Your impression of CI3 over others?

CI is manually input syntax and I have no idea where to begin.

Every tool has its best purpose, and CI really shines as a way to build web applications, not websites. CI expects you to know PHP and doesn't really care how much HTML and CSS you know.

If you're trying to build a website that does not do much form processing, perhaps Joomla is better. However, I also understand that Joomla is best for very large websites, and that using it for smaller websites makes it look slow. If you are looking primarily for a way to make smaller websites, I would suggest you take a look at Wolf CMS. It is lightweight and very easy to use. It does not impose itself on your design, yet it doesn't require much knowledge of PHP. For certain kinds of websites, it's the best. Give it a try.

Hey, don't work without a PHP debugger. Several free IDEs have this features built in. Two are NetBeans and CodeLobster. Without a debugger, it's like you're driving with a blindfold on -- you are going to crash!