I have been using LightNEasy for several years now and have found it a delight after the complexity of CMSs like Joomla, Drupal or Xoops. I have found very little that I want to do but can’t, although I have had to patch in some other applications, for example a calendar system, from time to time.
Setting up LighNEasy is simple and straightforward it comes with a load of templates which can be used straightaway, or designing your own template is very easy. I have to admit that I use Kompozer (an opensource Dreamweaver look-a-like) to fine tune the style sheets, but getting a basic design from scratch or converting an old design is really quite simple.
The other thing I find about LightNEasy is that it performs well, it is quicker to load pages than Wordpress, which is probably the next best thing to LightNEasy.
So now we come to the current drawbacks. Fernando Baptista, the builder of LightNEasy has done a fantastic job of building the system, but he has been let down by his hosting suppliers so that the main site www.lightneasy.org has gone down a couple of times for extended periods. Fernando is very busy in his day job and he is doing a complete rewrite of the system to bring it up to date with modern standards and technologies, so he is not getting time to rebuild the site after the last downtime. At the time of writing the site is now very basic and the online manual is still out of action.
Because I rely on the manual I made a copy of it nearly two years ago along with a copy of the main site and I have put them both up on my servers until Fernando is able to reinstate the main sites. You can find these at www.lightneasy.org.uk .
Furthermore if you want a site set up and hosted for you we can do this for you, just go to www.sme-web.net to make contact.
Best wishes
Adrian
