CMS Made Simple Forums

Wow compared to everyone else I feel like a complete hack... but that's actually a compliment for CMS MS. CMS MS actually makes me feel like a programmer! It feels great when my wife walks into the office and I can say... oh I'm just 'tweaking some code' hehe.

I've been designing with Photoshop and Dreamweaver for about 5 years (I've become more of a project manager I guess). I know html and a bit of css and no php but I can install and tweak code enough (with the help of this forum) to get a nice site up and running with some functionality. Nowadays I often do my layout and instructions in p/s then get a third party to code it for me. I even recently had a PHP guy build an additional db module for me for cms ms.

After trialling the other more complex popular cms's; cms ms wins hands down. Simplicity, functionality and with each project I'm getting to know it and love it more and more.

Just eagerly awaiting a reliable e-commerce module and it'll be the answer to my prayers (until then I'll have to continue to present that ugly zen cart admin to clients)

oh, to actually answer the intial question; about 12 sites in the old table based days, and about the same getting someone else to css for me, I'm on about my 4th cms ms site.

Thankyou!
Herb.

How many PROFESSIONAL websites powered by cms have I built before cmsms?  0.  Although a year ago, I built a sort-of cms site for our diocese using purely (simple) php code extracting content from uploaded xml files. But I don't consider that as a PROFESSIONAL site.

I programmed with C long long time ago. These days, I am still doing IT-related tasks but very little programming. I started experimenting with HTML only about 2 yrs ago, and that was not for website, but more for compiling it into an "e-book."  Then, I uploaded the set of HTML files to a free web host, so I got my first website.

Then, about a year ago, I had to learn PHP and mysql because I needed to convert MS Access apps to a Linux server, with apache and mysql installed.  Somebody taught me that using web technology like php and mysql would be an easier way to manage intranet databases, with php acting as the user-interface. That was how I got connected with php and mysql.

Then our official website which was built with html pages (not by me) is getting harder to manage, also we are running out of webmasters.  So, the need for a cms to handle our site.  I wanted to use Joomla at first. But found it too overwhelming.  I couldn't get it to do what I want.  And joomla templates seem to look alike, and they mostly look joomla.  I discovered cmsms early this year, tried a new template with it. It worked immediately.  I found it flexible.  I liked it, so I decided to use it.

What is new with cmsms to me is CSS and Smarty.  CSS is not tough, I learn how to code it quickly.  it is the web design that's tough: the color scheme, layout, stying of texts...  (I would want to modify the free template a little rather than just stay with the default style)  Smarty is new to me, and very interesting.  What I like best about it is its power.  I can make the templates do what i want, though  I am still struggling much to learn how smarty works with php.

Well, I have now one official site built with cmsms, there will be 4 more web projects to come.  One will require the use of catalogue, another FEU, and another, Q and A.  I am also planning to convert the first site I mentioned above (written in PHP) to cmsms, when time permits.

cmsms requires a learning curve. But why did I stay with it?  Well, learning to use cmsms is worth the effort, because CSS and smarty are proper web technologies; acquiring the skill of working with cmsms means acquiring the skill of building websites the right way (with or without cmsms), while acquiring the skill of working with cms packages like Joomla means just that: the skill to use joomla.


Just my personal opinion.

Bump.... just to keep this topic alive till the survey is complete.

"0". I have built maybe half a dozen sites over the last 10 years using html. I know absolutely nothing about css, php, or the like. I guess that pretty much puts me out of the target audience. Still, I bought a 4" book on how to build a cms web site using a different program and really struggled. I ended up moving over to CMSMS after a recommendation from an acquaintance and immediately loved it. Sure, I have asked a couple of really stupid questions here, but I have learned so much and really, could the software be more intuitive? Kudos to the developers because the learning curve with CMSMS is quite low. In about a week I will have a commercial site online and looking great. And with hopefully no more stupid questions in the forum. Well, possibly one. Thanks

OK off topic but, sorry, I just have to ask as I've seen this statement a few times now...

How does one make websites using HTML w/o using CSS?...

@Mark

Websites existed long before CSS was invented.

They mostly used table layouts, with very few options for "styling".

Nullig

yeah, I've made a couple of sites using HTML 1.something..... back in the days when 'netscape' was distributed on a floppy.

No laughing.

@calguy

Yeah, I remember those days.
They had to distribute Netscape on a floppy, as it would have taken hours to download it on the 1200 baud modem.

Nullig

My answer is zero, and as of today, still 0!  Just installed and getting started.  Have done almost no web work in the past 5 years, but fairly intensive prior (hand coding, frontpage, dreamweaver) including some testing and trials of early CMS from opensource to big $$$, so I've had to spend some time just coming up to speed with what's new and deciding where I wanted to spend my time and money.  This thread clinched my decision to try CMSMS and the instal made it easy to choose to keep it. 

~Kat

Interestingly, the interim results seem to illustrate a steady 2 to 1 ratio of experienced vs. unexperienced people using CMS Made Simple. 

And interestingly, a full 12% of the respondants so far are extremely experienced web developers (in excess of 25 websites done with a content management system). 

So far, the trends seem to be illustrating my assumption that the primary users of CMS are experienced people.  Lets see how the results bear out in the next week or so.

I guess it depends on whether you class someone who's done 5 or less websites as "experienced".

The way I read it, it's the other way 'round - twice as many inexperienced users (5 or less) to experienced users (6 or more).

Nullig

Well, my thoughts when developoing this poll, were that 'atleast if you'd written some websites' using a content management system (joomla, xoops, drupal, whatever) you would have some experience with uploading files, some experience with permissions, databases, php errors, etc.    Hopefully some experience with html and css.... but maybe my assumptions were wrong

i find my biggest battle at the moment is php, smarty and mysql.

i came from designing static sites for years. then started writing more dynamic sites with asp and mssql.

to be honest, 12 months ago i was still messing around with cut up photoshop designs and putting em in tables.

so to date, everything now is css, xhtml compliant, on a unix server and setup on a content management server ive only been using for a few months. so its been a massive transition, but an easy one

bump.... just to keep this topic alive for a while longer.

WOW that's really nice.