Which forum / CMS software??

Hello,

I'm part of a growing community that centres round a forum although we meet regularly in person too.

The needs of the community is growing beyond the forum, so I'm wondering what software has all or most the features I'm looking for:

Private forum
Event/calendar system
Wiki
Allow admins to easily alter main website pages (could be done with wiki software??)
Photo manager
Shopping cart (members 'for sale' area, community merchandise and goods)

I think the answer is almost 'facebook' but we would want to use open source software and be independent, and not a sub-site of facebook.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Craig

I would try to find a solution where you can centralise your needs. i.e. not have separate logons for wiki, forum, etc.
http://php.opensourcecms.com/ has a lot of options...

Thanks ctkroeker,

I've had a good look at that site now. It has an abundance of software listed and with live demos. In a way it's a victim of it's own success though as there is just so much chioce! Also the demos are in the default state, so without any plugin or extensions installed.

A couple of CMSs that look promising (found on the above site) are drupal and joomla, these both look very capable but only give basic functionality by default. Both seem to have loads of plugins etc so might meet my needs.

Can anyone comment on the ability of either durpal or joomla (with extensions if needed) to fullfill the role outlined in my first post? Or any other CMS software that could do the job?

Thanks again,
Craig

Originally Posted by ShadyCraig Hello, I'm part of a growing community that centres round a forum although we meet regularly in person too. The needs of the community is growing beyond the forum, so I'm wondering what software has all or most the features I'm looking for: Private forum Event/calendar system Wiki Allow admins to easily alter main website pages (could be done with wiki software??) Photo manager Shopping cart (members 'for sale' area, community merchandise and goods) I think the answer is almost 'facebook' but we would want to use open source software and be independent, and not a sub-site of facebook. Any suggestions? Thanks, Craig

You can use phpBB:
http://www.phpbb.com/

Originally Posted by ctkroeker http://php.opensourcecms.com/ has a lot of options...

If that hasn't confused you enough, this will certainly do the job.

the ability of either durpal or joomla (with extensions if needed) to fullfill the role outlined in my first post?

I've just been looking at CMS software (for an application quite different from yours, so I can't make any comment just yet on the forum add-ons, because that isn't of immediate concern to me) and my impression is that either of the ones that you mention (and some others too) are capable of doing what you want....but, absolute capability isn't the end of the issue. Some of the options will be easier to customise/backup/maintain/update than others. That may not be a show stopper for you, but if you, or whoever else does it, intends to keep this site maintained in a 'time poor' manner, it will be a concern that you need to think about.

Drupal and Joomla! do look to be amongst the better options, as far as general purpose CMS applications are concerned. You do have to be a bit careful about all of the modules and extensions, though. For example, for Drupal, when you do an upgrade you have to disable all of the extensions and revert to the standard theme, before doing an upgrade. And, then put back all the stuff that you just took out before your site is back as it was before. And there is also the issue that the modules may well not be tested with the upgraded core and it is possible that they may not work. Although, of course, you'll work out the incompatibility issues on your test site first...

So, from a maintainability point of view, you are probably better off if the majority of the functionality that you require is provided in the core and not in add-ons, but it is probably inevitable that you will require some. You'll probably be happier if you can count the add-ons on the fingers of a single hand than if you need the fingers and toes of yourself and a couple of the associates in your group to get there...

Well phpBB looks good.
It's main role is clearly a forum, but it has plugins for calendar and gallery functionality.
That just leaves the wiki and cart functionality to be provided by other applications.

To be honest I'm doubtful whether I'll find a cart combined with the other features so I may as well say now that this will have to be provided separately.

Thanks sayan_acharjee for the link :-)