Offline distribution of TYPO3 content - deployment

I'm currently looking into the possibility of using a CMS as a way of distributing content (user manuals, FAQs, documentation) to offline customers. I tried searching for the possibility of distributing a static offline copy of TYPO3, but was surprised not to find anything so far. There are few custom solutions I have considered (wgeting a static copy, installing a webserver on deployment), but I wonder what would be the easiest way, or whether there already are modules supporting this. We do not have admin rights during setup, thus we can't install any services on the client machine.
I currently do not care whether we use Neos or TYPO3 classic, whichever supports this would be fine.
Thank you for any help that you can give me.
P.S. I'm currently asking somewhat similar but different questions about other CMSes. Adhering to the one objective per question rule, I've felt that using different questions would be the right way to do this.

wget whole page as a static set of HTML pages is fastest sensible solution. Of course there are also other programs which will allow you do to this.
In other case you would need to install some Apache+MySQL+PHP on each client which doesn't make sense.
You can also try nc_staticfilecache ext.

Related

OpenOlat (LMS) and CMS recomendations?

my company is considering to use OpenOlat (LMS) in conjunction with a CMS.
The idea ist that our educaters will use OpenOlat as it is, while some functions (like displaying multiple choice tests) will be handled by a CMS. This way we try to keep things simple for our customers...
Problem is that I don´t know much about CMS (an programming in general) since I´am more like an expert on education... and also (aus usual) time ist pressing...
So my question is, if someone has tried this yet and if there are any suggestions which CMS to choose, especialy from a programmer´s perspective...
OpenOLAT has a fully embedded testing tool which also supports multiple choice tests and a question item pool to share question items with other authors or for building your own question pool. Assessment is not a typical scenario for a CMS, it is a use case for a LMS like OpenOLAT.
In OpenOLAT you can also configure two sites with permanent content. This is very often used as a simple intranet/extranet solution without the need for an additional CMS. If your emphasis is on elearning rather than static web site content you should consider this path.
This is clearly the most simple solution for your customers as they only have to get familiar with one single system.
Cheers
Florian

Confused between Jahia and dotcms as a java CMS

Which is better for web content management purposed only?
The website requirements include a user discussion forum and a poll survey with a good search facility and also needs a good SEO tool. The site should also load faster and should be easy to edit contents.
I can't speak to Jahia, but dotCMS can do everything you're asking for. Below are some links that should help you self evaluate dotCMS. I also would point out that dotCMS is more of a platform (makes a great user experience platform UXP) than an off-the-shelf solution and because of this your requirements might take a little work to setup and get running. With that being said, your finished product should meet your exact needs.
Site Search (uses ElasticSearch)
http://dotcms.com/docs/latest/SiteSearch
Performance Report
http://dotcms.com/aw/performance-report
I hope this helps.
Jahia should be able to handle these request. I am the opposite if Fish and have experience with jahia. Jahia does have a forum and poll component's both available as open source so you can modify the code when you require to.
What I like about jahia (among many other things) is that editing content is straight forward and very easy to for non technical persons. ofcourse it has all the permissions in place for all content so you can set it up in such a way that you don't have to be afraid that the non technical persons will mess-up a website.
Performance of Jahia, even without fancy caching proxies is very good and it can run on low resource VM's, just if you want to start small. I am using them on small Linode machines without any issues
I have not worked with Dotcms, but basic forums, polls, search, and SEO are all freely available as Jahia modules. The forums are certainly not as good as a standalone like Vanilla, but they are simple to add and administrate. Search is good and requires little configuration, and anything more than basic SEO is going to be custom work.

First web server questions

Just looking for some help/suggestions with this. I require my own server for an upcoming project that will be hosting users websites. I want to build a control panel the user can log into and modify their website which will be stored elsewhere on the server. This all seems easy enough, It's just managing domains and emails that confuse me.
What should I look for to manage domain names and point them to the correct website and also what would be the best way to manage email accounts/set up new ones etc. I want to avoid cPanel/WHM if possible, I'm looking to control most things through the control panel I will be building. So any suggestions on this would be useful as well, as I will be wanting to add email accounts through php (Can be done using a shell I assume?).
I will also be wanting to measure bandwidth used on the websites contained in each users directory, any suggestions on making this possible?
I'm really looking for some suggestions on what software to use to set this up, any advice would be really helpful!
Thanks,
Graeme
It sounds like you've got a lot of creative room. May I suggest a web framework? Django. With it you can build out a nice control panel, it's template system is clean and concise. It's also based on Python and thats why I suggest it. If there is a python module for it, you can use it in Django... so things like altering, creating, etc. local data/files is a breeze. you simply us Python (you can even forget it's "django"), crunch your data and then spit it out (into django... out to templates.. to display to the user).
You'll likely want AJAXY biznazz, their is a nice Django App for that, Dajax. Django has a rich and helpful community and tons of resources. Just hop on GitHub.com and search for Django, You'll find tons of stuff.
Im building a DNS Control Panel with it. Which sounds like a minimal version of what you're doing.

CMS: Build or Buy? [closed]

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This question is a little subjective, however, it aims to give me a bit of information about whether it is better to build or buy.
My company is looking to enter the world of CMSs for our clients websites, do we provide an open source one, or do we build our own model from scratch?
If you buy, which do you use?
If you build, how does your architecture differ?
EDIT: The CMS we are looking to use isn't to maintain our own website, it is something we can offer our clients and pinned onto websites we are custom building for them, it needs to be something that we adapt and manipulate easily for many different website designs and purposes.
How about using opensource one? :-)
Today the only reasons to develop new CMS are:
1) non-usual requirements (deadly rare)
2) You just like to code "your own CMS" (c)
If none is the case, take opensource one.
Personally, I have my own CMS for all my private & commercial purposes, but this was mostly just for programming fun. If you need to deliver, you have to use existing products.
The company I work for wrestled with this same question recently. This depends a lot on your client's expertise and needs. It's generally not advisable to build your own CMS unless you're using it to offer something very novel.
Drupal has lots of plugins available giving a great deal of customizability. It's handy in the same way that most CMSs are in that you can use PHP files as your templates and code them outside of the CMS.
Wordpress has the best user interface of all the CMS's I've used (Drupal, EE, Wordpress, Joomla). If you need to program plugins it's also very well documented and (when the plugin is finished) provides a drag-and-drop interface for the client to make changes to their own web site easily.
I'm currently in the process of moving our site from EE to WP.
Well I can build a simple CMS in less than a day (and everybody can do that with any good web framework). So it depends on how complex it is and how much the open source solutions can do what you want your CMS to do. I generally avoid to use open source CMS because it is usually an overkill compared with my usual client's needs but that's me. Most open source CMS (drupal, joomla, wordpress) have many features that most people simply don't care and they clutter their user interface, so I prefer to build my own as far as it is simple instead of using an open source and struggling to add a new feature and make it scalable.
First, to address your build or "buy" questions - you would be crazy to build. The resourced needed to support code you write as it changes to meet each clients needs will end up costing you a fortune in the long run. It's hard to beat the resources of thousands of developers that many of the big projects have. Does your firm have a security specialist? How about a QA team that constantly searches for ans squashes bugs? Unless you are trying to do a one off, highly specialized application, pick a CMS and go with it.
Next, as far as being able to implement the CMS across many types of sites, that is entirely dependent on your firms developers. If your developer knows XYZ CMS, then he should be able to take any design and make it work for the CMS. Any good CMS has the design layer completely separated from the content and code so the design should not be limited by the CMS in any way. It's just a matter of learning the particular templating system employed by the CMS of your choice.
Last, I am surprised that no one has mentioned the solution to your wanting to limit the amount of control your clients have over their sites. As mentioned you can go the SaaS route and never give the client access to the administrative back end of the site. Any of the good CMS projects offer front end editing. This will allow your client to add/remove/edit the content on the site without giving them access to anything structure or design related. You can completely control the admin, layout, and functionality while the client simply controls the content only, which seems like what you are trying to accomplish.
This depends heavily on what you need, but many CMSs are a platform that you can build upon, getting the best of both worlds.
Wordpress has a very rich plug-in framework.
If you are ok with Windows servers, SharePoint has an extensive plug-in/extension architecture.
I don't think there's any reason to build from scratch unless you are planning to compete in the CMS market.
Do not reinvent the wheel. It takes really a lot of time and money to make a CMS.
If I were you, I would go with an open source CMS, start building custom stuff and contribute back what you can (this is how the company works where I work).
My choice is Drupal, because of the rich set of contribs, excellent flexibility/extensibility and good security.
I think it depends on how many clients are supposed to use the CMS.
We have only one client and built a proprietary CMS which we heavily customize to the client's specific needs.
It also gives us a strategic benefit since this client can hardly migrate his web sites to another company now.
If you have a couple (> 2) of clients who are supposed to use the CMS, IMHO an open source CMS would be the best choice.
Can you develop a new CMS as good as some other ones that have been around for years and hundreds of people have worked on it's development?
That's a question I always ask myself at the start of every website buliding project.
There is surely a good open source platform that meets your requierments and that you can improve.
I suggest these:
Liferay : for large organisations and advanced projects it's written in java. I personally love this CMS. Big places like NASA use it and my company used it for a project, it was great.
Plone : Same as above - language = Python
EZPublish for large organisations but not as advanced as Liferay - language = PHP
Joomla and drupal for normal websites.
As a design agency, presumably with a number of customers with live websites that constantly need to change that are taking manpower away from new projects,
My first question would be if I intend to migrate my existing customers to the CMS based version of their site
Then, What are the commonalities/differences in your customer sites?
If there is a lot of commonality (in the back end code as opposed to the front end design), then maybe integrating a basic article editor is all you need?
Look at how a CMS is going to affect your design flow, Your designs will then be CMS 'Themes', that'll be a learning curve.
I'm not trying to discourage you from Buying or Building a CMS, but the decision will be completely decided by your companies situation.
Personally I use Joomla and DotNetNuke. I'm a developer not a designer, so I buy off the shelf themes and modify them. I also had no existing clients when I started out. I decided to use a CMS specifically because I could buy themes, and secondry to that was the client modifying the articles.
I cant think of an open source CMS that doesn't provide everything that most companies would need.
you get the benefits of bug fixes, little deployment time and ease of documentation.
When selecting the CMS try to use one that is not too bulky or not too popular.
most CMS allow for easy expansion so if a client has special needs then its easy to add functionality.
A reason that you start to build you're CMS could be because the landscape of CMS systems is big (and you can't make up your mind on one system to put in all you're energy).
Do you want a simple CMS for a website, an integrations framework or personalization / social media.
As there are a lot of OS CMS out there, I wouldn't recommend you to start from scratch. Check for research EG:
http://www.slideshare.net/OpenSourceCMS/451-group-future-of-web-content-management-open-source-cms
Also check the OS license of products and how this could affect your projects.
Good luck!
Lots of good responses already, but I don't see anyone talking about the real users, the customer who is paying for this site.
One reason a CMS product is often better is that it can give you a lot of help material, usability refinements and add-ons that you won't get when you build it yourself. More importantly for the end-users, it can mean they extend and add to the site without needing to get IT to give them permission (and the run-around on budget/resources) to do so.
Another issue is that if you build it yourself, then that is the only copy of that software that is being security tested and probed. A product will have been through more penetration tests and probing.
On the other hand there are a wealth of CMS' out there and it can be confusing if you do not know what you want. The CMS Matrix is a good site for comparing all sorts of CMS' to find one that suits your needs.
I work for a CMS vendor, Elcom Technology, so I am slightly biased - but I have also used WordPress, SharePoint, DotNetNuke, Joomla and Drupal to various levels of degree and they all offer a big step up over something home-built.
A very important reason why you may want to choose something that is already made (FOSS or commercial) is that someone else may be able to support it.
PS
I've used CMSMS on various projects. It has enough user control to let them edit, but not mess with the layout and stuff.

What is the "best" free CMS for my needs? [closed]

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I have the task to build a web-site for a smaller non-profit organization. I have a bit experience with ASP.NET but because ASP.NET hosting is rather expensive here in germany (we will also need a lot of webspace and traffic) and aslo because there are quite a hughe list of features I think I should go with a PHP/MySQL based CMS (correct me if I am wrong). The question is wich one? There are are so many free CMSs out there. If I tell you what I need, can you tell me what would be a good choice?
Here are my requirement (sorted by priority):
Ease of use (installation, configuration, maintainance) for me who builds the site but also for the members of the organisation they must be able to easily change the the content of some main pages, add supages, add a new mailinglist upload a file to the repository etc.
A membership/role management system. Based on the role of a member access to certain subpages, subforums or folders in the file management system etc. must be restricted. Only certain roles must be allowed to add new mailinglists or moderate the forum.
A mailingsystem that allows me or the members of the organistation to add new adresses, maillinglists or newsletters.
A file management system. Members should be able to upload arbitary files on the server and browse them via a web frontent. Access to folder should be restrictable based on the member rights.
A pulbic forum with private subforums.
Localization. As much as possible of the final site (if not everything) that is presented to the visitor of the site as well as to the members who maintain the site should be presented in german.
Good control over design/look and feel of the overall site. I should have good control over how I want the site to look like.
A lively community with enough momentum to find ressources and help when I am lost.
Extensibility. In case there are some smaller features missing or f the behavior of an existing feature is not quite the way I want it, it would be cool to easily add it myself.
As mentioned by others, Joomla might be a good option for you, although Wordpress may also work (and it's easier). However, I highly recommend that you check out OpenSourceCMS.com, which hosts demos for many of the free and open source CMS's, blogs, forums, shopping carts, etc. For most of them, you can try out both the admin and the frontend. Spend some time looking them over and then when you find some that you like, investigate them further by going to their websites.
Concrete5 is a new Content management system that is excellent. Easily themable, user friendly, great little dashboard for management
and it's open source
My vote would be Joomla. It has most fot he features you discussed, if not in the core as an extension, component or theme. I've set several up and rarely have to use any coding during setup, plus there's a vibrant community if you need help. It also integrates nicely with other 'best of breed' apps like BB forums, Coppermine photo gallery's and others.
Joomla! would seem to fit your needs, and I'd also suggest Kunena for the forum (which integrates with Joomla) and DOCman for the file management solution.
Well, I'd suggest Drupal for any sort of advanced web site. While Joomla! and similar systems are a bit easier to get started with, Drupal's a lot more flexible and extensible.
You want full control over theming? Or user authentication? Access control? Database queries? User picture scaling? Tagclouds?
It's there when you need it :)
I would go with Joomla too, even though I'm a ASP.NET developer.
Joomla is very flexible and customizable, so it fills all your need, because of the big community.
As a complete CMS noob, I asked myself the same question. I started with Drupal. Sure you can do lots of things with it. Very extensible and customizable.
But after implementing my first site in Drupal, I decided to create the next one in Joomla, to have a frame of comparison. Conclusion: Joomla is a looooooooooooot easier to get started and takes a lot less time to create a functioning website from scratch. Sure, for very big projects, Drupal lets you customize more, but for the type of project you suggest: I would recommend Joomla...
I found this PDF report comparing WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone quite helpful when I was asking myself the same question recently. Nice comments with a focus on non-profits - find the comparison summary/recommendation on pp 13-14.
Definitely read the report because it talks about the strengths/issues of each package - given your prioritized list of features, I'd recommend Joomla. I think you can do what you want with reasonable effort and good recent modules like DocMan. WordPress is awesome for a blogging site, but lacks a number (2,3,4,9) of your requirements, and though Drupal is powerful and flexible, it definitely has a steep learning curve. Plone even more so.
Good luck!
I'd vote for DotNetNuke, it's ASP.Net but that saves you the overhead of learning a complete new environment, language and tool just to implement a 'free' CMS, realistically how much is your time worth? It meets all your criteria, and there are currently 600,000 users - which means that you can just get on with it, somewhere someone has already worked on your problems for you.
As for expensive hosting, why not host in another country, I get US$5/month for DotNetNuke in the states, and I code from Australia.
Ive had some experience with Joomla. Highly customizable, plenty of plugins and one of the liveliest communities in development. It has a great admin panel also.
Well, as told by Tom Deleu, yes, though Drupal is very capable and strong CMS but it is tough and complicated to work on. Coming to another option of CMS that is Wordpress. Though it is very easy to develop a content based websites with wordpress but with very limited scope and flexibility.
As per your requirement my vote will also go to Joomla. It is very user friendly, optimized and a CMS you can rely on. Small applications as mentioned by you like "mailing system", "File system" etc. suits joomla more than others.