<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On Oct 1, 2006, at 5:10 AM, Joachim Durchholz wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">Stirling Westrup schrieb:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">Secondly, someone else suggested that we use Drupal instead, not because</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">of any particular familiarity with it (as far as I could tell) but</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">because its well known and has a large user base.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS; min-height: 16.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">You might also take a look at Joomla.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">It's being used by people of varying technical background, and I haven't<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">heard anything about technical trouble from them.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">The Joomly people say it's simple to install and administer, and that<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">seems indeed to be the case.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Comic Sans MS">It needs a MySQL database. Tables get a prefix (modifiable).</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>This has become a standard across nearly every package I've installed -- some people on hosting services only get access to one database... so having a table prefix means you can install as many programs as you want.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>Please note that I've had personal poor experiences with Joomla! I evaluated Drupal, Joomla! and Xoops for a set of features I required for a website. Drupal failed to have all the features I wanted. Xoops was missing maybe one. Joomla! was pretty and tempting. After investigating Joomla! and noting the prices on some of the modules I needed, I decided it was worth the price. I never wrote down the "feature" that I needed multiple extensible user groups. After having used Xoops I simply ASSUMED all CMS packages used multiple extensible user groups.<BR><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Long story short, I started buying and installing modules then went to set up user groups and couldn't find the ability to do so. Some research revealed that there are a set number of user groups, someone had written a core program hack to fix that, but it came with no guarantees and would break upgrading until the hack caught up with a new release, and possibly break other modules/plug-ins. Combine this with the fact that I had to pay for at least 3 of the features I required, and had already bought one, I was exceptionally upset with the package.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you don't require that extensibility in the foreseeable future, Joomla may be the package for you, but be sure to make a detailed list of features you want, look the feature packages up, research the prices if any (about half of the ones I needed had either a price tag or a limited version with a price tag on a "full version" offered if you wanted more features in the plug-in), and decide if the price is worth your while. Add a little more money in the budget in case you missed something. If you need real free software with a lot of add-ons (and decide not to go with PmWiki), make a list of features and investigate Xoops. It doesn't have the fame that Drupal and Joomla! have, but it's stable, has a strong community, many plug-in modules, and is more wisely built. I have used it several times and have yet to pay for any add-ons. BUT it's not as pretty out-of-the-box and every(!) feature except core user/group functionality is a plug-in, including forums. The only assumptions I think they made is you're going to have authentication, users, groups, HTML templates and plug-in modules. That keeps the core light, and extensibility is of primary importance otherwise there would be no functionality at all.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Crisses</DIV></BODY></HTML>