Phpcow - Still concern before purchasing.

Hello,

I am considering to purchase this script. However, I do not know it is good or not. I read some reviews about them at here and finally I have not found the thing what I want to know. There are so many good reviews and bad reviews. It makes me so confused .

My questions are:

1, Is it easy to add news, articals...?

2, Their templates are great but is it easy to make like that?

3, I found two sites which using phpcow:

http://www.odisha.in/
http://www.cinemawithoutborders.com/

Is it easy to make like that? Do I need the mods, plugins or something like that?

Any help will be highly appreciate.

 

There's a long thread on this script have a read of this:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=49497&highlight=phpcow

 

Hello,

I read this thread but there is a few recent comments. That made me confused . I hope I can heard more comment from current users who are using phpcow script.

 

Adding articles is as easy as typing in this forum. It has a built in editor that you put your articles in, decide which subject you want to put them on and then you tell the editor to put it on your template. As for the templates, I agree, they have some great ones they provide to you free with you license. I personally use them and just tweak out the header etc to give it my own personality. They do have a way that you can use regular html template, import them into your WYSIWYG and use them...but I have not yet attempted this so I can't tell yo much more then that yet.

 

Somebody said that phpcow requires a lot of resource on server. Is it true?

 

Does PHPCOW have an open forum for you to peruse and ask your questions? If not, then I would recommend you stay away from the product. It is much, much easier to make a pretty looking template than it is to develop a reasonable piece of software. Every script/software that I have come across that is worth its salt has always had an active, supportive forum. Sans forum, I would look elsewhere.

Rich

 

I have not read much good about phpcow particularly support.
And what is the advantage over the giant cmses like Typo, Xoops, Drupal, Joomla etc ?

 

Hi Rich,

I agree with you, but in fact I could not find other one which is better than phpcow for news publishing. Please recommend me which is you think good for news website.

I am current using Joomla with rockettheme professional template, but it does not make me happy. I need a real a CMS for news publishing with budget about $300.

 

First off, does the Wordpress Revolution News Theme work for you? It is the one that I am going to probably go with, after doing the same search as you are doing. If not, what are your specific requirements? There may be good alternative templates built on one of the more popular CMS platforms.

Rich

 

Rich,

I worked with wordpress for a couple of time, I like it but I need something professional for news publishing such as BBC, Skysports.

I need:

1, Professional sports news display.

2, Easy manage articles, topics,...

3, Easy to manage and customize, modifications such as table league, top players...

4, Alternative to choose templates.

5, Ads system.

6, SEO with friendly url...

Is it too difficult to find some kind of that?

 

Hi there,

I haven't found any out-of-the-box solution that matches your requirements. Most of the high end newspaper sites are either built from scratch, or highly (and I do mean highly) modified applications based upon CMSs such as Movable Type, or Drupal. There is a big gap between low-end CMS packages (the best of which is probably ExpressionEngine, the I could never figure out its documentation), and higher end, commercial grade CMS packages. Unless someone else on this forum can come up with a bona fide solution (instead of the junky scripts that are often recommended), I think you will probably have to compromise and build slowly on the platform of your choice - unless you have a substantial development budget.

If someone on this forum yells out Drupal or Joomla, take it with a grain of salt. They are OK for a basic platform, but will require lots of effort on your part.

Rich

 

Thank you for your recommendation. Maybe I have to hire a company to build news system. But It could be very expensive

 

Yep, there are definitely barriers to entry, so I always experiment with a lower cost solution, before developing a site, unless I am positive I have a winner - which hasn't happened yet.

If you do bring on developers, keep a close watch on them. Many think they know much more than they actually do. What is considered "experienced" nowadays, is a lot different than when I was in the business. There are tons of issues to consider when developing a platform, e.g. security, performance (code and database), maintainability, usability, spam protection, SEO, etc. It is tough to come across developers who are well versed in all of these dimensions, so you have to pretty much watch what they are doing, and make sure you are getting a pretty decent system. Of course, if they have already produced a platform that you can trust, then that is a great reference.

Good luck!

Rich

 

hi there,
you are looking for some thing professional,

we just developed a management system with following features

• Multilingual (9-11 languages support primarily 9 languages).
• XHTML validated.
• Cross browser/Multi browser(IE,Firefox,Netscapte,Opera,Safari)compatible.
• Ready made templates(6-9 templates currently available 6) + 1 template implementation of user choice without any extra cost.
• All 6 templates are multi screen resolution.
• Complete form builder.
• Very rich GUI editors.
• Very user friendly administration panel to manage the site.
• Any Open source module integration.
• User management system.
• RSS Modules.
• Each page rank/rate module.
• Social bookmarking system max 10 are allowed of administrator's choice.
• Gallery management system will be provided in future may be with in 10 days.
• Site maintenance will be provided by us for life time.


hope you like it, if you are interested please free free to contact me

 

Hello,

Can you provide me your company link and demo to verify?

 

Can you guys tell me What happen with database if I do not use phpcow script? Can I still use this data if I use another system in the future or have to through it away?

Thank you,

 

It depends upon:

1) Where PHPCOW is storing the data
2) How the data is being stored
3) Whether the data can be reformatted, and imported into the new database tables of the new system

Someone would have to look at the PHPCOW database and see whether the data is accessible and usable by some future target application. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes it takes lots of effort, sometimes there is an import utility to facilitate transfer, sometimes it is pretty much impossible without an enormous amount of manual effort. It all depends.

Rich

 

Hi Rich,

Well, it will not be easy, right? It looks like when you convert IPB, phpbb to vbulletin, doesn't it?

 

Pretty much. Every software application has its own database/table layout (schema). Different tables, different table relationships, different data within the tables. To what extent you can migrate from one to another, depends on your ability as a PHP coder to map one schema to the next.

Rich

 

Many thanks. I will give them a chance. . Please wish me lucky with them