[nonouns]

Alright, my first post, thanks for reading and/or offering advice!

Here's the deal. I'm trying to create a website for some friends and I that will allow us to share files, use a shared calendar, chat, comment on posted items, and have a basic main/profile-ish page for each member. This is going to be used only for a few friends and myself so I'll only need a handful of accounts (ten at max).

There's not too much more to it that I'm worried about getting up and running right now but two main things I really want to make sure I have are:

b]A[/b] - I want the site to direct users to a login page when they first get there, I want this no matter where on the site they try to land, and after logging in I want it to take them to the main chat window for others logged on at that time.
Also on that same page I want them to have links to point them toward managing their account (just basic change password etc type things), upload files, go to their main profile page, and other links which will include go to shared calendar etc or whatever extra features I may add later. The main point here is I want them to have to login and I don't want any sneaky backdoor url business.

B - I want them to be able to decide permissions on all files they upload. Eventually this will include a public capability where non members could see the items in a designated area, but for now, I just want them to be able to make all files they upload available to just themselves, all members, or only certain members, and I want the allowed users of each file to be able to comment on the files, upload edited/updated versions etc.

So, looking back through this post I realize it's really long and probably seems obnoxious but what I'm mainly asking for here is some suggestions or advice. Are there any existing systems that could do this well or that seem well suited for this?

I looked at Media Wiki, Joomla, and Drupal and I feel like I can't get a good idea of what I'd really be able to do with each or what I couldn't do. I found some really ugly, but perfectly suitable packages for chat/shared calendar and a few other things on my GoDaddy account but it would be nice if I could make everything using the same framework etc.

I have little programming experience other than Python and HTML but I'm a member of a MakerSpace with some really brilliant programmers whom I'm sure could help me out. As for the size of the project, I'm not daunted, there's no deadline and I've got free time, also, it doesn't have to be beautiful off the bat, I just want to get something basic up and running and keep building from there, my friends can deal with the mess .

I just need some direction toward how to accomplish what I want. I don't want to reinvent the wheel if there's already something out there that would be fit for this.

Thanks a ton for any help given!

[modi123_1]

Hit up word press. It should have all those options in a nice user interface.

[Shane Hudson]

Wordpress would work great for this, but so would most things. It is mostly down to personal preference really. If you want to stick to python, Django has a great CMS builder kind of thing very close to its heart! But if you want something very versatile but easy, go with WP!

[nonouns]

Thanks a ton for the quick replies. Honestly, I had used Word Press years ago and had no idea what it was capable of now. I thought it was strictly blogging. Looking around now though, it looks like you guys are dead on. I think I'm gonna' roll with this. Any suggestions/reccomendations on specific plugins etc I should use?

[Lemur]

While wordpress is an extremely powerful CMS and growing, make sure to look into more than just one option. You never know if something like Drupal or Joomla could offer something more that you may be looking for.