Need CMS Advice

I have an idea for a site that has the following requirements:

1. I will need to support two different types of users. Each type of user will see different types of data when they log in.

2. The users must be able to publish content, but it won't be article-like content. Instead, I want them to fill out a form and collect information from them.

3. I'm going to want to collect payment from one type of user, so if it has paypal integration that is a plus.


Now, I've tried a bunch of different CMSes and none of them seem to have what I want. This is my experience:

Drupal: I wanted to make this work. The first thing I tried to do was extend the user registration page so that the user could choose which group they belonged to. I thought I would be able to just add something to a function, but it uses some (proprietary?) php code to build all the forms. I am a decent PHP programmer, but I've never seen anything like that before. Maybe there is a way to do what I want to do with roles and the taxonomy, but after playing with it for a couple hours I gave up.

Joomla: I don't like the way they handle users. Also, it wasn't as clear to me how to extend everything. I like the way Drupal has modules, but I don't like the way each of them are written.

Textpattern: Doesn't really support a community. I was surprised by this.


The bottom line is that I'm a hack, so I'd rather have something that gives me the bare bones of user management and getting content out of the DB and let me build everything else on top of it.

Any suggestions? I'm going to go download postnuke right now...

 

what about the way joomla handles users do you not like?
- i see this as the only point you made where joomla *might* (not sure until you provide more detail) not fit your requirements.. there are some extensions to change the way users/permissions/etc. are done.

extending joomla is as easy as downloading a zip file & uploading it via admin - check http://extensions.joomla.org to find them.
i would suggest you check out facile forms... very robust extension for creating forms & mini-apps inside joomla.. i'm sure you can find a paypal extension that will work for you as well.

 

After thinking about it for a while, I know that I am going to have to implement my own modules/extensions. I need a CMS that allows me to change existing modules/extensions easily and create new ones as well.

I hate digging through extensions to find something that only does 70-80% of what I want. I could just implement it to do 100% of what I want if the system was easy to learn. I'm willing to put the time in to learn how it works...I just want to pick the right one to learn!

 

I found it pretty easy to whip together or modify modules for joomla. To be honest I would suggest you either just stick it out with drupal or use joomla.

 

Try Xoops, www.xoops.org You can just use paypal buttons to intergrate payments.