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Hi,
Which are the user friendly frameworks for building personal sites? Specially if that comes with little programming knowledge. And integrated jquery will be great. python or php based framework will do better.
I tried wordpress and joomla! But those are far more complex for a simple personal site with personal blogging, live commenting, twitting, keeping personal projects and resume etc.
Please suggest me. Thanks in advance.
"a simple personal site with personal blogging, live commenting, twitting, keeping personal projects and resume etc."
In my opinion, a personal site means a single author. You don't have a lot of really "dynamic" content. How many times a day will you update a person site? Once? Twice?
A blog, comment, twitter things change relatively slowly -- once or twice a day.
Personal projects, resume, etc. change even more slowly.
None of this requires dynamic content creation. A database is often more trouble than help. Most of it is simply unstructured text. Consequently, consider using a toolset to build static HTML and simply FTP that to a server.
Consider using Sphinx to build static content. You can generate a mountain of content, maintain it, and upload it periodically. You don't need to know HTML because you write in RST. It's easy to generate hundreds of pages of content and adjust the look and feel.
Best of all, it's very, very lightweight. You can easily get by with zero code. Or, if you want to add directives or interpreted text roles, you can do a little coding.
"I tried wordpress and joomla! But those are far more complex for a simple personal site with personal blogging, live commenting, twitting, keeping personal projects and resume etc."
Nothing can be simpler to your needs than wordpress. You can use it to create not only posts to your blog but what they call "static pages", like a "contact" page, a "resume" and such. You edit this page like a "microsoft word" box in the admin panel. You don't even need to edit a php file, you dont need to create a layout, just download a free template (search google for this).
Wordpress can be installed in a variety of plataforms since it doesn't need a lot of requirements. It's PHP, its easier to find a cheap hosting (even a machine in your own home): see their requirements page for yourself.
The only thing you may need "out of the box" is the twitting thing, that you can achieve by downloading some plugins from their official website.
If you find that to achieve your goals using wordpress is too complicated, I don't think it's a good idea to use a "framework", unless you want to learn coding. You can achieve what you need in wordpress without coding a single line.
Oh, and it has jquery.
Take a look at Personal Web Site Starter Kit (http://www.asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/personal), very easy to install and maintain and it's got what you need.
for PHP ones, beside joomla that you've already mentioned, I can suggest :
Drupal (http://drupal.org/).
Or a much simpler one :
Dotclear (http://dotclear.org/)
You may be looking for a free CMS system?
I could suggest you several good .NET CMS which are either open sorce or commercial but have a limited free editions very well suited for perosnal sites
Kentico - really simple thing, that you can use without any programming knwoledge, easy to setup, but free edition is limited with 1 blog only. so only for personal use, nothing more, or you will need to buy a commercial edition...
Umbraco - open source, but will require knowledge of XSL templates if you want to build really good site. not easy to learn if you are not a developer
Sitefinity - commercial CMS from Telerik but they have a community edition. Worth looking at. I suppose the complexity of learning somewhere between Kentico and Umbraco. But simple web sites will not require development
In any case I recomend you a great resource CMSMatrix.org where you can compare more then 100 CMS on different platforms and languages.
p.s.
And if you just want a simple personal web site and don't want to care about hosting, databases etc. I suppose you could look at Google Sites
AnchorCMS gets a lot of good feedback, give it a try.
Have a look at Plone. Perhaps this meets your requirements.
Kentico,Umbraco and Sitefinity,DotNetNuke are meant for developers/designers/integrators. Use Wordpress or if you are looking for .NET version use Community server.
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My friend photographer asked me to develop a portfolio web site, and I'm wondering if a content management system (CMS) should be used for this purpose? The website contains a minimum of dynamic stuff, mostly just photo galleries and a "Contacts" page.
I have some experience in development using PHP frameworks (Yii and CI), so it makes me wonder what is the most effortless and effective way to do develop this:
a) use some kind of CMS (will take time and effort to learn and
customize CMS to fit my needs)
b) develop a website from scratch using MVC framework (need to write
more code, but more control over the development flow)
Any tips from people experienced in developing those kind of websites is much appriciated. Thanks.
I think the biggest benefit of using a CMS is that, once you've put the site together for them, you should be able to hand control of the site completely to your friend because a CMS will already have all of the admin interfaces worked out for (in your case) adding pictures and making other small changes to the site.
Even if you are good friends, the last thing that you want is an email every month just to add some more pictures to the site. Rolling your own admin interface is certainly possible, but it will take more time and will most likely not have as many options as most major CMS's will provide.
Save yourself a lot of time and headache. There are some good CMS solutions for photography portfolio and they are pretty easy to learn. And your friend needs only standard, basic functionality (galleries, static pages and contact form), so there's no need to customize the code, only templates.
CMS platforms I would recommend:
Wordpress http://wordpress.org
ZenPhoto http://zenphoto.org
Building a website with a solid CMS has lots of benefits, e.g. saves time, gives you all required tools, those CMSs are well tested, secure and stable (not all but WP and ZP definitely are), they provide SEO tools and SEO-ready code (if you choose or create proper theme/template) etc. And with both of these CMS platforms it's really easy to upgrade without any pain.
c) A mostly static site that only uses server-side code where absolutely required.
If he is a photographer it's not a good way to use any auto-resizers that are built-in in many popular CMS, e.g. And you're right learning these CMS won't give you flexibility for further upgrades of the site (which cannot be avoided). So as a developer I always avoid Joomla and any like it. I don't have sufficient clearness and flexiblity with them, this is voice of my experience.
If you use Yii, I can offer you flexible extension exactly for your skills and situation:
AutoAdmin CMS framework for Yii
With it you can just design a database as you want, program front-end as you want (you're a programmer, aren't you?), and configure your back-end panel very quickly - exactly for your DB structure.
Or of course you may search something like it. Using Yii with extensions gives you a standartized site, which can be easily upgraded in future. Instead of Joomla-like systems which will always be oriented on customers of in-box solutions (with all following negative for skilled developers).
With mvc frameworks you get URLs that reflect your controller and action structure. This is not 100% what you want for search engine optimization. You could write your own URL dispatcher of course, if you know how to do it. Frameworks are best suited for web applications and not websites.
So better use a cms. I heard that contao (formerly Typolight) should have most functions built in and should be easy to learn ( in a day or so )
I dont CMS is necessary here, but if you want to you can try using wordpress and install a built in theme something that suits photography.
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So far I've build my websites with Typo3 but it's a bit of a heavy beast for smaller sites. I've also done some projects with Drupal and Wordpress but my impression is that they mess up the HTML a lot and it is too much effort to "correct" them.
I like to build some smaller websites with HTML5 now and was wondering which PHP/MySQL-based CMS could be right for that.
In the end I went with Concrete5 as it was recommended to me by various people and seems to be very well-written! http://www.concrete5.org
Unfortunately, every publicly available stock CMS system will, ultimately, have the downfall of messy output. This stems from the fact that they attempt to be something for everyone, rather than a targeted product.
Rolling your own CMS is not that big of a challenge with a little PHP knowledge. If you're familiar enough to know what you want and how you would lay it out, there are a ton of great resources for developing your own CMS, including:
http://www.ssdtutorials.com/premium-tutorials/series/cms-dreamweaver.html
http://www.developphp.com/view.php?tid=322&t=Intro_How_to_Build_Custom_PHP_and_MySQL_CMS_Website_Software
http://www.packtpub.com/cms-design-using-php-and-jquery/book
http://www.packtpub.com/php-5-cms-framework-development-2nd-edition/book
Essentially, a simple CMS boils down to dynamic page generation with a server-side scripting language and templating, a database to store content, and a backend for management. At it's simplest, you have one page template (your content always is output to a simple template, as in a blog or something where you rarely have different types of output), and your backend consists of a log-in to password protect a form that updates your database.
To get back to the main point, however, HTML5 will only be involved in the output for client-side rendering. That is, if your template is HTML5, your site is HTML5 (for all intents and purposes, at least to your visitors).
A question like this will generally get a lot of opinionated, debate type responses because every developer has different opinions and different tool sets.
For smaller projects, I prefer to use some light weight components and build it rather than using a packaged CMS.
Me personally, for smaller projects:
HTML5 Boilerplate, it gives you a great starting point, and once you
have used it and are familiar you can quickly customize it to your
preferences. http://html5boilerplate.com/
FlourishLib, is a great no framework library, it is quick, easy to use and the documentation is great. http://www.flourishlib.com
jQuery, is a great tool for your JS needs.
I spent so much time playing around with other packaged CMS that I found I could have already had the project up and out the door by the time I tweaked the CMS to get what I wanted out of it.
And using this tools you can easily create your own boilerplate to get your project started quickly.
Again, this is just an opinion based on my preferences.
You can check out glFusion at http://www.glfusion.org with all the features it has right out of the box. Unlike allot of other CMS's glFusion is free, including the plugins. Latest version 1.3.0 as of the time of this posting, will have html5 and also be w3c validated.
If you are looking for a lightweight and fast cms build on HTML5 and CSS3 then Gecko should be the right one for you!
Check CouchCMS - i think it is the best one for your purpose www.couchcms.com
Perch CMS (not free but very cheap) is very lightwight, may want to take a look. http://grabaperch.com/
I really like GetSimple CMS. I use this on a majority of small projects because it is incredibly easy to set up. It is PHP powered, and does not require an SQL Database. Instead it uses XML files to store content.
http://get-simple.info/
As a previous poster mentioned, HTML5 Boilerplate and jQuery provide a quick way to get set up and I often use these in conjunction with each other.
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I just got done reading this thread...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/588888/best-cms-for-a-corporate-web-presence
Which was the closest thing I could find on the web. I too am looking to redesign a website for a corporation. I am the marketing director, not a developer.
I have researched this subject in many places. I won't say everywhere. I have read:
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/content-management-systems-just-dont-work/ and
http://www.webdesignish.com/the-best-web-development-frameworks.html
and dabbled at www.cmsmatrix.org and www.bestwebframeworks.com under the PHP area. I have read at least a few dozen articles from various places, some of them including the providers websites or forums.
I have read nearly as much as I can in the time I gave myself.. so with a little knowledge on all these areas I want to reach out to a community that has more experience.
Background: Manufacturer website, one location, no branches. One marketing/IT guy. Utilizes dreamweaver for all web editing needs. Knows ultra-basic html only for text and image placement and editing. I need to be pointed in the direction of a cost-effective design solution with either a framework or combination thereof, or a CMS that can give me what I need. The best example of what I want the site to look like would be a cross between tripplite dot com and logitech dot com, with some elements from a site like sonicwall dot com. I need an animated menu system but with images, so size customization is necessary. Simple animations for rollovers and click reactions so that users can tell when they have selected something. Page content does not change often, with most edits being to PDF documents. At present, I name all major documents (such as a 2011 catalog) with the same filename, and simply replace the document with the latest version via FTP. Nearly every other page will be a static page with static text and images. I might request polish on all other pages after the development is complete. Our site might end up being somewhere around 50 pages after this redesign.
It has been suggested to me to have the site designed in Wordpress by a pro, but everything I HAD read before reading the first-mentioned thread posted here said that I shouldnt use it because of content and bug issues. I believe that wordpress can provide a robust and feature rich corporate website that isn't just another blog or news site... I have seen a few examples like networksolutions dot com.
Project 1 is a redesign and new look. Project 2-9 goes through a parts library with thumbnails, build-to-quote system similar to a shopping cart but with no payments (and no PCI compliance), an e-page flip type catalog revision, and login portals with per user/entity content such as order history, order documentation/records and open-order production status and shipping information. We want it all. But where to go?
I have so far looked at for a CMS:
Wordpress, Drupal, Radiant CMS, concrete5 (and spoke with Franz a tad), and synType CMS.
To go the framework route with PHP:
yii, codeigniter, akelos, symfony, prado, cakephp and solarphp
The other ones I have heard many developers praising were jquery, dojo and django but im not sure yet if they are utilized in any other solutions that I listed.
Tomorrow I will be going through the definitions and such at bestwebframeworks to better learn about the once I had chosen and pit them against one another.
I would really appreciate any help in evaluating which platform would best suit me based on the information that I have provided above. Feel free to ask any other questions that may help narrow the list.
Thank you all in advance.
Before determining how to proceed, you need to as a few important questions -
Is your company in business to make money?
Do you ever expect potential customers to view your website?
Are you a trained designer with experience in usability and best practices?
Can you write maintainable, scalable, and standards compliant code?
Chances are, you should seriously consider hiring a professional for the job. A business website is often the first point of contact with a potential client and first impressions are hard to fix. If your site looks like your 8th grade nephew designed it with a full plate of mystery meat navigation and cross browser compatibility issues, you are likely going to lose clients before you even get a chance to talk to them.
There are likely a multitude of additional features and functions that your website could perform if you knew about them. A reputable professional would be able to assess the needs of your business and recommend website functionality to match. As they say, you don't know what you don't know.
My recommendation would be to beg and plead for a budget to get a website built by someone who knows what they are doing. A well built website will have tremendous ROI and pay for itself easily.
It looks like your needs are primarily front-end, I would recommend a JavaScript framework, like ExtJS or jQuery, I really like ExtJS. Then you could pair it up with some kind of python, ruby, php CMS back-end. Right now I am developing my website www.coffeedig.com (currently still in development) in ExtJS with a Django back-end. I picked ExtJS cause I have a lot of experience in it. I picked Django even though I had very little experience in python but python seemed like the best language to me. I all depends on your needs and your developers skills/experience though. Locally at my work we have about 3 to 1 ratio of developers to architects. It takes a lot of time to maintain and develop a CMS from scratch. So I would recommended against that. I wish I knew more on how large your development team was but personally I would give them a list and have them try the frameworks out and see what feels right to them. Also documentation and community support are two very important things.
Oh. I can see from your post your are trying hard to find a proper solution for your needs.
Since you will probably not be implementing / deploying the solution yourself, I can assure you that whatever option you choose, it is the developpers putting together the project that will make the difference. You can have competent developpers on your team, but if they have to use a tool they are not familiar with, the result may be deceiving.
The choice you need to make from what I read in your post is if you want to use a framework, where developpers will be implementing from the ground-up, or using a pre-built application ready made for content management (CMS) that can be tailored to your needs.
All the popular languages offer a multitude of frameworks that have all been tried and tested.
PHP has Zend Framework, Drupal, Symfony, and many, many more.
Python has Rails, Zope, Pylon, Django, etc.
All these could be viable choices, the main question is still, do you need an application with specific needs and business processes integrated that would be better suited with a framework to ease develppment, or do you simply need to have an easy way to show your products online and have an easy way to create and organise content? I suggest you not re-invent the wheel, if your needs are just for regular web-publishing, a content management system would reduce your costs.
Look around and search for demos of the solutions your are interested in, test-drive before you make a choice. And be sure to have a competent ressource available for the solution you choose, because in the end it is the developping teams competence with the product that will dictate the success of the result.
By the way, JQuery is a great library but is not what you are looking for, chances are it will be integrated in whatever platform / framework you choose! :)
My 2 cents, good-luck!
Frankly, it sounds to me that you have a mostly static website, with occasional PDF updates.
At the same time it doesn't sound like you have the skills to craft your web site by hand.
You also seem to have some familiarity with Dreamweaver, which a pretty scary powerful piece of software.
If it were me, I'd hire a solid Dreamweaver web designer that simply leverages DW for your site, and basically keep it static. With enough CSS and possibly JS work, the pages will remain static pages, and if you need to do minor updates, you're likely capable enough to do that on your own. Then simply sync up the site from your local copy.
The advantage of this is simplicity. Simplicity for you, simplicity for possibly future contractors, etc. If you're not planning on a lot of "interactive" features that require server side support, then keeping the site as static and simple as practical is a smart move.
Uploading a PDF takes simple training, not a CMS. And Dreamweaver should be more than capable front end to manage much of that for you.
Addenda:
I understand about your future plans, but those later phases are night and day beyond Phase 1. This first phase, this cosmetic and functional redesign, is essentially a marketing and branding phase. The skill set needed to implement it is quite different from Phases 2-9.
You can talk with your front end designer about the later phases, in terms of overall presentation, but the person implementing your front end will likely be quite different from the person implementing the back end.
Once you have finished with the Phase 1, the back end integration will be able to leverage the assets created when developing the later phases. None of this initial work will be "wasted". But you have the benefit of being able to move forward with your current toolset and releasing it early, while Phase 2+ are spec'd, developed, tested, and later deployed.
A CMS toolset, at this point in the process, is really a distraction.
In the end, the choice of toolset is really secondary to the person or team that you select to complete the other phases. It is good to be aware of the tool market, and the choices and their assorted advantages/disadvantages, but in the end what is going to matter most is the user interface that you as de facto maintainer are going to be interacting with day by day, and the ongoing maintenance of this system.
If you were buying a delivery truck, you no doubt would be selecting one based on a combination of how it fits your needs and overall cost of ownership versus shopping around to dealers "You know, I really like Volvos". You'll likely not care so much about how the engine works, or the truck is designed. As long as it starts and turns and stops like it's supposed to, with the costs you expected to pay, you'd likely be happy with it.
If you have a favorite, then fine. Likely whatever you pick isn't going to matter much in the end, assuming it's reasonably mainstream. If you don't have a favorite, then it's not particularly important. And if you don't have a favorite, it's not important at all for Phase 1.
But like a truck, it's more important to have a good mechanic. If you have a mechanic that likes Fords and is well experienced with them, you might want to seriously look at a Ford. Trucks are easy to find. Good mechanics, not so much.
Right now, Phase 1, it's about layout, color, and image. Things mechanics and programmers are notoriously bad at. Get this done now, with the right people, using tools you know since you have to support it short to mid-term.
Then look for some good people you trust to work with on the backend. They can use what you have done in Phase 1, and make it work with whatever tools they'll be using to do what, in the end, is most important to you.
Check out silverstripe, an amazing CMS probably better than most, most people just don't know about it. Amazingly easy to template and super easy to extend. It's also very powerful like unto Drupal. http://www.silverstripe.org/
Update:
Sorry guys didn't mean to make it seem like an ad. And no I am not affiliated with silverstripe I just really like it.
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It's not hard to find example PHP code. The problem seems to be that most of it is frameworks/libraries/etc. This is great, but I'd like to see an example of an actual website.
This stems from my perception that I can't build anything but "toys." My websites tend to be fairly CRUDdy, and it feels like my sites are a bit of generic MVC stuff and a lot of "SELECT" and "INSERT" statements.
I just want some assurance that I'm not "doing it wrong" since these are personal projects, and I'd like to use them to get a job.
Below is a good site that also make its source available (which is very well commented and easy to follow/understand, from a Zend Framework standpoint)
http://www.dasprids.de/
Instructions/info for the source
http://www.dasprids.de/behind-the-site
Actual source
http://site.svn.dasprids.de/
Check out MediaWiki. That's the same software that runs Wikipedia, and it's open source.
It's worth noting that the php.net website is itself open source.
What about PHPBB, which is neither a framework, nor a library?
There are also plenty of Open Source websites you can find just by making some search. Especially blogs, content management systems, etc.
Edit: responding to the first comment to my answer, I want just to add that looking at Open Source websites would probably help to have an image of what large (or not so large) projects are, and also how things are done by experienced developers (for example using PDO, SQL transactions, templates, etc.).
But please take in account that most of the time, those projects are developed by several people. And since PHP does not have any coding standard and does everything possible to force the people to not use good practices, large, collaborative projects are not so good at improving your coding standard nor learning good practices. For this, books may me much more helpful, especially books about good practices.
It may be worth looking at wordpress. I haven't looked at the php behind it, but I know I learned a lot looking at the DB definitions.
Usually a framework is a good compromise between writing quality code and performance. Larger websites that need scale come up with their own custom hacks which eventually evolve into frameworks. In my experience writing in pure PHP it's too easy to go the quickest way to implementing a feature and end up with a mishmash of code, but others might be more disciplined.
It's not hard to find example PHP
code.
Good point is that you know how to find code. You said your code ends up in a generic MVC and CRUDdy, i think this is what most of the web applications around are doing. But the important thing to consider here is they do these MVC/CRUD stuffs in managed way and following standard Object Oriented Design Patterns.
If you want to get examples of real PHP applications then search for open source codes for that specific type application and not frameworks/libraries. Frameworks/libraries are a bunch of PHP CLASSES combined together following the application design architectures and they are supposed to provide you a code base to start your new project with existing set of usable codes, not that they give you the "application feel" rather "structured feel" at the starting point. But once you get along these frameworks/libraries working together to provide you a structured way to build your application, things will really ease later. Your job is guaranteed ;)
If you want to develop codes with these MVC frameworks then start with Codeigniter. It is well documented and as you stated your existing code turns out to be like MVC, you'll grab this framework and how to build with it in one shot. I've written a Hello World in Codeigniter you can refer to start with it. (Also Refer: Codeigniter Documentation)
To find code for real application (not frameworks/libraries) you might think of slightly changing your search queries, search for categories of web application or alike you want to see, not just for the code to do this and code to do that, always search for the better and efficient ways to code and develop things. Github, Sourceforge.net, Google Code are really great places to search for "real" & "cool" open source PHP applications.
Well, actually you can learn a lot by studying a solid framework like ie. the Zend Framework. If you would like to learn that I suggest you first have a look at the Zend Framework Quickstart and then start reading Surviving the deep end. Once you covered these, you should have learned the basics of the Zend Framework, and then you can start looking at open source projects that use it. As far as CMSes go, there are a few using the Zend Framework, like TomatoCMS and pimCore.
BTW Creating a website isn't exactly rocket science, most sites are in fact just a collection of dull CRUD screens (sometimes spiced up with some AJAX to deliver a better user experience) that are used to add content to the site...
On beta.mkforlag.com, where I try out new ideas and develop new pages and new layout for the main domain, most of the source code can be seen. Most of the site is in Swedish, but most of the php code (comments, variable names etc.) is in English.
You should also keep in mind that although I've been using PHP a couple of years I'm no PHP expert and most likely "doing it wrong" in many cases. If you're not that advanced, though, you may find at least some of my code useful.
My code of satya-weblog.com is almost live. I am using wordpress V 2.9, so download that and you know about my site!
Check at symfony framework also and you come to know of propel, yml etc
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I am looking for a PHP blog engine which needs to be easy to redesign (CSS, HTML). It also needs to be free and have simple user interface so that the client doesn't struggle to add posts. Any suggestions?
Wordpress - I keep trying other blogs and I keep going back to wordpress. It's definitely the easiest I've used for customizing templates, and the admin UI is very nice.
I kinda like b2evo we used it on our site and modded it to great effect.
I hear Chyrp is nice. Textpattern gets some praise too.
I am using flatpress for over a year and i am not going to change it for nothing.
Flat text files, simply admin panel, a lot of useful plugins, templates, widgets, static pages, rss2-atom, categories, upload mechanism.
It's easy and super simply. And if your want backups, make a tar. If you want to transfer it, just copy the tar.
http://flatpress.org
I have been very impressed with WordPress since I started using it.
I have had a look at the CSS that sits behind and it has a good structure in my view. There are lots of templates and good information on building your own.
I have recently started looking at NetTuts mainly for the Ruby on Rails tutorial but there is lot of good tutorials on extented WordPress at http://nettuts.com/category/working-with-cmss/
Well, it's hard not to suggest Wordpress. Redesigning it isn't too terribly difficult, a monkey could use it, the admin interface is simple and easy on the eyes, and it has great community support. I'd recommend using the Automatic Upgrade plugin with it as well, so that your customer can always stay up to date as well (for security reasons).
It is not exactly a blog engine but you may find Typolight interesting. It is very easy to use and fairly extensible.
Wordpress is definately the answer here. It's got a large community that can assist, with a lot of available free themes you can use and customize to build your own template.
It is also easy to extend with a wide range of plugins.
There are a lot of Linux hosted servers that come with Wordpress preinstalled already to make it even easier, but the installation of it is simple and straight forward.
Only one answer, Wordpress. I have used it only a few times to customise but simply found that it can be done by editing the header and footer files along with the stylesheet.
What can be simpler.
I suggest you just give it a go before you look at others as you could deliberate for ages just to come back to it :)
In the blog specific package area I have used: Textpattern, Typolight, Nucleus, Serendipity and Wordpress. Hands down, Wordpress is the easiest for end-users to manage and, frankly, it is one of the easiest to template. The userbase for Wordpress is so large that you can easily find resources to help you out when you get stuck on something.
My only practical complaint about it is the need to set up caching so that it doesn't get bogged down by a Digg/Reddit/Etc. overload. However, if you set the cacheing up, you are good to go and can handle significant traffic.
Simple PHP Blog. very, VERY simple. Very lightweight. Completely customizable. you dont have to worry about using a database! I find it great! http://sourceforge.net/projects/sphpblog/
Go get it!