Has anyone used any of the following specific CMS? Magnolia, Textpattern, Expression Engine
I haven't found anyone who has had any experience (substantial experience preferred, of course) with the first two -- Magnolia or Textpattern. I have heard from others about Expression Engine but not quite enough.
On the flip side, I've heard lots about how great Drupal is but I do want to get first-hand accounts of the others. I've read that Textpattern is great from a designer's perspective but would it be good for a main company website that has lots of dynamic data (lots of existing home-grown javascript widgets [JSON] that build tables of data that update often throughout the day) and static content? And for Magnolia, it's Java, which is good for us, but how would it run under the same circumstances? It seems that Magnolia has an enterprise version whereas Textpattern seems not as robust for a enterprise/corporate environment.
The best way I can explain the site without revealing too much is to liken it to something like Nasdaq/Yahoo Finance/Google Finance with up-to-date financial data throughout the day, tables of data, news releases and profiles, with static content in other sections to describe products & services.
We've never used a third-party system before so this might be a naive way of framing my question so I'd like to thank everyone who has had experience and can provide their comments.
Posted Dec 20, 2010, 10:54 PM UTC · edited
I have used Textpattern and while it's wonderful for a small blog, I don't think it's what you are looking for in this case.
Why do you say that?
It looks like it would do the basic stuff we need in terms of roles for content, templates, etc. I talked with my coworker, and we've agreed that any of these choices would be able to hook into our javascript front-end (or at least should -- for example, JQuery should work on all of these CMS, I don't see why not. Is this not the case?) so that point has become a bit moot. The more important factor seems to be how it would hook into our backend, getting that data to load the page in the first place.
Also, I'm curious as to what your experience is with TxpSout's comment here:
http://textgarden.org/about/216/using-front-of-site-themes
Textpattern has marketed itself as the best choice for web designers, being easy and flexible for designers. How true is this? From what TxpScout says here, it doesn't seem so at all. What are your thoughts/experiences?