WP blog vs CMSmadesimple blog module

[catfish]

I currently have a client using cmsms which comes with the blogging module I have played with a bit. She wants to start blogging and my question is this.. do you think the wordpress blogs with a custom header (to match her site) would be better than using the cms blog module? I'm not sure which I should set up for her.

[Susie]

Personally, I would go for the WordPress blog to match. I've played with the CMS MS blog module, and to me it just doesn't seem on par with WordPress. The commenting system is not easy to figure out (for me) and it just doesn't seem as robust as WordPress.

[administrator]

Wordpress has a huge community and thus lots of options in terms of templates and plug-ins.

 

... Beyond that, the WP engine is constantly updated and has a a lot of functionality built-in. I would say go with WP so you can take advantage of that.

 

Stefan

[Susie]

To add...I've decided to develop most future client websites using WordPress as a CMS, too. I like CMS MS, but there are just so many more options with WP (one big one I'm dealing with right now is automatic database backups!!). I will use CMS MS if WP absolutely cannot do what I need with ease.

[catfish]

Very good you 2. Thankyou very much for your replies. As always... I appreciate it.

[newseed]

The beauty of using CMSMS and WordPress together is that you can use the same design to have both of them look visually identical.

[catfish]

While I haven't played too much with WP and changing the style of them (actually just the header picture picture and background) I have found a couple that were almost impossible to figure out how.

[newseed]

While I haven't played too much with WP and changing the style of them (actually just the header picture picture and background) I have found a couple that were almost impossible to figure out how.

 

Assuming that you are referring to different templates: It seems impossible but it's not. My wife wanted to use a particular theme for her site and although the way it was put together is different, the theme still has to use the header/footer.

 

Ideally, you will need to study those two files and define all the php that it's using to achieve the results. Some will have rss feed, menus, banners, etc. using php so it can be edited via the admin. You really don't have to understand php that much to copy over your own html template design to the WP template.

 

Note: it's better to duplicate the existing WP template first so you will have both the original and a working copy.

[administrator]

The beauty of using CMSMS and WordPress together is that you can use the same design to have both of them look visually identical.

 

Well, that can be said about any layout on any blog or CMS.

 

 

That said, unless you need to support many, many users with really fine-grained rights management or you need to be able to say, define different themes per category ... I would just use Wordpress.

 

Come to think of it, I don't even know if CMSMS supports different themes by category. I know Drupal can.

 

Stefan

[newseed]

The beauty of using CMSMS and WordPress together is that you can use the same design to have both of them look visually identical.

 

Well' date=' that can be said about any layout on any blog or CMS.

 

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Concur. I found that using these two works best for me.

 

That said, unless you need to support many, many users with really fine-grained rights management or you need to be able to say, define different themes per category ... I would just use Wordpress.

 

Come to think of it, I don't even know if CMSMS supports different themes by category. I know Drupal can.

CMSMS can support a different template for each page. When creating/editing the content page, it gives you the option to choose a template. As for the CMSMS blog, I never did like the tool and it was pretty lame compared to using WP and I don't even know if that blog add-on supports defining a template for each category or not.

[catfish]

Thanks for all the input on this subject. I have set the WP up for the clients blog and got it looking like her website. Very happy and I do agree, although I like CMSMS for allot of reasons, this is the way to go for blogging/comments etc.

 

I do not however even like CMS for most clients. They want to have the ability to update themselves but most of them haven't got a clue, they're too nervous to use it or I have to spend endless hours teaching them.

 

Comments on this anyone?

[falkencreative]

I do not however even like CMS for most clients. They want to have the ability to update themselves but most of them haven't got a clue, they're too nervous to use it or I have to spend endless hours teaching them.

I sortof agree with this... in some cases, the client will ask for a CMS and then either never use it or still ask you to do all the editing for them.

 

That said, I have found that a well written CMS can greatly speed up my development of a website, and it's a lot more convenient later if I need to make edits later.