Thanks for the quick responses.

That would be wonderful. I have no problem installing plugins for "special content" like forums, photo gallerys, link lists, etc. but It's definitely critical to be able to "create a page" and add text and images using some kinda of wysiwyg editor out of the box. It is expected by new users (well, people like me, I guess).

plugins are very time consuming to weed through, download, install, learn and try. The whole idea is to have a content management system to make it easy to manage the content on your website. plugins are NOT easy. I wish CMSs would get away from needing plugins that are critical for basic functionality. So I'm still looking.

Thanks for listening!

I'm a newbie too. Are you kidding me? I install xoops, and I can't do anything until I install more? Out of the box, I should be able to at least create a page and put some text and iamges.

how does one know what module to install? Are they safe? who wrote them?