anyone running blog software?

[zimv20]

wondering what people are using and what impressions you have of the different packages.

i'd like to set up a site for essay writers, membership-based, and i think i can get away w/ using blog software. some requirements:

1. logins for each writer
2. comment s/w built in
3. easy to customize front page to be a portal into blogs of featured writers
4. complete lockdown of new members; i.e. writing is by invitation only
5. ability to feature guest writers

anyone have any insight into which package would work best for this?

thanks!

[Stef]

Hi,

I'm running Movabletype on a domain. It's very customizable (works with templates), it can be integrated with your site completely. It's also modular so you can add functionalities if needed. Each writer can have a login with different permissions, visitors can post comments (if allowed).
I have version 2.6xx that was totaly free at the time. Now there's version 3.1 with new features and a new licensing scheme. You can check out all the features at www.movabletype.org. There's also a list with sites running MT, so you can see some examples.

Bye,
Stef.

[zimv20]

thanks for the heads up. i hadn't even looked at MT, since it's not one of the fantastico scripts.

for those, i've got my eye on WordPress, though Nucleus also looks good. anyone got either of those running?

[jlgreer1]

I am setting up a blog using Wordpress. It has the features you are looking for. I also like its "academic" look.
It is easy enough to install it with Fantastico and then uninstall if you don't care for it.

Jeff

[Dawn]

Does anyone know which of the fantastico installed options is the easiest to integrate into your own site design? I'm pretty new to all this.


Thanks

[markgroen]

Originally Posted by Dawn

Does anyone know which of the fantastico installed options is the easiest to integrate into your own site design? I'm pretty new to all this.
Thanks

Ive used, or at least installed and tested locally (not with Fantastico, I'm a web developer that runs my own local server too) some of the blogs and CMS systems available on your cpanel as well as created custom CMS/database solutions.

IMHO, none of them are "easy" to integrate with your own web site design unless you know html, and at least a smattering of php or other server side scripting language.

For me, Textpattern is the lightest weight and most flexible of the blog/cms type Open Source appys out there, not available with Fantastico, yet. For pure blogging though... Wordpress is ahead of TP in the range of features and the size of their development community, someone may prove me wrong here. Textpattern takes it to the extreme imho though, the way Dean has envisioned the database interactions with the needed functions works for me both as a blog and cms, examples of two TP installations:
http://markgroen.com/blogx/
http://www.bowenisland.org/index.php

that all said... pretty hard for someone to make a *realistic* recommendation to you as all the popular types of blog software will meet your requirements.

If.... after visiting the web sites and installing and trying out some of the Fantastico solutions, and you still are in the dark about what you want or it's over your head and need someone to help or (okay moderator?) hire someone, post again with a more explicit question.

[PubliusTX]

Originally Posted by zimv20

wondering what people are using and what impressions you have of the different packages.

i'd like to set up a site for essay writers, membership-based, and i think i can get away w/ using blog software. some requirements:

1. logins for each writer
2. comment s/w built in
3. easy to customize front page to be a portal into blogs of featured writers
4. complete lockdown of new members; i.e. writing is by invitation only
5. ability to feature guest writers

anyone have any insight into which package would work best for this?

I'm a newbie to HostGator, but I have quite a bit of experience running a number of blogs that I'll be moving over here shortly.

Movable Type and WordPress are certainly good solutions for your needs, but I'm a huge fan of Nucleus and can say that it also satisfies your requirements.

Nucleus relies on templates and can be customized with some work by the designer. I think it's a little easier to customize than WordPress, but I'll admit not having spent much time with WordPress.

Nucleus also offers the capability for multiple blogs. So, you could easily set up individual blogs for your authors, and use your "main" blog as an aggregator of recent posts from all of those individual blogs. It's fairly easy to do that, actually.

Here are some blogs of mine so you can see what is possible (note the first one uses a plugin to link posts to a forum, but the second one uses the built-in commenting system):

www.bloghouston.net
www.publiustx.net

Also, here's one I had a hand in designing, but bailed on in July. They've tinkered with the original design some, but I think it illustrates what is possible:

www.chronicallybiased.com/features.php

Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions about Nucleus. It's quite versatile.

Kevin