Content Management Systems and CSS Layout

[rfeese]

There was some discussion about finding a CMS that uses CSS layout at the last meeting. I did a little looking around for CMS projects that advertise CSS layout as a feature -- There aren't many. What I did find is that there are some CMSs that have a "theme" feature that is flexible enough that some people have started to create CSS layout based themes. Here are a few that I found:

Drupal
http://drupal.org/
There is a "tableless" theme. Not too much more information about it.
http://drupal.org/project/tableless

phpWebSite
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/
Someone was working on a tableless theme.
http://www.cyberplasm.com/phpwebsite/
It looks like they are looking at trying to eliminate tables in this CMS in future versions.

I'm sure there are many others.

[saltybeagle]

very cool...

The appalachian state site is one that sounds interesting to me... we looked at it a while ago, and from what I can see some first look benefits are:
they're focused on XHTML output
WAI/WCAG
PHP (any platform, largest development momentum)
mySQL (any platform, ditto)
also an edu institution (maybe not a requirement, but it's a selling point to me)
& open source of course..

so.. sounds to me like phpWebSite is a strong candidate for a CMS.

[paradiselost]

From my experience, drupal and phpWebSite, while claiming to us CSS for layout, only minimally incorporate css into their CMS solution. If you want a CMS that fully utilizes not only the buzzword, but the actual philosophy and strategy of CSS then use Xaraya. While still in beta production, this CMS surpasses anything on the open source php market in terms of CSS and modular design.

http://xaraya.com/

[rcrisler1]

This issue hasn't been touched on in a while ... there's been a lot of progress in CMSs since we talked about the possibilities last summer.

We have targeted summer this year to get a working model of a CMS up and running. Coincidentally, I was going down a checklist of CMS technical and functional attributes on Saturday afternoon as I listened to the Huskers get beat by Kansas in the first game of the doubleheader. Disqualified most of them right off the bat because of their bolted-at-the-hip relationship to HTML tables for layout. (Including phpWebsite.) I agree with you: Xaraya, to me, looks like the best of the lot. It's forward-looking in terms of standards, and is pretty 'featureful' and capable, at least according to its marketing materials.

I installed it on my home server, but have some permissions issues to address before I can do anything with it.

Do you have anything running in Xaraya?

And if anyone else who's reading this has any investment or interest in a CMS, I second the motion ... http://xaraya.com.

[paradiselost]

I've begun some development in Xaraya and have it running locally. I was amazed at how easily and friendly it was to set up. I'm still learning what all of the modules do, and I'm overwhelmed by all of the functionality it has.

[rcrisler1]

Can you provide a URL or give a call?