

Has anyone used Refinery (Rails CMS)? - nhangen

http://refinerycms.com<p>I ask because I'm learning to be a better rails developer, and I have a WordPress site that has outgrown its theme, and rather than buy a framework I decided to build one of my own on rails...then I found this.<p>I'm going to try it out, at least on a test domain, but thought I'd ask the HN community for any advice/feedback.
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codeslush
I've used refinery for one of my sites and it is fine - but mind you, it's a
VERY basic site with VERY basic needs.

This will boil down to more about what's the right tool for the right job, and
you've not given enough details to answer that question. A custom theme is
DEFINITELY not a reason to switch.

I would suggest that Refinery is great for very basic needs, but the ecosystem
is nothing even close to what WordPress has to offer.

Refinery is well written - and great code to review if you're learning rails
as described. You can find many more rails apps from which to learn too.

You'll need to search HN for CMS && Rails - just a day or two ago I saw
something related to a new rails CMS but didn't follow it. In your exploratory
phase, it might be worth reviewing - as I went to their home page and read
briefly about the solution and it "sounded" good.

EDIT: Here's the one I read about a few days ago to save you the search:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2189943>

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JonLim
Thanks for posting my link, codeslush.

Hey nhangen, as I mentioned in that link, I would be happy to pass along any
questions or comments that you might have about the CMS to the developer!

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bdclimber14
I'm actually implementing Refinery for a Rails app I'm doing for a client.
It's the best I've seen, and the easiest way to give a client the ability to
change their privacy policy and FAQs without paying me. They usually can't
afford all the functionality changes they think they _need_ anyways.

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d_jones
Hi, I'm on the Refinery CMS core team. What is the URL for your WordPress
site? That will help us let you know if you should use Refinery :-)

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nhangen
<http://bluerize.com>

Mostly need a better way to handle media, show schedules, and build a better
design template. Also plan on adding some community related features.

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codeslush
This site needs a lot of help - and the subdomain redirects (e.g.
music.bluerize....) may not be best suited for refinery - but I'll let the
core team member of that answer.

What I see from your site is certainly within the capabilities of wordpress.
It's just hard for me to justify leaving such a capable system because of a
theme issue when you have so much more functionality that is proven.

Just my opinion. FYI - I chose Refinery for the simplicity of a simple site
that I needed. I think it's great - but not a match to WP, nor do I think it
was meant for that.

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dandemeyere
Hey, I'm an aspiring Ruby on Rails developer as well and just wrote a quick
review on my thoughts of using Refinery - <http://labs.thredup.com/refinery-
cms-review>

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jasonlynes
i've used it, forked it, and now use a custom fork on about 10 client sites.
with every new release there seems to be some fairly big bugs, but they're all
fixable and overall it's way better than radiant, and i'd rather die than use
wordpress again. plus who wants to write php again?

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adelevie
Buy a framework? Which ones cost money?

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nhangen
I'm referring to WordPress frameworks, like Genesis and Thesis.

I don't like PHP, so I'd prefer not to build one from scratch.

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nhangen
clicky: <http://refinerycms.com>

