Looking for a CMS or similar...

[theknight571]

Here's what I'm looking for...

I'm trying to setup a website for a hockey association. Each team would like their own website/page (i.e. association.org/team1 or team1.association.org), however there also needs to some shared features such as a calendar.

For example, I would maintan a master calendar with association events that should appear on each team's calendar, each team would maintain their own calendar and those events would appear on the master calendar.

There could be some other features, such as stats etc that they might want to share.

Some teams have expressed an interest in having a "secure" area that parents can log-in to for team specific items that might not need to be completely public.

We've looked at a couple of hosting sites that offer something similar but we'd rather not have our association's page look like 100 others, with the same menus etc.

I thought about building the site from scratch, but thought I'd ask the knowledge base that is AT and see what it had to suggest.

The system doesn't need to be free, but there is a limit to what we can pay. More importantly it needs to be easy for the team managers to use.

So any suggestions?

Thanks.
-TK

 

[beginner99]

Have you ever done a web page / web application?

If not, I don't suggest you do it yourself because even if it seems simple it will easily get more complex than imagined.

I have no idea how large this association is but maybe you could ask around and find someone with experience that it willing to do it for a small fee or for free?

 

[Cogman]

This really sounds like it could be a beast pretty quickly.

If you go through with it, You'll need.

A. Someone that can host the website who will also provide a SQL service and some server side language service (IG PHP, ASP, Ruby...)

B. Someone that knows how to program a webpage. Your problem doesn't sound like a simple one that has a solution already.

Both those costs put together are probably going to break the bank for you.

What I would suggest is to use google calandar. You maintain the calendar and if someone has a request to add or change an event they have to give you a call. Unless you are managing like 200+ teams, then the solution is to have your own webpage.

 

[tatteredpotato]

If you're going to do this yourself then you'll really need experience with HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, and at least one server side programming language. Then after that you'll have to learn the nuances of the CMS that you pick.

I started playing web development with PHP and Zend a few weeks ago, and it probably took me about a month to learn enough to get a basic login site to work.

As cogman said you might want to look into something like google calendar and maybe some wordpress blogs for each team... you didn't really elaborate on how much functionality you're looking for.

 

[Markbnj]

I was thinking about this last night as well. It's pretty easy to set up a single site using Wordpress, or even Drupal. It gets more complicated when you want subsites, potentially with different branding. I'm sure it can be done on any of the major blog/CMS platforms, with some customization, but that would at least require working in php + mysql + html + css.

At least it would be worth browsing the plug-in modules for Wordpress to see if there is something that already does this stuff. Same with Drupal.

 

[SockHaser]

You could use wordpress and make a page for each team and then assign each subpage of each team as a child to the teams page. Kind of a stupid way of doing it, but it wouldn't involve having to edit the source code or annoying things like that.

 

[Texashiker]

Wordpress - each team can have their own author and category. There are several wordpress calendar add-ons, just find one that fits your needs.

The thing about wordpress, its simple. There is a little bit of a learning curve, like learning the difference between a post and a page. But after that, its all smooth sailing.

http://wordpress.org/

Wordpress runs some of the largest blogs on the internet - it has tons of add-ons, its lightweight, has a good editor, built in image uploader and its free.

As an example, pcgamer.com uses wordpress.

 

[Ken g6]

We've looked at a couple of hosting sites that offer something similar but we'd rather not have our association's page look like 100 others, with the same menus etc.

If that's your only concern with that approach, I'd go with one of the hosting sites, then modify the CSS to look different. Try new CSS out with Stylish and Firebug, then upload changes to the site.

 

[theknight571]

To answer some of your questions...

I'm familiar with HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and I've used Drupal. I've also just recently been getting into .NET (C#).

I had Drupal at work until the powers that be replaced it with their own home grown CMS, and the association's current website I set up in Drupal.

I haven't been too successful in getting the subsites / shared calendar working on Drupal and was wondering if there was a better suited CMS to use.

As for functionality... so far they would need a team calendar, a roster, stats, a page to list team news, etc. We don't have a lot of needs, I'm just not sure how to make it happen.

 

[KB]

If you are getting into C# .net, then you can look at DotNetNuke. It is an easy to use, easy to setup CMS that can do mos of what you are talking about. I am unsure about the calendar sharing though. There are loads of components for free and purchase though.