CMS / Blogs

Everything related to the visual and coding aspects of websites.
Yuzuki
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CMS / Blogs

Post by Yuzuki »

Do any of you use any self hosted Content Management System / Blog scripts for your sites? Or do you guys prefer to use webservices like Tumblr or Lifejournal. I have been trying and using different scripts along the years, and now I have one I like pretty much, but I'm always looking to play with new scripts!

What do you guys use and why do you like it over other alternatives?
Masao
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Masao »

I use wordpress for self hosted blogging, it's huge but it's really customizable and gets you whatever you want done.
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Destinie
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Destinie »

I use Wordpress for my art blog: http://winged-victory.net
It's got a lot of features and it's pretty easy to customize the UI. For blogs, I've used things like pitas (if I am recalling the name correctly), blogger, and also hard-coded it by hand. I kind of wish WP was like old school blogger because I have difficulty understanding some of the php script. T_T Though, they do have a very helpful codex and since it's so widely used, it's easy to find the answer to your question online.
Yuzuki
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Yuzuki »

I see, I have used WP for some work projects, but I haven't used it for any of my personal ones. I like that its open source so it has a big community of plugin contributors and tutorials online. But sometimes, there are so many addons for it that it sometimes the backend feel like Frankenstein.

Your art blog looks great Destinie, did you code the whole layout or did you use a template as a base? BTW, I loved the Sherfox Holmes art since I'm a fan of both BBC's Sherlock and Disney's Robin Hood.
Destinie
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Destinie »

@Yuzuki- Thanks! I did the html/css by hand but I built it on top of the "yoko" theme. If was my first experiment so I didn't really make all of the templates myself. I have more exposure to it so I think I could probably just make an entire theme from scratch now. The only thing that kind of confuses me is the php portions. I'm not very versed it in so it takes me a while to figure out what lines do what.
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Sofia
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Sofia »

I am a huge Wordpress fan! I played with many CMS over the years, both complex and simple, but eventually decided to stick with Wordpress for the time being. After a bit of tweaking I'm now using it to run my whole domain and all the sites hosted there. The only sites I haven't been able to include in Wordpress are fanlistings, I know there is a way to make them work with Wordpress since I tested it in the past, but for now I prefer to keep them separated.

I did have to replace a few plugins at times because they were no longer being updated or I wasn't able to make them work, but I was usually able to find replacements. All in all I haven't had any big problems so far and I've been using Wordpress as my main CMS for...more than five years?

@Destinie Theme templates can be tricky at times, I usually code my own layout but I remember that I had to use a plugin to make tooltips because modyfing the theme by myself would have been too difficult :/
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Yuzuki
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Yuzuki »

@Destinie
Looking at that template you did make lots of changes!

@Sofia
Awesome work making WordPress your bitch (pardon the expression), but you really have made it your own. Everything is so pretty and organized. Do you use a normal WP or did you activate the WP Multisite?

Yea, since WP is constantly updating, keeping plug in updates might be a hassle. But seems like you have it all work out so that's great.
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Sofia
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Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by Sofia »

Yuzuki wrote:Awesome work making WordPress your bitch (pardon the expression), but you really have made it your own. Everything is so pretty and organized. Do you use a normal WP or did you activate the WP Multisite?

Yea, since WP is constantly updating, keeping plug in updates might be a hassle. But seems like you have it all work out so that's great.
Customizing layouts is quite easy once you get the hang of it, but making templates from scratch is more difficult. I've tried to modify the comment template on my updates blog and it was a nightmare!

I think Multisite was the name used in old Wordpress versions, but yes that's what I have. Even though my sites aren't huge, being able to manage them from one control panel is great.

Yep at the moment I'm using many plugins…actually too many XD Some of them are active on all the sites, which is fine, but others are used on a site or two. Sometimes not even the whole website, but only a single page and that's probably an exaggeration. That's why I will make a huge spring cleaning operation soon to keep strictly the plugins I need and replaced the other ones.
Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.
anon

Re: CMS / Blogs

Post by anon »

I went with WordPress briefly to do updates for one of my old fan sites. Coding the layout was the most annoying part but it was a good tool (you had to jump at the updates though because I've seen nasty stuff happen to people who didn't update their sites) and it was easy to archive, control comments, and had a great option for those RSS junkies.
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