Coding own blog/CMS

[jlee]

Who else here coded their own blog or CMS? I just finished mine recently after months of doing it and after rewriting it. Quite a lot of work but so much better than using a script that doesn't do exactly what I want/need!

[Jelena]

What did you want that for example existing CMS or blogs doesn't have? I'm interested to know.

[jlee]

It's not that they didn't have it by way of a plugin or something, it's just that they didn't do exactly what I wanted or needed. Plus, I wanted something of my own and I learned a lot!

[Jelena]

I understand the learning part, however you still say they didn't do exactly what you wanted or needed so I am curious to know what did you want that they don't offer? :)

[jlee]

That's because there are too many to name. I just didn't want to use a script that I couldn't manipulate 100% to do exactly what I wanted and how I wanted to do it.

A lot of them were too bloated for me (e.g. Wordpress) and others were just ugly and didn't have good themes or were too hard to customize.

My CMS is my creation and I know how to edit it and manipulate it to do exactly what I want when I want to and how I want to.

I don't understand what you aren't getting.

[Jelena]

I was just curious to know, because few years back I wanted to develop one by myself, because I didn't want to get to know any existing blog software, but after trying out WP, I think you can do anything you want with it.

I visited your blog and couldn't find anything that is different than running a regular WP for example, so that is why I asked :)

[jlee]

Well, I couldn't find a good Ask&Answer plugin. I tried the one you have and I hated it.

I hated the way the template tags and such were. I had a hard time figuring out how to display certain things the way I wanted. I also couldn't find a good "upcoming events" plugin, and other things that haven't been added to my blog yet because I'm tired of working on it. Basically, each plugin I found didn't do everything I wanted. There was always one important thing missing. I also hated the idea of having to install multiple plugins to get one desired feature.

I used WP for years but there is way too much bulk for me and I don't like having to have a whole bunch of plugins to do what I want. I'd rather be able to code it the way I want it and such. I guess it was all about independence. I didn't want to have to depend on other people to write a plugin to do what I want.

Plus, using this experience, I'm going to write my own script for my fansite which needs more features than WP has even with plugins.

[ses5909]

That's cool you wrote your own cms and yeah, writing your own stuff is a gat way to learn.

Well, I couldn't find a good Ask&Answer plugin. I tried the one you have and I hated it.


I LOVE it. But that would be because I am one of the two authors of it. It started as a script on my site and people kept asking for it, so Jelena and I turned it into a plugin. Now it's had almost 3000 downloads which is pretty cool.

I'll be releasing a new version soon enough and it will officially become part of TheBlogExperiment now that the site is launched.

[jlee]

^^ Well, I hated it because it never would install right and then it stopped working when I upgraded... so it was more of a fuss for me than anything. I eventually just gave up on it since I knew I was going to be writing my own CMS.

[Oliver]

I coded my own blog/cms software and yes I could have used wordpress or typepad or movable type etc. So why did I code my own blog software? because I can, that's it. I can easily intergrate anything into it, any design, anything. Also there is the satisfaction of knowing that your blog is the only blog in the world to be running that blog software.

[MrSpooky]

I did the same back in 2000 but made the "mistake" of releasing the code on Sourceforge. It soon became a pain in the ass to maintain as I was getting code contributions, bug reports, feature requests. Its still available (http://www.simplog.org), but I haven't worked on it in a very long time. The flexibility of having my own is nice, but dealing with all the peripheral BS is a pain.

My advice is to just keep it to yourself. ;)

[snookca]

I coded mine using CakePHP mostly because I was tiring of the headaches of Movable Type. I could've gone for WordPress but I wanted something extremely flexible, especially for things like spam protection where systems like Akismet don't always work.

[Oliver]

Yeah, if you haven't got the time, keep it to yourself because if you're late me and often can't be bothered to update then you're going to get some pretty funkadelic emails :)

[CompiledMonkey]

A number of years ago I wrote my own blog software in ASP.NET. Mostly to learn the technology.

Currently I'm finishing up re-writing the site I work for, which contains a very powerful article and advertising publishing system, among other things. The current site is awful from the programming and design perspectives but it sure does get a lot of page views. Right now we're averaging about 4.5 million a month. Our new site will be ready next month and I'm greatly looking forward to associating my name with the new site. :D

[smittenbite]

well i know what you mean about wanting to just make your own thing. although i dont really think it makes much sense to code your own entire cms unless you just wanted more experience, since to me the obvious solution to this:


I didn't want to have to depend on other people to write a plugin to do what I want.


would be to make your own plugin (which would be much easier and take much less time than reinventing the wheel)

[jlee]

well i know what you mean about wanting to just make your own thing. although i dont really think it makes much sense to code your own entire cms unless you just wanted more experience, since to me the obvious solution to this:





would be to make your own plugin (which would be much easier and take much less time than reinventing the wheel)

Maybe you missed the part where I learned a lot or the part where I didn't want to rely on numerous plugins to do what I could code myself. Further me writing my own CMS is not reinventing the wheel when I couldn't find a CMS that had everything I needed with or without plugins.

[splitbrain]

I did, too. Well sort of. I wrote my own Wiki engine. Then I wrote me a blog plugin for it. So now I'm blogging through a Wiki :-)

[SarahG]

I write custom CMS's for clients if WordPress isn't up to the job. The last one was a few years back before I'd even heard of WordPress and the CMS is not just for content but it's a recruitment site so they need to be able to add job vacancies.

These days however I use WP to at least power the standard CMS side of things and if we need extra parts to the site that WP can't deal with then I code up an extra admin section, however the front end is all controlled by WP and page templates.

I've never tried writing a blog but then again I've not needed to!

As for writing WordPress plugins to do what you need, I've looked at writing a plugin and the how to page blew my mind a little so I gave up that idea! ;)

[BPartch]

As for writing WordPress plugins to do what you need, I've looked at writing a plugin and the how to page blew my mind a little so I gave up that idea! ;)Been there, done that, left with tail between legs. :o

[ses5909]

Plugins aren't too bad, but learning how to do it the first time is tricky. I started by just making my php scripts and then I turned them into plugins. It gets harder when you give the users options. But once you get the first one done, they get easier.

[goldfries]

while i could write my own blog / CMS - i chose not to due to the lack of time on my side, plus the fact that wordpress served my purpose fine. :)

[SarahG]

Writing the PHP script for the plugin would be easy enough, I think it's integrating it into the WP admin that's the confusing bit. I know it says to take another plugin and just duplicate that and alter it to suit your needs but it's still a daunting thing. I guess you need the time to sit and understand things which I don't have the patience for at present!

[jlee]

^^ Same here. It's much easier to just write the PHP script and know how it works then to have to worry about integrating it. Too much time!