There's a new post on Lukas Smith's blog where he talks about frameworks, phpBB's decision and building "gold on top of crap".

See the various symfony CMS solutions are an example of how wrong things can go. We now have several solutions whose architectural differences are either cosmetic or simply bad design decisions probably a result of trying to invent things in the small ecosystem of a company project team. So I was very happy to hear then that phpBB will adopt Symfony 2 for their next version. Hopefully this will become a role model for others.

He talks about how several of the popular CMS systems these days have worked harder on their external functionality than on the base (where they need the most work). He also looks towards a future where there are good, solid CMS solutions and leaders will emerge from the pack and provide quality content management for the PHP masses.

There's also some great discussion in the comments of the post with people who both share and disagree with some of Lukas' thoughts.

PHPBuilder.com has posted what they consider to be the top five content management systems written in PHP including Drupal and Joomla.

With solutions such as the Zend Framework and CodeIgniter making it easier than ever to create complex web applications, it can be tempting to flex your developer muscles and create custom framework-based solutions whenever the opportunity arises. However, the PHP community has also made great strides with another type of web development solution, as the content management system (CMS).

He looks at some of the key features of each and points out some of the more popular sites using them as a backend. He wants to give you a starting point to look into:

• Drupal
• ExpressionEngine
• Joomla
• Silverstripe
• WordPress

Vance Lucas has an opinion on WordPress being named the best Open Source CMS by Packt Publishing recently.

My knee-jerk "how sad is that?" reaction comes not because I don't think WordPress is worthy, but because of what it implies about the state of other open source CMS projects. The reaction comes from the fact that a blogging platform is kicking your CMS's ass in its own category.

He points out that WordPress is, first and foremost, a blogging platform and that it has bridged the gap between blogging tool and CMS so well that it's winning in that category too.

The fact that I can go through literally hundreds of open source content management systems and still end up settling on WordPress because I know it's the only one that won't totally confuse my client is what's sad. Usability and ease of use matter.

As a part of his messy breakup with Drupal for his content management system for a local brewing club he's involved with, Sean Coates has been shopping around for new software. He thought he might have found a possibility in SilverStripe, but ended up disappointed.

The site looks pretty good, the demo - while minimal (which is totally fine by me)-seems to work decently. It made my "to test" list. The bottom line: FWIW, SilverStripe made my "do not recommend" list today. A bunch of people replied asking "why?" This is my response to those people. My intent is not to bash SilverStripe, but to explain how it fell short of my wants and needs, quickly.

He looks at two of the major reasons why he'd suggest avoiding SilverStripe - bad code and issues with the installer.

I could probably fix that problem, and none of the other problems on their own are insurmountable, but combined, they leave me with the impression that the code isn't what I'd like to commit to maintaining. The search continues...

Matthew Turland has posted the fourteenth part of his series detailing the features that the popular PHP e-commerce package Magento has to offer to the Blue Parabola blog today. This time the focus is on the site management features.

Features covered include:

• Content Staging and Merging
• Support for Multiple Websites and Stores
• Administration Permission System Roles and Users
• Web Services API
• Fully 100% Customizable Design Using Templates

If the series interests you, you can mind more great parts in the series in this category on the Blue Parabola blog.

On the CMSMatch.com site there's a new post with a "top ten" list ranking some of the popular content management systems:

CMS Match collected data on CMS functionality categories, such as core apps, flexibility, interoperability, mobile internet, performance, security and available support. The available functionalities are scored for each CMS. For example a blog functionality. Scores range from not available (0 points) through limited (5 points) to fully supported (10 points). Based on these scores, CMS Match was able to calculate a top 25.

PHP content management systems included in their list are eZ Publish, Acquia, WordPress and Joomla.

Matthew Turland has posted the latest article in his series on the Magento e-commerce platform. He's been talking an in-depth look at the features of the application and reporting his findings in a series of blog posts. This time he focuses on the order management features.

He lists out the seven main parts of this feature, describing each (with links to the Magento manual for some):

• View, Edit, Create, and Fulfill Orders from Admin Panel
• Create Multiple Invoices, Shipments, and Credit Memos Per Order for Split Fulfillment
• Print Invoices and Packing Slips
• Call Center Order Creation
• Create Re-orders for Customers from Administration Panel
• E-mail Notifications of Orders
• RSS Feed of New Orders

He also briefly mentions a test he performed with the Opera browser versus Firefox in working with his Magento install. A bug causing sporadic crashes in Firefox was nowhere to be seen in Opera - though there was an issue with cookie propagation.

Matthew Turland has posted the fourth part of his series looking at the Magento eCommerce application and some of its features.

This post is the fourth part of a series covering the feature set of the Magento PHP-based e-commerce package. In particular, it will review the catalog management features.

He covers:

• Private sales
• Inventory Management
• Batch import/exports of the catalog
• Batch product updates
• Google Base integration
• Bundled/Group/Virtual products
• Downloadable/digital products

...and much more. Check out the full post for more information and a summary of each feature.

The Zend Developer Zone has shared a few links to some upcoming webcasts from Zend - three to be exact.

Zend has a series of free webinars on various PHP topics that is constantly ongoing. There are three of these webinars coming up on the schedule this April, and you do need to go and register for them ahead of time.

• WEBINAR: Set up a complete PHP environment in minutes!
• EBINAR: Advanced Management for PHP for i5
• WEBINAR - How to increase application performance using caching

The post has descriptions of each as well.

This new tutorial from the Server-Side essentials blog on SitePoint introduces you to one of the most powerful content managemnt systems the PHP community has to offer - Joomla.

Joomla (TM) is among the most popular Open Source content management systems that exist today, in the company of Drupal and WordPress. If you just need to build a web site for yourself and are unfamiliar with all this HTML stuff, or you develop web sites for other people, or if you're at the pointy end of developing web-based applications, then Joomla really should be on your evaluation list. It's easy to install, use, and extend.

He walks through the entire process complete with screenshots - installation, configuration and even included some links to other resources (community sites, reference links).