Need Open Source CMS with Valid XHTML
Flexibility, Power, Open Source, PHP/MySQL
I am searching for a CMS that will allow me enough flexibility to design a front-end that does not look like a blocky portal, but also has enough power to provide events management, user control and private document delivery, and a tool to manage a substantial business directory grouped by category and subcategory. On top of all this, the tool I hope to find will be well documented enough to allow myself or another developer to extend the business directory table structure.
The kicker is that I believe strongly in standards compliant XHTML and CSS and want to develop on the PHP/MySQL platform. Few good CMS systems generate standards compliant code even if they have the flexibility I desire.
Some of What I’ve Found
To contribute something to others in my predicament, I’ll list some of the excellent tools I have found in my research:
CMS Made Simple is relatively lightweight completely open source and free. It also clearly separates CSS and XHTML presentation and content.
Xaraya is a hybrid XML/PHP content management system that looks very flexible and seems to have a strong developer community. I’m interested in learning more about it.
CMSimple looks ideal for small to medium size business Web sites that need to manage pages as opposed to blogs and other interactive media. There’s a bit of a problem with content/presentation separation and the php code is a bit messy, so I’d use caution.
TYPO3 is a midsize CMS with enough complexity and as a result, flexibility, to adapt to diverse content needs. With some work, it will allow designers to produce standards compliant XHTML templates.
WordPress, with the release of version 1.5, is now a CMS capable of producing pages and blog posts. Though I doubt it has the power to push a large web site, it could easily handle a small web site’s content management processes. The best thing about WordPress is its incredibly easy to master templating/theming system that allows for almost unfettered creativity in design.
Etomite: free, easily customizable tool that generates valid code. I lean towards this tool because it is slim and easily customized. However, the events snippet does not generate valid code. Etomite does not have an adequate system for serving password protected content.
Mambo: free, powerful, and customizable tool that does not generate valid code … yet.
Drupal generates valid code and has an open and flexible templating system. I have not used it enough to be sure of the limits of its flexibility, but initial exploration is promising.
PHPWebsite: Open source, free content management tool that generates valid code. This is a real CMS with a great deal of power. However, I have not seen any good design work done with this CMS as the back end. In addition, I have not yet been able to determine if I will be able to develop the directory I need within its structure.
Related Web Sites
- If you need to do some CMS research, the Open Source CMS web site is a good place to start. It is not a complete list, but it is representative of Content Management Systems.
-
A notable proprietary CMS that I have a great deal of respect for is liveSTORYBOARD. This low-cost content management tool generates valid code.
7 comments January 15th, 2005
