Sites that look good

also it came to my attention in case you didnt know, that the core group that designed MAMBO has left the license to MIRO an australian company and has proceeded to develop a new CMS named JOOMLA! ...

Answer: Yes, I did know about Joomla.

Secondly, I prefer sites based upon Wordpress for the most part: have a look at http://www.dustindiaz.com/ for an example, though I have seen Mambo sites that work well. It really needs a large site to justify using Mambo - for a ten page site, which is what most people want, it is too much of an overkill!

Could you post some examples? I'm sure I've probably seen Mambo before I just didn't know what it was.

Sites that run Mambo/Joomla:

http://www.churchfromscratch.org/
http://luxury-concept.com/
http://www.clearmark.com/

i have things that have powered by, supported by, or a copyright notice which doesn't belond to the site owner. I don't mind "Part of the whatever network" because that gives a much positive impression.

Don't like CMS, most sites using them look all the same.
I can identify php-nuke or mambo sites without even looking the copyright notice.

any second opinions about wordpress???

I got this suggestion from one visitor, he said that she hopes theres some way that she can edit a site page by page using a wordpress type editing (came in mind when she explained it and its way too long to type it here)... Anyways, I know theres a make a page link to wordpress and theres a plugin or 'hack' that makes a WP page your home page, that way you can edit contents...

Now does anybody know of a certain plugin that makes WP function more like a page by page editor rather than a web log???

demonhale, I have no idea what you're talking about!!!

Quote: I can identify php-nuke or mambo sites without even looking the copyright notice.

Quite true, although is this often just a reflection upon the person who uses the CMS, for instance see if you can guess what software was used on this site: http://www.makikoitoh.com/

Well if you research it enough you'll find that it did start out as Wordpress, but the author has spliced other code in there and generally hacked it up, then applied good CSS so it looks nothing like Wordpress, which leads me neatly to the point: Yes there are many bad CMS driven sites out there, but if you visited a good one would you even know it uses a CMS?

hey jeeves let me clarify, usually there are two options when posting at WP right? theres a page post and theres a blog post... The blog post defaults with time/date stamp, comments, etc, which actually adds up and appears at the frontpage of your WP site, yes?

Now the pagse post option actually makes a seperate page that has only the contents written for it and no other entries on it, you cant make this as a front page by default, I know theres a hack to do so, but im looking if theres a plugin that actually ignores the blogging functions of Wp and only uses the Page creation available, thus completely making it a full CMS...

Personally I dislike Mambo, it's another phpnuke style CMS which I find very distasteful and limiting.

Quote: Actually, I could tell that was WordPress right when I saw it. It's just something about the three-column layout and the whole "category" and "monthly" drop-boxes.

LOL, poo. Well my original point still stands! Probably a bad example then (and I preferred her previous design with the butterfly anyway).

Ok, I'm out of my depth here, I know nothing about Mambo! The only generic advice I'd offer is that if the html it throws out is 1) Semantically correct. 2) Has enough css hooks then you'll be able to do whatever you like with it, therefore you'll be free to stop it from looking like a CMS.

If, however, it uses piles of tables, font tags, deprecated rubbish then it'll always look like every other Mambo site (and remember I don't know which category it falls into, so please no flaming ) because the formatting is always in the html it throws out.

As Yoda said: "Mmmmmmm ... Feel the Code."

so theres still no answer to my question...

I prefer to code from scratch, but its a challenge for me since they wanted something like the CMS mentioned...

demonhale wrote: I prefer to code from scratch,

Same here, but if the time constraints don't allow you enough leeway then you'll have to do something else.

And they specifically want that CMS, or just something that looks like it? If it's what the customer wants - and it's something you're happy to work with - then use it.

they specifically wanted that kind of CMS (wordpress) and they would like to use a static and pange on front (not the default blog)... So I was wondering if anybody knew of any plugins, coz the hack method would be difficult for the clients, and I dont have the time to code a WP plugin from scratch...

Well...Wordpress is completely standards compliant, and uses CSS totally for layout...all css positioning, no tables, so you'd first need to get really good with writing good, clean, valid XHTML, and using CSS for positioning.

What would be so hard about making it work as a CMS?

the hard thing is to hack the post new page option become the default, and make the default front page not a blog but a page that is at the post options...

Why not just create a static index.html page designed like the rest? Just put Wordpress into a different directory. It doesn't have to be in the root.

Have to admit Roo's solution sounds like the best! Or just change the index.php to main.php (or something along those lines) then drop in an index.html that will be the default page.

That's if you want it all in the same directory.

And just some advice if this is something that you feel you'll be getting in over your head with:

Upload Wordpess to a test directory on your own site and work with customizing so the client won't be left in the lurch while you climb a learning curve.

All that you have suggested above Ive made for the client and suggested, Now I know I must use the hack version since theirs no plugin... WP is the main CMS they want to use including for their front page, its ok once youve hacked the frontpage then for the succeeding pages use post new page options and then it will be more like a site than a blog...