Thread

Hello all. Thanks in advance for your time!
I’m a non-developer looking to create a site with a few static pages and a forum and blog. I hope to drive quite a bit of traffic (wishfull thinking of course) to my site. I have midphase as my host and have been looking into using some open source software for my blog and forum (wordpress and simple machines forum). So far, I have installed SMF and for someone like me it doesn’t seem particularly easy to integrate it into my site (which I don’t have yet but will soon).

My question is…is EE something someone who has a little web experience (I have built static pages and worked with various content management systems) can handle? 

I like the idea of the modules and not installing a few different software and then figuring out how they work together and to me support is worth paying for.

Any thoughts welcome!

Best,
dmartini

dmartini:

Thanks for thinking of EE!  Let me tell you about me.  I’m a pretty good php guy, not so great a html guy.  I too have had a forum, etc that I’ve used before.  What I found and why I switched to EE is that I hated slogging through and integreting all these modules, like you said. 

I think EE would be wonderful for you.  Once you get your templates right, the actual content can almost be WYSIWYG in the control panel. 

If you use EE core, it’s free.  Downside is, of course, many of the membership features don’t work.  But if you are planning on only ever using members in a forum, that’s okay, you can use SMF. 

However, the power of EE really shines when you go the personal/commerical route and pick up the forum module as well.  EE’s forum is certainly as good as SMF, though it’s not as powerful as vBulletin or Invision Power Board.  EE personal/commercial is not free, nor open source.  But what you get for your money is literally the best tech support and help in the industry.  Ellislab and their software represent all that’s best about closed source software: it’s their job to help you.  You don’t have to rely on some volunteer somewhere to maybe get around to helping you out.  Oh, and bug fixes come fast and frequent, if necessary. 

But EE core, the free version, is still lights out one of the best CMS systems out there.  Download it, watch the tutorial vids, and give it a whirl.  Like me, I predict you’ll pick EE and not look back. 

Hope that helps!

ETA: what I mean by closed source, to make clear, is that it’s not GPL or any of those licenses.  You can hack up the source code (which you get) all you want, you just can’t redistribute it….  Oh, and Robin said it lots better than me, as usual.

I don’t think it’s hard to handle EE if you aren’t a developer- I started with EE for a hobby site and it served me well.  However- you are going to need to have a decent grasp of html and css in order to really get things looking like you want them to.

And yes, the integration of the forum is a big ‘plus’ when comparing to systems where you need to manage that sort of integration by yourself.  That really does take a developer- or a really good set of instructions!

Given what you want to do, I’d really recommend that you try EE out before making a decision- there are a couple of trial options- you may even want to try more than one of these.  The hosted demo will give you the chance to put the forum through its paces- which is a very good idea if you’re thinking of using it.  Of course, you’ve already used the forum- it runs this site- but it’s a good idea to check it out as an administrator.  And, if you want to install EE on your own server, you can try the Core option- it doesn’t have all of the modules (and you can’t use it to try the forum), but you’ll get a feel for the installation process.  Either or both options would be recommended before making a final decision.

Make sense?

ETA- and now I’m grinning after that really nice endorsement!

All very very helpful!!! Thanks so much for your candid and helpful remarks. I’m going to download core tonight and see what it is like. I do have a pretty good grasp on HTMl and CSS so perhaps it won’t be too difficult. And, I happen to like this forum better than smf for sure. Anyway, again, not everyone takes the time to be so helpful to people getting started out and you made my day.

Best,
dmartini

Hey!
Just wanted to say that I downloaded the core version no problem and it seems like something I can handle. I actually work with a CMS that works in a similar fashion on the job so the concepts aren’t to hard to grasp.

Anyway, I’m definitely going to go ahead and purchase the full version with the discussion forum and wanted to thank you for your assistance. That also sold me! Can’t wait to get started.

enjoy the weekend,
dmartini

Enjoy EE!  The learning curve can be a bit high, but once you get over that…. it’s smooth sailing.  And with the Core version to play with, you’ve most likely got most of the learning curve already done!

Good choice!