Hi, I'm looking for a CMS to set up a few websites. I have no PHP experience, and while I plan on learning some in the future I want to be able to set up a decent site before that.
Other than SS I'm interested in MODx, CMSMS, Concrete5 and possibly ExpressionEngine though it is hard to justify the cost. If you could explain how SS fits in with these CMSs that would be helpful to me.
I've tried Drupal in the past, but many things about it bugged me and I am hoping to find an alternative. I need something that will ease and assist me into basic PHP; I only want to learn it to add features, I don't plan on building anything from scratch any time soon.
These are the features I need to begin with:
-Only admins can create users
-Public and user-only content
-User-group permissions
-Custom content types with pages to list specific types (Like Drupal's CCK and Views)
-File attachments
-User-group permissions
-Contact form
-Newsletter
-Forum
Some questions I have regarding SS:
-Would the subsites be suitable for unrelated sites? I guess I would want to use it more like a multi-site, single codebase. I read in another thread that multisites can be done, but that might not be wise for a newbie like me.
-How complex is it to install new updates? Drupal drives me nuts having to disable all my modules, themes then re-enable them after
-How easy would it be for a complete PHP newbie to learn to add to SS? How is the documentation compared to say Drupal; which I found to have a void between beginner and developer? I notice you have a book coming out.
-One future feature I would like to add to my site is having a single piece of content under many categories with multiple sub-categories, I suppose that might be quite complex, but would it be within the scope of someone like me?
Thanks