Customizable Blog Builder? looking for a good template for a self-hosted blog

[mm22 0]

I want to create a blog-style personal website and I would like to use a template to create it.

 

These are my requirements:

 

- I want to host my website (for example on Xisto), don't want to use a blogging service like blogger.com etc

 

- I want full flexibility in customizing my blog and also the possibility of adding features, pages, sections, also of a non-blog nature (i.e. ordinary website)

 

- I can use PHP so I would like the template to be built mainly using PHP and the code be editable

 

- if possible no strings attached (I am ok with citing the source in the footer or showing a banner but no more than that)

 

I see many people use WordPress for this kind of things, is that the best choice? any other suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[jlhaslip 4]

Wordpress is popular for Blogging, but I have never used it, so i can not comment on its suitability for your needs.sNewscms.com offers another CMS system that is ideally suited to the needs of a Blogger that either wants to modify the code or requires an easily themable Blog. Really flexible design and getting better all the time.

[zakaluka 0]

I recently set up a Wordpress site for a friend, and I can safely tell you that it is VERY easy to set up. Here are the benefits:(1) Wordpress is free to download and use on your own site.(2) You have full customizability with your blog. Wordpress also has a LOT of plugins that make it easy to add things like menubars, different layouts, etc. without having to do a lot of work. Many of these plugins are open source, so you can always edit the code to do exactly what you want.(3) All the wordpress code is editable. It is written in PHP. However, be aware that Wordpress is a gargantuan application and you will have to take the time to fully understand the whole architecture before you start introducing changes or risk breaking something on the site.I find Wordpress to be easier to setup and quicker to get working correctly than a CMS. However, I have never tried the one mentioned by jlhaslip, so I may be mistaken.Regards,z.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I would suggest using Joomla, really. There are a lot of themes, tons of addons, etc.I just started a blog yesterday and I'm using Joomla to run it. I'm classifying the various posts based on type and have them in a "list" format.So for example, on the main page you see the latest 5 posts, and it tells where each of them is located at(type), and then if you go into like "Math" it will have a LIST of the math, such as "Pythagorean Theorem - Jan 19, 2009" so that it's searchable.I haven't made it public yet, as I'm deciding whether I want to put it on it's own domain or leave it on my gaming site, but if you'd like to see it toss me a PM here and I'll show you what I mean.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Okay, I'm not sure what the rule on double posting is here but I wanted to share the blog's address with you. To clarify for mods, I'm making the second post so he can see it in the "New Posts" area instead of possibly missing it due to it not showing up.

Anyways, the address is http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

That is a very plain look for the site. I just chose it because it works great, has the features I need, and doesn't make it feel cluttered. I hate things like Wordpress where people have 50,000 links on every page and stuff. My setup is very narrowed compared to most.

If you have any questions about it, let me know! Hopefully my site helps show the capabilities of Joomla, although Joomla isn't made for blogs.

(If you click on one of the articles you will at the top see the top viewed articles and related articles. Also, I disabled all registration from the site to clear it up more, and enabled comment posting for guests. Last but not least, when you click on one of the categories you will notice each of the articles is listed in list form, along with the date. This makes it very easy to search through.)

[jlhaslip 4]

Nice Blog design. Only thing I might alter is the top margin and padding for the Header to shorten the height and get the top line to be placed onto the background header image. The height (as it is) uses too much valuable space above the fold. That is a small issue, don't sweat it.And no dates on the Blog entries?

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Nice Blog design. Only thing I might alter is the top margin and padding for the Header to shorten the height and get the top line to be placed onto the background header image. The height (as it is) uses too much valuable space above the fold. That is a small issue, don't sweat it.
And no dates on the Blog entries?

I actually just made a thread for the Websites Review section to explain more about the site/the plans/etc. if you can please accept it, . We can continue that thread over there to keep from thread-crapping here.

In the meantime I'll see about adding dates to blog entries but the reason I hadn't was because it's updated daily anyways, so I didn't think it would be a huge issue. (When you go to the specific sections you will see the dates and name of the various articles).

[mm22 0]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.I think I will try using sNews (which looks very promising) and Joomla (which I knew before) at this point and see where I can get with each of them, then I'll stick to the one that looks better to me... I will not consider Wordpress at this point as it looks a bit more main-stream and as zakaluka indicates could be more difficult to manage at the code level.rpgsearcherz I like the look of your blog, it's very neat and pretty much the style I like myself... I see you have already added the date on each post which is something you feel it's needed in this kind of website or else you find yourself wondering "is that stuff old or what?", of course you say you update it daily but first time visitors or random googlers are not necessarily aware of that... anyway that's for the other thread

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.
I think I will try using sNews (which looks very promising) and Joomla (which I knew before) at this point and see where I can get with each of them, then I'll stick to the one that looks better to me... I will not consider Wordpress at this point as it looks a bit more main-stream and as zakaluka indicates could be more difficult to manage at the code level.

rpgsearcherz I like the look of your blog, it's very neat and pretty much the style I like myself... I see you have already added the date on each post which is something you feel it's needed in this kind of website or else you find yourself wondering "is that stuff old or what?", of course you say you update it daily but first time visitors or random googlers are not necessarily aware of that... anyway that's for the other thread

Not a problem. I just wish I could allow visitors to "subscribe" to their comments....It seems it'll only let me if they are registered on the site and I disabled site registrations since it's not needed now.

I did reply to your comment by the way, .

And the look of the site right now is very dulled down. I'm in the process of doing a much better looking one but I want it to be perfect before I release it, .

[mm22 0]

And the look of the site right now is very dulled down. I'm in the process of doing a much better looking one but I want it to be perfect before I release it, .

it seems like the important thing is having abundant and (hopefully) good content, the look can be changed (almost) anytime...

[jlhaslip 4]

mm22,There are several 'versions' of sNews CMS that are not 'official' releases. Wander around their forum site to get a feel for many of the Mods that are available. The most popular combined Mods are available as 'packages' if you know where to look. Let me know if you need any more information. I hang out there once in awhile and know most of the packages.

[mm22 0]

mm22,There are several 'versions' of sNews CMS that are not 'official' releases.
Wander around their forum site to get a feel for many of the Mods that are available. The most popular combined Mods are available as 'packages' if you know where to look. Let me know if you need any more information. I hang out there once in awhile and know most of the packages.

jlhaslip,
I set up sNews and that was really quick, only had some issue with some "version mismatch" on the website, as you suggest the forum is more up to date... so far I especially like the fact that by only spending a few minutes looking at the php I could get a feeling of how it works and fix a small problem I encountered because of the configuration of my local server. To be fair I should give Joomla a try as well so until then I cannot say one is better than the other, but surely sNews does the job of setting up a blog-type site very quickly and effectively.