Best New PublishingScript out there?

[killergabriel22]

Hello, everybody.
I've installed Wordpress on my site, but I think I'll switch 'cuz it's too complicated for me.

So, I've thought to ask you: which is, in your opinion, the best News Publishing Script out there for those who have a little more than basic knowledge of PHP and a basic knowledge of MySQL?
Up till now, I've used the following.

1. UTF-8 Cutenews (http://korn19.ch/coding/utf8-cutenews/)
2. FanUpdate (http://fanupdate.co.uk/)
3. FusionNews (http://www.fusionnews.net/)
4. Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/)

My favorite ones are currently is FanUpdate's - because of customizability, though it's lacking in smileys - and FusionNews - because it doesn't need a database; do you know another one, with better features.?

Thank you for your help.

[essellar]

Just going by the rogue HTML on the demo page, I'd give FusionNews a pass -- it looks like something you have to feel your way into rather than something you can just jump in and use. As for smileys, I think they're sort of antithetical to a "news" site -- they may be appropriate for a personal blog or a forum (the operative word being "may", it's not something I'm at all convinced of), but they're hardly appropriate even for a lighthearted news site.

My personal preference is for an engine that makes the publishing part as easy as possible, even at the cost of initial setup. For that reason, I find anything that uses Markdown easier to use, in general, than any of the alternatives -- the plain-text input is easy to understand (even as plain text) and the resulting HTML (or XML, for your RSS feeds) is semantically sound without having to add a whole bunch of custom code in the input textarea. I'd even give a nod to WordPress for this reason (and I hate WordPress for a whole big bunch of technical reasons that offend my software engineering sensibilities).

That said, you might want to take a look at Chyrp as well. The codebase is not hard to wrap your head around (it's pretty straightforward), and it can be customised until the cows come home if that's what you want. (The developers are much better coders than they are designers, though -- the home page is pretty bare-bones and doesn't really show what the engine can do at all.)

[killergabriel22]

My personal preference is for an engine that makes the publishing part as easy as possible, even at the cost of initial setup. For that reason, I find anything that uses Markdown easier to use, in general, than any of the alternatives -- the plain-text input is easy to understand (even as plain text) and the resulting HTML (or XML, for your RSS feeds) is semantically sound without having to add a whole bunch of custom code in the input textarea.

What is Markdown? I've never header of it; in addition, I'm a beginner who understood a quarter of what you said in the quoted part.

Plus, the ones I mentioned are all News Publishing tools who work similarly to a rudimental CMS - in fact they are used to managed personal sites...and my site is a small, personal site; I don't do professional.
FusionNews uses mostly PHP (there are no HTML files in the script/CMS folder), as do all the others mentioned - the main difference is that Wp and FanUpdate require a MySQL database, whereas the other two don't - but as for the rest, the first three are all on a close level.

I checked Chyrp.net, but I found it quite similar to Wordpress - looks even less customizable than Wp - and the Admin Panel is quite a mess; thank you for the suggestion, but Wordpress is better than any of its clones.

[essellar]

WordPress (and Chyrp) are incredibly customisable -- much more so than any of the alternatives in your list. If you're not seeing that, then you're looking in the wrong places (understandable if you're inexperienced); customisation is done using templates (or Themes in the WordPress world), not the admin panel. (If there are few enough options that you can use an admin panel, then you really don't get that many options.) FusionNews and FanUpdate are both extremely limited by comparison; they barely qualify as basic blogs, let alone CMS platforms.

Yes, the other options also use a database (though not necessarily MySQL -- they often use SQLite). Flat-file databases sound like a good idea -- it's one less technology to worry about -- but they get slower and slower with every entry you make on your site. Even if it's just a blog about your cat, you're eventually going to hit a point where page load times become unacceptable. You don't need to "know" MySQL to use it -- just create the database and user according to the instructions, and the CMS software platform installation takes care of the rest for you.

Markdown is a way of entering your text. It is very readable as plain text, and it's also very easy to translate into the appropriate language for the web (HTML for your web pages, XML for your RSS feed). It means being able to do more while remembering less -- there is less markup to remember, and the result is meaningful to search engines, assistive technologies like screen readers, and so on. If you don't know what RSS is, then you probably weren't planning to use a feed -- that's a feature that lets users subscribe to your site and read your content. If you want to know more about Markdown, why not start with the Wikipedia entry and follow a few links?

[killergabriel22]

WordPress (and Chyrp) are incredibly customisable -- much more so than any of the alternatives in your list. If you're not seeing that, then you're looking in the wrong places (understandable if you're inexperienced); customisation is done using templates (or Themes in the WordPress world), not the admin panel. (If there are few enough options that you can use an admin panel, then you really don't get that many options.) FusionNews and FanUpdate are both extremely limited by comparison; they barely qualify as basic blogs, let alone CMS platforms.

I should have put the question differently.
FanUpdate and similar are referred to more like News Publishing Tools than CMS; and that's what I need: a tool to publish my content and news - who, then, doesn't require themes (but can be integrated in any kind of web design), extensions, etc.