I’ve begun a few sites with CMSMS, but have been very frustrated by the lack of functionality of the addons. Because you can access the modules from the Admin interface, it appears to a newbie that they might be somehow approved/tested/up-to-date/functional, etc. Not the case, as we all quickly learn. It looked like a nice feature initially, but I suggest you move it out of the Admin and use something more along the lines of Joomla or Wordpress… where you search out addons, read user comments and ratings, then go to a dev repository or homepage site to read more & download, then go to the core and install/publish/integrate.

In the best of all possible worlds, we’d all have offline duplicate dev sites… but I will tell you that is not how I do it because I work in a NOC, so I am a hosting admin working on a local net, and can easily and quickly restore a site if it gets hosed. I always test addons on a playground site prior to live implementation on a client site, but I don’t generally do a parallel dev site except with phpBB, due to the need to change core files to add features.

Joomla has a huge installed base and communities that produce some top-notch components… I’m thinking VirtueMart, JCE editor, Hot Properties… I can use these for high-level sites and not disappoint clients with buggy interface, spotty browser compatibility, or major security issues. These are pay-to-play components, but they are worth it. Likewise the pay-to-play templates. Support is quick and readily available for the pay-to-play addons.

Wordpress is so simple to teach and use, perfect for content-heavy sites with a few plugins such as Event Calendar, SEO Pack, runPHP, FlashEmbed, RS Sitemap, PodPress, etc. If I have questions or issues, I can search out an answer very quickly or get some help on the forums.

I have not had the same success with CMSMS. I would consider using it and hacking in my own plugins, but then I might get bound to a certain version and have to skip upgrades. You guys are dealing with major security issues still, while WP and Joomla (and even phpBB) seem to have moved beyond major security holes. I’m not saying they are exploit free… but their upgrade notifications have been quick, and their upgrade paths have been glitch-free for me (for the most part). I’ll generally wait a few days after an update to see what problems folks who use my favorite addons are experiencing… just to be on the safe side and not break a client site. If it’s a major security hole, I will patch ASAP and be prepared with an immediate revert in case of problems.

I’m comfortable with Wordpress and Joomla, and they have served me well in producing client sites. I had great hopes for CMSMS, but I’ve always run into problems early during a site build, and have had to jump ship and move back to WP or Joomla because I know I can find gazillions of good templates, plugins and modules… and I know how to backtrack when something goes wrong.

I’m also quite familiar with phpBB, so I know it can take a ton of coding & server optimization to get a site properly configured and functional… so I really don’t have an issue with that level of involvement with coding/upgrades/backups. However, I choose the ease of upgrading Joomla or Wordpress, and the speed at which my favorite components/plugins/modules get improved/normalized for new versions of the core.

Bottom line, I will continue to use Joomla and Wordpress for CMS sites because the support for modules/plugins is great and because the user communities are plentiful and helpful. I’d truly like to use CMSMS due to the integration of CSS and the quickness of CMSMS sites compared to Joomla… but I need something that is a bit more stable and well-supported.

I suppose if I became more active in the CMSMS community my problems would evaporate. I will commit to re-doing my personal site with CMSMS and if it works for me there, I will begin using for client sites.

An ideal way to get this working is to provide a skeleton plugin that comes supplied with basic unit tests (e.g. to test functions required to actually operate as a plugin) and appropriate stubs for plugin-specific extensions. I know that strictness here will reduce the number of official plugins, but you can be pretty sure of their quality. Developers that can’t be bothered will remain on the unsupported list.

I came to CMSMS at version 1.1. Over the weekend, I upgraded to 1.1.1. I’m currently working on two local test sites and one remote test site. The upgrade seems to be working fine.

The assumption I make is that 1.1.1 is the most up to date and stable release, so that’s what I should use. But when I read earlier on in this topic that some support requests relate to 0.13, I wonder if I’m right!

Surely what all of us who use, or plan to implement client sites with CMSMS need, is a stable core version and that’s surely 1.1.1? Is there any real reason for having previous versions available for download? Does this not detract from progessing the CMSMS project?

What we’d also like is Modules that have the approved stamp, because they’ve been tested and they work. This would be a great confidence booster in introducing new features and functionality, especially to clients. Modules without the approved stamp would remain “use at your own risk,” but again surely the goal here is for eventual approval? If not, there seems little point in having them!

Documentation is vital, but it’s a massive area. It seems to me there are three requirements. Installation, locally and remotely which is covered to some extent. Implementation - there’s got to be a best practices guide out there somewhere! User Guide, well this would be veritable treasure trove. I’d be delighted to collaborate and get involved on the latter two areas.

Thanks all. In my view CMSMS is just great and we can all help to make it even better.

Jeroen

Maybe the simple fix is to give developers more reason/motivation to make great modules.
Ratings and or COMPETITIONS with ‘awards’ for the module and/or developers might be just the thing to get them motivated.
e.g. Something like the Karma system in the forums.

People like recognition.

I look forward to “My module survived the CMSMS Quality Audit” t-shirts.

As has been mentioned:
A LACK OF an eCommerce module probably keeps many serious developers away… think about it:
If the developer can -easily- use CMSMS to make money, therefore offset their costs for developing on CMSMS, they might be more inclined to contribute more work to the system.

Oh and it’d be cool if there was an ‘upgrade’ button in the admin panel for CMSMS.

oh, and the CMSMS website and admin panel is starting to look a little dated.
Reflections people, Reflections!

To save money doesn’t mean that a solution as to be free – it just needs to be the right amount. Like a few others have said, other CMSs offer modules for a minimal fee. Most of the time, these are polished, well documented, almost bug-free, and with good support.

We all have to make money to live! I am completely supporting Franklin’s proposition (response #9) to create some funding pool per modules. I do not believe that it is against an “open source” concept – those who can afford to financially support a module development will understand that it benefits the majority of those who can’t. I will be one of the first to do so. (To tell you the truth, this money will ultimately be charged to my clients over one or more projects.)

To this funding approach I will just add one other suggestion: what about a thank-you in the form of a banner advertising — or/and service directory listing — for my/your services?

Keep the good work! I have discovered CMSms a few weeks ago and like many I fell in love with its simplicity and huge potential.

Michel

I looked at other open source projects to see how they dealt with the issue. The one that leaps out is OSCommerce with some 4,000 user modifications. The ‘mods’ process there is quite different from the one here (and elsewhere). In OSCommerce the mod is posted and then eveyone who has a bug cure or ‘upgrades’ can post the modified ‘mod’ on the same page as the original mod posting. (see OSC Contributions). The net effect is a give and take between the original author and the community. Moreover, if an originating author drops out, it is not uncommon for development of the mod to continue through the efforts of other community contributors.

My suggestion is to take a look at the OSCommerce model, which has been remarkably successful, and pattern the cmsmadesimple solution to the ‘mods’ issue on the OSC ‘contributions’ model. It works; its effective; and its simple

I am very new to CMSMS (2weeks) coming on to an existing project which was running very late so my views may be just a little coloured - we are modifying some modules & writing a brand new one I have been struck by the differences in the way modules are coded and this has a huge impact on maintainability some are well abstracted & some are just plain shite - some use function.xyz.php where others use action.xyz.php to do the same thing - soem do everything in one block of php code (validate & display form - other break this into 2 ) - some some store templates in the datatbase some dont - some style everything with divs - others dont , and all seem to reflect a different viewpoint on how CMS operates under the hood

When we are trying to do the new module we have picked one of the better ones to use as guide as to how to do things even though it is in a different problem domain.

So I guess want I want to say is after v 2 is released STOP development for a few weeks except for vital bug fixes and DOCUMENT how CMSMS works and how bits interact with core - some simple state / block/ activity diagram (ie swim lanes) diagrams (as appropriate) are all that are required so I can see ok I need this kind of set of functions here, those sorts over there and they are connected by… etc etc - this would have saved us an enormous amount of time (note I could put nearly this same post on any number of open source projects forums - etc)

Having added my 2c - let me say I am converting all my sites CMSMS because it IS so extendable

I dunno what the solution is, but that is one of the problems.