able to be archived but like comic # like all those webcomic sites do.

My other problem is I'd hope in setting this system up it'd be simple to keep track of and not hard to find something to edit it.

Well, I'm basically wondering your opinions on having an all encompassing site like this where as I could run a lot of this stuff on separate domains specialized to its thing. Like the webcomic, I'd want that to stand out, and it could have its own domain, but how would I make it stand out as a "speciality" to that site?

Just still mashing over this stuff in my head.

Hopefully the image works, or just "view image" or something.

[simplistik]

I'm not sure about drupal itself but having customized wordpress i can tell you it can more than likely accomodate what you're lookin for :)

[rogue_77]

I'm not sure about drupal itself but having customized wordpress i can tell you it can more than likely accomodate what you're lookin for :)


I've just started looking more closely at WordPress. I was debating over WP or Textpattern but think I'll go WP. I had an issue running a localhost of WP and trying different setups but I'm run into the themes I'd want to edit don't work with wide graphic images, either they expand past the entry or the entry "squeezes" them down to fit so it bunches up words, etc.

I'm still pretty new to WordPress. If theres any pointers of for sure add-ons you know I'd need for this setup off the top of your head, let me know.

Thanks.

[DDD]

I really really like textpattern...I may use it over WP on my next site. But WP is popular and a bit easier to skin

[simplistik]

The advantage and disadvantage to textpattern is it's xsl heavy. It's actually really nice but if you're like myself and don't want to learn another coding schema it's rather annoying. And I actually found that the navigation of the CMS isn't as inginuitive as it could be. HOWEVER it is still a great CMS.

For a WP skin i'd recommend not using a template at all. What I do is create my site and then hash it out in WP so that way you're not forced to conform to the template you started using. Of course WP isn't the endall cureall of websites... but it's pretty nice.

[hybrid101]

i'm with WP on this one mate, it's just a lovely cms. though drupal and joomla aren't that bad;)