Where to go to get a templated website solution?

[adam0101]

I'd like to set up a website where the content is mostly managed by the users. I'm a programmer, so I can do some of it myself if I have to, but I'd rather use something that has most of what I need built into it. Here are some of the features I'm looking for:

• User Registration Form
• User Profile Page
• Video/Audio upload form
• Video/Audio player
• Blog/RSS Feed for recently added products
• Shopping Cart for purchasing products
• User Forum
• Extensibility! (Meaning I'd like to be able to add my own widgets to the site for stuff they don't currently support)

Is there some kind of website builder that easily adds these things and more? Thanks!

[warpx]

If you are a programmer and know or want to learn Python, I would recommend Django. The framework is very elegant and allows you to program everything yourself. There are a lot of modules for most common applications. Especially if you want to have something tailor made and enjoy a high level of security, this would be my first choice.
Before you ask, I suck in programming but I happen to have a friend who is in love with Python and I saw some demonstrations that have impressed me a lot. Python itself is useful for some desktop jobs, too. (I.e. data analysis)

If you like something closer to "off-the-shelf", then you'll have to look at Mambo, Joomla, Drupal or the content management system of your choice. Compare them according to your requirements at "The CMS Matrix".

[Sven]

Except for the audio video part, drupal has it all as standard, audio and video may turn out to be a bit more difficult than adding the normal extra's.

[officer_dibble]

Speaking from work based experience - video hosting can get pretty expensive and processing uploaded clips requires some specialist server software. We ended up with a solution that ran to around £500/month hosting with £3K on specialist video processing server side software (and that was only licensed for 12 months).

This list might help though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...sting_software

From a quick glance - PHP motion might be worth looking at.

When it comes to hosting - be sure to read the small print. If people are offering unlimited harddrive space and bandwidth - you have to wonder how they can do it.

Alternatively could what you intend to do work with embedding clips from other services like YouTube for example?

[winvest]

Try wordpress or squarespace. - There are alot of plugins that will allow you to add the functionality to your site.

[clanshrapnel]

vbulletin 4.0 will meet most of your requirements. It's not cheap, but what you're asking for will either take a lot of time or cost some money.

For $195, I think it's a steal (and yes, I already have my own copies-- 2 licenses in fact). Version 4.0 includes a blog, though I don't know if it can or will compete with Wordpress. You can't catch up to something like Wordpress in a matter of months, esp. in terms of developer-made widgets/mods.

You do, however, get a profile, user settings, forum and more. And can you integrate the forum into your website? Yes... I've had that done myself where a user can't access the website (or parts of it) without registering in the vbulletin forum first.

[Ceejee]

Look into Buddy Press, an enhanced 'social networking' (use that very loosely) plugin for Wordpress.