Content Management

[randomness0]

Hi,

I have a directory site for remedial massage clinics where each listing clinic effectively ahs their own subdomain. To date I have been manually updating all pages. However I am at stage now where would like to provide listing clinics with a secure login for which they could manage some of their own content.

Have received some quotes from developers which are well out of my budget so am starting about thinking about doing it myself. Am comfortable with html/php but that is about about the limit of my current skills (but am willing to learn!)

I'm just after tips and/or any recommendations for any content management software that may be able to provide the end result I'm after (eg I've come across a content management system "Big Medium" which may be suitable???).

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Separate question is that I'm also after a statistics package that along with providing clinics with information on weekly/monthly numbers of visitors to their subdomain, will provide them with a listing of the actual time of say the last X visitors to their subdomain (this is a fairly niche market, typically subdomains average less than 3-4 visitors per day - we're not talking huge traffic). As most listing clinics have their info on other webpages, I would like to be able to provide them with the facility to be able to relate leads to visits to their page on my site rather than other sites.

Most of the stuff I've looked at just gives standard stuff of daily/weekly/monthly stats which is of some value but what I'm after is the data on specific visitors - what specific time they were on the subdomain, number of pages visited within subdomain and maybe how long they were on the subdomain.

I could provide the clinics with a statcounter type login but would like to tie in subdomain stats to their own login.


Website in question is http://www.remedial-massage.com.au

Thanks
Richard

[ran_dizolph]

If you've got a basic understanding of PHP, this tutorial by biorust can help get you started on the basics of a login-style system.

That tutorial gave me such a better understanding of login systems, and has been the basis of my own content management system that i have now applied to many websites, and the feedback has been great.

I've not yet found an open-source CMS that has been all that great. They're almost always a bit of a pain to actually customize. Building it yourself gives you complete control.

I'm by no means a PHP expert, but with a basic understanding of it you can accomplish quite a bit.

Check out Google Analytics for your stats stuff...it's pretty in-depth.

[a53mp]

Without going to crazy into the backend, especially if you want something secure and running any time soon, you will probably be best off looking into a free or paid script for free website hosting with subdomains. Kind of like a angelfire or geocities for your site. That should give them easy access to templates, content editing, etc..

[rizzoid]

My business does nothing but Joomla CMS. It's award winning, by far the most popular open source and I can teach my customers how to make their own changes. There are over 4100 addons from database manipulation to image galleries to business directories.

The techies prefer Drupal, but I can't teach that to customers.

John
<self promo deleted>

[Milo]

Commercial package thats quite affordable is www.phpmydirectory.com/ for US$100. I"m using it for one of my sites. Overall and for the price, I thought it was a good package.

I've also tried Joomla with the Sobi directory module. A bit more in-depth to figure out (for me anyway), but FREE.

Hope this helps.

[HHI_Golf_Guy]

Without a doubt, go with Joomla.

While their are many great CMS system out there, I don't think any of them have the community strength of Joomla. The Joomla developer community has made many great free and paid components. custom modules, and mambots to enhance your site.

Go to the Joomla.org site and check out the Extensions for more info. My guess is that you will have to write very little custom code (components, mambots, and modules) yourself. More often than not, someone else has already developed what you need.

[Orion]

The advantage with using wordpress, joomla, or dupral is that you don't have to re-invent the wheel AND the biggest reason is that you don't have to constantly recode your own custom CMS to keep up with security holes etc. Using an open source solution all you have to do is to customize your own look into it and update it when the updates come out!

[Big Juice]

Don't waste your time with Joomla just use wordpress as your CMS

[Orion]

Don't waste your time with Joomla just use wordpress as your CMS

Wordpress is awesome! I use it almost exclusively.. however it's not a good idea if you have a very large site or if you want to dive into ecommerce beyond a few products.

[eshop600]

Without a doubt, Joomla is the worst cms system, every joomla site looks the same, its horrible to use, its slow and bloated. Its not search engine friendly and for web designers its just not intuitive and flexible to use, it made me want to tear my hair out, so fecking frustrating, I hate it with a passion.

Use wordpress or Modx. End of story.