For a while now i’ve been playing around, to find the best way of giving control to the administer of the website, without giving up on the aesthetics. In other words, using a content management system that works well and leaves you in control of the way the website feels and works. First i thought the best would be to build my own cms by using the popular php framework Codeigniter, which i did a couple of times; it really gives you a lot of flexibility without having to build all the basic functions. Still, I kept having the feeling that it could be a lot easier and faster.
I had initially tried Drupal a couple of years ago, but had then considered it to not be flexible enough. Amonth ago however, I looked into it again and decided to give it another try. And yes, it still has some parts that are a bit more difficult to theme for instance the way forms are presented. But even that is now very easily fixable with a little but effective use of jquery and css. And then going further into it, you realise there are all these great modules (which have taken months to develop) for you to choose from!
Sometimes the more disappointing part is when you discover a module, which does exactly what you were looking for only to find out it’s not supported anymore. Or the contributors have let it go and there is no more development going on. I guess then there would be the challenge of developing it yourself, which could be a new challenge.
So in other words, I’m giving Drupal a try. It has been an interesting experience until now and i think (and hope) it will turn out to proove a very fruitful one. Because it could mean that i won’t need to worry about the basic functionality anymore, but will be able to spend more time creating better websites.