I am looking for an alternative to mambo. I do a lot of work with smarty and php at work so I want to try this out as something I can extend a lot easier.

My first questions is that I went to create a section and set up the image to be an image I've uploaded. I can't get it to work. It seems it is set to default to look in the images folder of the XOOPS site. Then I tried to use the image I uploaded as a image for a News category, but they are stored in a different place. I don't understand why there is an image manager, but you can't use it to for items in the site.

Is there something I am missing before I go in and see about editing the template for the sections page?

Second, I am trying to figure out how to use the various modules to acheive the look I want. I am looking to overhaul a personal site:
http://www.ricksweb.info/

I want to create an umbrella site for the various categories of articles I post with including the debian/backpacking/wedding info. I am trying to be able to create custom "home page" for each category and get some more control over the types of elemets on each. For instance the wedding side would be more blog-like with a couple extra custom content blocks. The Debian and PHP sections would be more news/articles type of info while the backpacking is more article and image gallery stuff.

I am wondering if anyone can suggest a 3rd party blog or CMS modules that can elp me get what I want.