Need a custom CMS in PHP

[output]

Hi everyone, I need some advice/help.
My company needs a Joomla like CMS but without the complex workflow. I've tried some of the opensource CMS available but, they're either too simple or too complex. Seems there's no middle ground here :S. What we need is something that can does the basic things (news, pictures, polls) plus a product gallery and template flexibility (so i can code valid xhtml!... so difficult these days).

Does someone know something like this? if not, can someone code it at a reasonable price  ?


PS: please correct me if my english is lacking somewhere... I'm trying to improve it  .

[justice]

Have you tried websitebaker, if so what else have you tried? http://start.websitebaker2.org/en/introduction.html

[housetier]

I recommend Drupal, which, while being complex, let's you anticipate and plan for growth of the website.

Drupal is not easy. I use it myself and keep recommending it

[PPLandry]

Drupal is not easy. I use it myself and keep recommending it

What aspect of Drupal do you find complicated? I find it simple and logical.

Usage of a few extra modules does help. I use:
- LifeWire Diff: provides wiki-like revision with in-text highlighting
- BlockBar: Collapsable (left-pane) menu
- Booktree: Book table of content
- Click2bookmark: user-specific topic bookmark
- Comment subjects: Provides the default reply title to a post
- Comment upload: Attach files to comments
- FCKeditor: advanced WYSIWYG editor. Drupal is one of the very few CMS that use HTML for posts, which I consider much better than bbcode
- Hovertip: Glossary term highlighting (in all posts)
- Imagepicker: User specific images
- Link node: Allows links of type: [node:123] where 123 is the thread. Automatically creates a link with the text = thread title
- Quote: Adds button to quote a post
- Fuzzy Search
- Text CAPTCHA
- GB Comment Revisions: creates revisions when comments (i.e. posts) are edited
- Panels: Creates complex page with content panels

[Carol Haynes]

What about WordPress - find a template and go.

[output]

thanks for the suggestions, but i've tried them all... well except website baker, it actually fits into what we need.

I find the way you put blocks of content into the template somewhat weird, but i've got to read the full documentation first.

again, thank you very much.

out of curiosity, how much would it cost to code something like it?

[f0dder]

How much would a custom CMS cost? Oh boy

Unless you're going to use a random guy from India found through RentACoder and get a shoddy result, it's going to be "quite a wad of cash". Getting an existing CMS system customized to your needs would be cheaper, but don't expect "a few hundred dollars" unless you find somebody desperate.

[rgdot]

Just in case this topic is revisited, I would recommend CMSMadeSimple, in my opinion it's not the easiest but it's not too complicated either

[iphigenie]

WebsiteBaker and cmsmadesimple are both fairly easy to use and set up, and have enough modules for a lot of basic needs. They also have the advantage of a fairly easy to use control panel (esp. website baker which I could have put in front of my mother and she would not have panicked)

After that the option might be something like expression engine - not open source but cheap, and I have used it quite a bit. It's totally template driven so you can build any kind of site in it.

[codyBane]

I hear this question a lot and I have to agree - simple and cms don't seem to go in hand in hand...

Try this list to see if there's some you haven't tried.
http://www.la-grange.net/cms