Need Open Source CMS with Valid XHTML
January 15th, 2005
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.
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A notable proprietary CMS that I have a great deal of respect for is liveSTORYBOARD. This low-cost content management tool generates valid code.
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7 Comments
1. Iva Koberg | January 18th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Hi Harvey, thanks for considering liveSTORYBOARD CMS in your search. In fact, liveSTORYBOARD is not really geared toward web logs (despite our site’s blog-like layout
liveSTORYBOARD poses no design restrictions, and it can a manage anything from a simple, static brochure site to complex, dynamic portals. The CMS utilizes XML/XSLT and can also integrate with different server side technologies, such as PHP/MySQL. I was interested to find out why you thought liveSTORYBOARD is geared towards blogs? best,
Iva.
2. Harvey Ramer | January 18th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I guess I was fooled by the blog-like appearance of your site. Feel free to reply to this comment with an example of some excellent design work powered by your CMS. When I could not find any examples of sites using your CMS listed, I assumed it was tailored to blog-like or publishing environments.
3. Iva Koberg | January 18th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Got it - thanks. At http://www.livestoryboard.com - the bottom part of the page lists a few recently launched, liveSTORYBOARD CMS managed sites - each very different in appearance, functionality and purpose. “Excellent design” is subjective, so I won’t make that claim, though I can safely say that if exellent designers are in charge of look and feel, liveSTORYBOARD will let them easily implement their work
Good luck in your search!
4. Harvey Ramer | January 19th, 2005 at 9:43 am
Upon further research of what the CMS world looks like, I’ve concluded that I really do not need a CMS for the system I’m designing. It already will manage most of the content via forms that update my database fields. While very limited by CMS standards, it will meet the client’s needs adequately.
5. gldir | November 7th, 2005 at 10:26 am
You can see which content managements systems are most likely to produce valid code on installation in my list of 160 cms’s at
CMS Code Validation
6. tonebbs | February 21st, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Thanks for considering TYPO3. The best CMS, IMHO.
It’s very fast and simple.
Greatings…
7. Harvey Ramer | November 2nd, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Here’s another simple CMS that looks like a great tool for smaller Web sites.
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