Noob - Is CMS Made Simple right for me?

[spcherub]

This is a quick response to your questions:

1. Is it possible to create articles that once published are shown in different pages? For example on my website, once I create an article, it creates it’s own article page, and a reference of the article created on the front page as a news ticker. I’d like to replicate that. Another way I could do it is if the articles I publish create an RSS feed, I can just use a PHP parser that I have to format the RSS feed onto that section.

Yes - there is a powerful multi-purpose module called "News" that is bundled with the core that can do what you are looking for. There are also several other modules built on the same general idea (see ListIt2 for example), that can provide that functionality.

2. I vaguely saw it, but does this CMS offer a diverse user management system such as user groups, user login, user restricted areas, user registration, user banning and editing, user credentials, etc. , and how secure is this system?

Yes, the FEU (Front End User) module and other related modules can provide self-registration and front-end management features.

3. Can I use multiple style templates per page?

Not sure exactly what you mean, but you can create as many templates as you need and use them to create pages. Also depending on how you write the templates, moving a page from one template to another can be a trivial task in the Admin panel. You can also attach as many stylesheets as you want per page. With the later releases of CMSMS you can even use Smarty logic to do some basic switching logic within Stylesheets.

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4. Are there any analysis or SEO tools available?

There are a few modules (see the Forge for details), but I personally stay with Google Webmaster and Google Analytics.

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5. In reference to number two, can users upload their own content such as specific files, images, etc. and do you have the option to turn this feature on or off per user or user group?

Yes, there is a module that supports similar functionality (the name escapes me right now - may be Uploads).

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6. Is upgrading the system on release difficult?

Depends - if you keep your site mostly up-to-date, then applying patches is a very simple operation. From time to time, there may be an upgrade that requires a change to DB schema, but these are rare but usually non-destructive. Also as long as you have a good backup, recovering from the worst of situations is very easy with CMSMS - restore files, restore DB, test configuration, empty cache and you are done.

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7. Do you think it may be difficult to transfer my existing database content (MySQL) over to the one created by this CMS?

That is a hard question to answer without knowing what your DB schema looks like. Based on previous experience, you will probably be best served by setting up the new site in CMSMS and manually re-creating the pages for the first time by pasting from your old site. The CMS DB schema is simple, but still relies on cross-linking between tables and importing content directly into one table could still make it not visible to the site because of missing joins and relationships. Having said that, I should point out there are a few modules and utilities out there that can help with content import, especially from flat-files or other databases. For instance you could write a custom UDT (User Defined Tag), that can reach into your custom database, pick and reformat the data and use the CMSMS API calls to insert it into the right places. This, however, requires the knowledge of the internal plumbing of the product which can only come from playing around and hanging out in this forum and on IRC. There is a good book out on Packt Pub (CMSMS Cookbook - http://www.packtpub.com/cms-made-simple ... kbook/book) that deals with building extensions and modules for CMSMS that can given you a headstart.

All in all, I've found this the best open-source CMS that fits my current workflow, and I suspect you will find that to be the case as well.

Hope that helps.
-Sanjay