When we were developing our website we decided to challenge ourselves a bit a develop a fully custom CMS using Wordpress. It was a bitch and we probably would not do it again, but we learned a lot about WP in the process. Has anyone else tried to do it without pulling out their hair?
I'm using Wordpress to run some of my sites and I just removed all the comments stuff, so it doesn't even look like a blog. This is easy to do.
What was so hard about it for you? I use WP for a CMS on 2-3 sites and didn't have a problem, been very happy with it actually.
I too used it, I was very happy with the results...however for what we were doing with it it proved to be a little bit of a challenge.
I would like to, but I think it would be too hard unless you're able to make your own templates and have a VERY good understand of WP. That said, it would be great to use WP as a CMS and I'd really like to see some good examples if anyone has any?
I've used Wordpress as a CMS. It works great. If there is any problem, it's that Wordpress has a lot of files to install. This isn't a problem if you are only making a few sites. But if you have 100 clients, that would require a lot of Wordpress installs and over 10,000 files. WordpressMU tries to overcome this so you only need one install per site, but WordpressMU has so many bugs that it isn't worth anyone's time. It's is awful and I have wasted hundreds of hours trying to get it to work properly with themes and plugins.
Another happy WP user here. I make all my own templates and have used it for two of my sites. I've also used a lot of pluggins (some free, some purchased) to make changes I can't do on my own. I'm a huge fan.
It will be difficult to convert Wordpress from just a blogging tool to a fully blown CMS. Of course 2.5 now means you don't need to wory about a gallery... but that's only a small portion of the work you'd need to do. You might want to look at giving a fully blown CMS like PostNuke, phpNuke, Joomla, etc. the functionality from Wordpress that you like. Afterall, Wordpress is more like a stripped and friendly CMS.
yes, you can use WP to build a site. With a little editing, you can make it like a powerful site, not a blog.
I tried Joomla a while back and was immediately put off by its clunkiness and table coded parts. WP is great and the new 2.5 is very smart, although iv not tested it all out yet. For anything more than a news system we use ExpressionEngine ( EE as its know by its community). It does cost £130 / $250 for commercial sites but if you are a design agency this can be passed back to the client. EE 2 is set to launch sometime this summer and it is looking fantastic by early screens and spec.
I tend to go the opposite way with wordpress and make it more simple and just use it as a news script rather than to try and make it into a fully fledged content management system.
on the contrary, Wordpress is the easiest platform to make a website on. It has more features with the template/plugin community than any other CMS, even comparable to Joomla. Postnuke, phpnuke and all of those other similar ones are stuck in the 90s and are filled with garbage code. I wouldnt even consider using any of them.
Agreed. Once you know what WordPress' "quirks" are when used as a CMS, it quickly becomes a powerful tool that can handle both a blog and a content management system - often at the same time.
Wordpress is decent. It is not overly bloated, which I love, but I still prefer making my own CMS's. However, WP would be my choice if I didn't have time - I find it a bit of a bitch to skin for, but like any other software, once you get used to it, it just "clicks".
blueparukia, I know exactly how you feel with regard to skinning WordPress. Which is why I wrote my own Theme framework that I'll be giving away to other people when it's finished (and completes its beta testing period).