Why ImpressCMS instead of XOOPS

One of the question we are hearing quite often, since the launch of ImpressCMS, is; "Why should I upgrade my site to ImpressCMS instead of continuing with my XOOPS site?". This is a very legitimate question, and one that indeed requires an answer.

The first thing you should know is that ImpressCMS 1.0 Final is fully compatible with any XOOPS modules, or XOOPS themes. So basically, you can use any modules, or themes found in the XOOPS world, and it will work on your ImpressCMS powered web site!

The ImpressCMS 1.0 release ships with a full upgrade script, that will painlessly upgrade your XOOPS site to ImpressCMS. Upload a few files, run the upgrade script, and a few click later; your XOOPS site becomes an ImpressCMS powered web site, packed with all the extra features that come with ImpressCMS.

1 But what are these features ?
2 But features are not the only thing that matters!
3 Impressively easy
4 Where will ImpressCMS be in 1 year, in 2 years ?

But what are these features ?

Another great question! Let's look at a few ones.

Native multilingual support
Completely redesigned admin interface, making it more intuitive to manage our CMS
Management of unlimited blocks positions on user side
Easy cloning of any existing block with a single click
Completely redesign installation wizard making it more easy and intuitive for new user to install and configure ImpressCMS; also, inline help have been added to the wizard to help the user on every step of the installation
Many security improvements, the most important being the introduction of the Trust Path concept, automatically created for you by the installation wizard, and which allows the storing of sensitive data outside of the web root
Automatic version checker informing the webmaster if a new version is available
Completely redesign default theme + addition of an alternate version
Addition of a privacy policy feature customizable by the webmaster
And so much more!

Have a look at a few screenshots here.

But features are not the only thing that matters!

Indeed, and this is definitely another great aspect of The ImpressCMS Project: our philosophy. The key people of this project believe in a true open source working environment, where every developer is equal and contributes to the project in any possible way. The community exists of people with different expertise. Apart from the core developers you can find designers, people with marketing skills, users who have experience with managing communities, translators and many more.

There is a general feeling that this community is most effective in a loose and informal structure, without fixed teams or organizational structure. One of the most essential conditions for the success of this project is to have a healthy and open communication within the community and outwards. The open organization is what makes ImpressCMS different and it helps to achieve the goal of having a true open source project.

A simple example that demonstrates the effectiveness of our opened structure and philosophy is a look at the amount of commits that occurred in our SVN. For the non technical people among us, commits are the action of sending some new code in the code repository of a project. Our parent project, XOOPS, in the last 2 years, committed a little less than 1400 times in their code repository. The ImpressCMS Project, since it's creation in December 2007, committed more than 1200 times. So in summary, in 3 months, The ImpressCMS project has produced nearly as much code as its parent project in more than 2 years! We have a large development team, we are very productive and are welcoming new developers regularly!

Impressively easy

ImpressCMS wants to be easy: easy to install, easy to build a site, and easy to collaborate with the project. If you have a patch, a bugfix or just an idea, you will be listened, and your code, seriously considered by the developers and the community. Anybody can improve ImpressCMS!

Where will ImpressCMS be in 1 year, in 2 years ?

We expect that, within 2 years ImpressCMS will be one of the major suppliers of open source Content Management Systems. In just a few months time we achieved so much in terms of setting up the ImpressCMS organization, to get the code ready for the first release and set up the websites and tools for the project. By listening to what our users want in a CMS in terms of features and technologies we think we can combine the flexibility of the system with what the market wants in a CMS.