Thread

Hello I am currently planning on abandoning wordpress in a quest for something greater as I do not like trying to hack it to perform like a real CMS. First of all I tried Drupal but found the learning curve to steep. Now I am considering ExpressEngine and MODX. Could somebody please tell me which one would better suit my purpose with the following details.

This is what I’m looking to accomplish.

I would like my site to have dynamic drop down menus, and then link to a page with a list of articles. Example: http://carm.org/

My site is going to be content rich with plans of thousands of articles eventually.

I do not have programming skills like php and only have basic knowledge of html/css.

Is there any advantage of ExpressEngine over MODX for this type of website?

Your feedback would be highly appreciated.

[Mod Edit: Moved to the Pre-Sales forum]

Yes, EE can generate menus from entries you post into it (whether the idea of a menu with 1000’s of entries is a great idea from an interface perspective is another matter).  EE is design-agnostic, you provide the design and use EE tags to generate the HTML you need to appear in the browser.

I have no knowledge of Modx to make any comparisons there.

Ok what about a list of items like this: http://tinyurl.com/d7touka for particular categorys?

Yep.😉

For most thing with EE it’s not a matter of “can it do it” it’s “which one of the 3 different ways is best for this client & site?”

Yep.😉

For most thing with EE it’s not a matter of “can it do it” it’s “which one of the 3 different ways is best for this client & site?”

How hard would it be for me to accomplish the things I’m trying to achieve?

I do not have the coding knowledge so would it be a case of trial and error, or would I have to ask people for help (which I guess would cost).

What’s your scale of hardness? 😉

There is coding involved.  You will need to figure out tag pairs, loops and variables.  And how to mix those in with HTML & CSS to generate the required output.  EE is very flexible that the flexibility has a learning curve.

There are learning resources - both my own through Train-ee and also through Creat-ee.com and Mijingo.com. 

It’s doable - I’ve had people show up for a Train-ee class who have never written a loop nor used a variable and leave with the ability to put together an EE site.  But they had to invest time and finances to acquire that knowledge quickly and in a coached environment. 

Otherwise you can purchase books or screencasts that cost a lot less but require you to have the initiative to work through them and figure more out on your own.

Hi James,

Thank you for your questions and interest in ExpressionEngine! Welcome to the forums.

The best way to know if ExpressionEngine is right for you is to give it a try!

Please email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we can qualify you for an Evaluation License! Also, check out Mike’s excellent tutorials over at Train://ee.

I do not have the coding knowledge so would it be a case of trial and error, or would I have to ask people for help (which I guess would cost).

Using ExpressionEngine does require a working knowledge of HTML/CSS to be useful. It’s not a pre-packaged set of themes like WordPress. However, getting up to speed on how to use EE to deliver your design is why we are here. For now, access to Professional Support is included with a license purchase.

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Cheers,