Hi Sean, Thanks for your extensive reply. I am happy to hear that Radiant is very active.
However others might get the same impression as me, which probably would not be the case if radiantcms.org is updated more frequently. But, as you say, the quality of the code is what counts, and not the packaging. The fact that Radiant, like any other CMS, may not do eveything out- of-the-box is not a problem. That's one of the main reasons why I prefer a Rails based CMS, since it makes developing extensions a lot easier. What made me enthousiastic in the review I mentioned is that Radiant is part of list of well-known CMS's and considered as an interesting new contenter which looks very promising. As a ruby developer, the only lacking feature I have a problem with is the part about the documentation. I will check out the Styled Blog template as you suggested. This might help me creating the layouts and structure of the site. However my less technical colleagues must also be able to edit content or add pages to the site. If the rather conceptual documentation is extended with more concrete examples, it might help a lot. Cheers, Maarten On 20-feb-2008, at 15:46, Sean Cribbs wrote: > Maarten, > > Let me assuage some of your fears. Radiant is VERY active, people are > using the CMS all the time to build websites, and I receive at > least 15 > messages a day on the mailing lists. Your perception of inactivity in > the project may be because we release fairly infrequently, for an > open-source project. I would say that's a combination of the limited > time our core developers can devote, the overall quality of the code > (fewer bug fixes) and our commitment to that quality (we try not to > release broken code). > > I would not fear using it for "serious business websites". If you > want > evidence of its usage in a "serious business website", look no further > than redken.com (USA site) and redkensalon.com. Granted, we made > heavy > customizations to Radiant for that site, but the team I worked with > assured me that all of the sites they have built, most of them with a > PHP-based CMS, have required an equivalent customization effort. > > Regarding templates (layouts, actually), Radiant gets out of your > way in > that regard. Design whatever template you want, Radiant can serve it. > If you want to know how to create a layout, it's best to bootstrap > Radiant with the "Styled Blog" template and read its layout(s). They > are actually a lot simpler than you might expect. > > Let me be clear. Radiant won't do everything for you, but most of your > needs will be satisfied by the base installation: designing, creating > and publishing pages. For other things, you will need to look into > extensions. > > Sean > > P.S. Those lacking features made you MORE enthusiastic? Did I > understand > you correctly? > > Maarten Oelering wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I'm a ruby developer and very enthousiastic about Radiant. The review >> on http://www.a3webtech.com/index.php/cms-3.html mentioning the less >> mature state of the project and the lack of an installer even made me >> more enthousiastic. >> >> However I am still hesitant using it for a serious business websites. >> I miss some critical documentation on creating templates for a decent >> website, i.e. how to use the system in the role of webmaster. Reading >> the documentation on radiantcms.org didn't help me much. Fortunately >> the article in artofmission.com cleared up some things for me. >> >> Overall I get the impression that project is not very active, judging >> on releases, the blog and the mailing groups. However I can't see >> what's going on behind the scenes. Is Radiant still alive and >> kicking? >> >> Regards, >> >> Maarten Oelering >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Radiant mailing list >> Post: [email protected] >> Search: http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/ >> Site: http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Radiant mailing list > Post: [email protected] > Search: http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/ > Site: http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant _______________________________________________ Radiant mailing list Post: [email protected] Search: http://radiantcms.org/mailing-list/search/ Site: http://lists.radiantcms.org/mailman/listinfo/radiant
