…or one person’s impatient survey of open source CMS-capable software that can be installed in my budget-hosted Microsoft Windows environment.

Long story short: after trying-on numerous open-source CMS frameworks like a bride at a discount wedding-dress warehouse sale, I found Textpattern to be the one for me.

[EDIT - I've since switched to WordPress, as 2.0 provides non-klugey pages and a KISS interface. Watch this space for more info, or drop me a line if you have questions.]

First runners-up

• Drupal almost had me. I got a simple website up and running quickly – one static “about” page and one blog page. The I started digging in to extending it to include basic custom db -driven pages and got frustrated with the model. You might pick it up right away, it just didn’t “click” for me.
• e107 is geared towards membership sites, with well thought out emphasis on users and permissions and forums. It includes an elaborate interface for managing the various and sundry settings required of a “community” site. Perfect if that’s what you need. I need a simple framework with lots of transparency.

Second runners-up

• I wanted to like MovableType, I really did. But setting up a static page felt too kluge-y, and it’s something I’ll be doing quite often for clients.
• WordPress ditto

Honorable .NET 2.0 Mentions

• Umbraco is a very powerful and highly configurable framework. If you ALWAYS want control over everything (e.g. you want to write it all from scratch every time), then this is the framework for you. I need something a little more “lightweight”.
• MojoPortal, DotNetNuke, RainbowPortal – All these apps are community servers of one flavor or another, and didn’t fit my needs. Which is too bad, as my hosting company supports .NET 2.0 on MSSQL way better than php/MySQL on IIS.

Not evaluated (yet…)

• Django – a “high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design” I don’t know python at all, but when the website claims that “It lets you build high-performing, elegant Web applications quickly” – they are throwing down the gauntlet. I may have to get a *nix hosting account just to try this one out, as I doubt my current budget hoster will support a python distribution.
• Ruby On Rails – another language I don’t know, but lots of good buzz from the technorati. I first heard of Ruby about five years ago, and have been looking for an excuse to learn it ever since…

And the winner is… TextPattern

• Pros – total transparency to the html/css, and it fits my mental model of a simple web system.
• Cons – requires mod_rewrite (or similar) for non-messy urls. This means tweaking downloaded templates, but I’ll probably end up tweaking them anyway (or starting from scratch).

Yes, it is easy to set up for blogging. But it’s also easy to set up for static pages, or image galleries or just about anything your clients want. And they can have control of the content.

Or {gasp!} try your hand at php and extend it – I’ve got a couple of applications in mind and will link to them from here as they progress.