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I am working on a project which requires facilities like aricles, forums, ratings, polls,communities etc..
how to i proceed to make it?
what are its essential parts?
suggestions for the database design.
thankyou.
I know this isn't your question, but don't reinvent the wheel.
You will fall foul of a lot of problems.
Use something like Drupal instead.
Just take a look at some source code from existing CMSs such as Wordpress or SMF and you'll get a good idea.
Yeah-- roll with wordpress or drupal if php, dotnetnuke or orchard for .net. Bare minimum, you could use their code as a template to make yours.
CMSs are complex systems--don't waste your time
There are so many existing and good and open source (if you need the source) CMS systems already. Why reinvent the wheel?
I would recommend going with one that exists but if you must you could even download an open source CMS to help give you an idea of what you need.
I would suggest that you adopt a php framework, like Symfony, kohana/CodeIgniter CakePHP etc. Building a custom cms for yourself or a client is not a bad idea. Hacking the 'usual suspects' that do 80% of what you need and leave a cluttered backend interface might work for some clients, but if you can offer a truly custom experience, your clients would prefer that, given that security is not an issue and you have well functioning CMS.
When it comes to the rudimentary tasks involved in database management/scaffolding, user permissions, forms handling, etc. do try out one of the frameworks, they get you coding the important stuff sooner. Play around with any one of these (I find Symfony is pretty powerful, and Kohana/CI are easy to set up, haven't used cakePhp) and once you get comfortable with one of these, have a look at some of the CMSes that were done using these frameworks
I've built a couple of lightweight CMS's from scratch several years ago in PHP, when the Nukes were the main ones about, and Mambo was becoming popular, however nowadays there are many great choices to choose from.
If your needs are very simple and you really want to build it yourself, than I would recommend building one with a framework such as Kohana which has much of the core plumbing in place, database access, security, permissions etc.
You will need a WYSIWYG such as TinyMCE, (f)CkEditor, or Telerik RadEditor.
Database structure could be centered around document type structure, take a look at the db structure for ModX which is an excellent CMS to buid customized sites off, however even looking at how they structure content is useful.
Design a backend U.I for the admin area of your site, keep it simple, and separate the cms admin area from the frontend code.
Determine the scalability issues of your cms, catering to hundreds(of thousands??!?) of users, what type of roles will be required, permissions for editing content etc.
How would the CMS be extended, with plugins, modules
Determine the templating system, whether to roll your own or use an existing one such as smarty.
These are just some of the initial decisions to make, it's actually quite easy to build a simple CMS though as others have suggested its generally much better to use an existing open source one, ModX, Drupal, etc..
Ruby on Rails has a screencast presentation they use to promote their framework that shows how to code a basic weblog system in 15 minutes with RoR. Does the Zend PHP Framework have a similar screencast/presentation/whatever demonstrating something similar? It doesn't have to be a blog specifically, but I would definitely like to find a presentation that shows some rapid application development using ZF.
Where I'm coming from: I have been programming on and off for years now. I started out with QBASIC waaaaay back in the day making little programs (text adventure games, screensavers, simple little things). I then moved to C++ but never really did anything too impressive with it. Since then (probably 5 years or so now) I have started to use C# for my desktop development and PHP for my web development. I've made some pretty cool tools here and there, but am certainly not a professional programmer by any stretch of the term as it has always simply been a hobby of mine.
Right now I have two major web applications that I will start work on shortly. (Like tomorrow, or later tonight ideally.. :) ) Both will be database-driven apps that will require user registration, the ability to manipulate data that is specific to their account (their posts, listings, user account details, etc), amongst other things.
Currently I am evaluating different frameworks to help me develop these web apps more quickly. I've been looking at, and have heard good things about Ruby on Rails. Hulu and YellowPages.com using it is an obvious endorsement - Of course, I have heard about the scalability issues that it potentially has; but that shouldn't be an issue with what I am working on. I don't expect millions of users per day for either project.
I am also seriously looking at the Zend Framework for my needs because I already have some experience with PHP. Ideally I would like to find a ZF screencast that shows an app being written quickly so that I have a roughly equal comparison between the two options I am exploring and can see first-hand how things get done in both.
That said - I am not opposed to considering frameworks other than RoR or ZF. The only research I've done on the subject has been over the past couple of days so I am quite certain that there are other excellent options out there that I've not even looked at - or heard of. Of course, it'd be awesome if there is a rapid app dev presentation that I can watch for whatever else is suggested.
So - Suggestions? Links to good screencasts that show rapid application development in other frameworks? Are there other PHP frameworks that I should be considering? (Ones that are easy to deploy would be ideal, so I don't have to purchase a dedicated server that I have full control over. I'd like to keep my hosting costs down assuming that it's reasonable)
Thanks in advance!
-Sootah
You can checkout ZendCasts.com
However, when deciding between ZF and RoR, you should be aware that they are very different from each other. RoR is a full stack with integrated ORM built on AR and a rather rigid structure. It's powerful and there is lots of magic inside and I'd say it's RAD capabilities are above ZF due to rake being more powerful than Zend_Tool
ZF, on the other hand, is first and foremost a loosely coupled component library with a use-at-will architecture for maximum flexibility. You can use it's components together, but you don't have to. While it does feature convention over configuration, ZF doesn't take you by the hand too much. It expects you know how to walk. Also ZF has no full fledged ORM and no AR, but you can very much integrate Doctrine or Propel or whatever library you like to use.
You often hear folks new to ZF complain about it is hard to get into it, simply because they expect ZF to work like RoR or Symfony or Cake, e.g. a full stack framework
EDIT:
Cake aims to be a port of RoR to PHP. It is built around ActiveRecord. Like CI < v2, it is backwards compatible with PHP4, which means it doesn't fully utilize the OOP capabilities you get in PHP5. I'd say both are easier to get in than ZF though.
This is a common question on SO.
I posted some valuable links in my response to this post
If you Google for such tutorials, look for Zend Application or Zend Tool, not ZF.
The difference between the other frameworks and Zend Framework is that Zend Framework is rather a general purpose framework, not application framework (not only for MVC, HTTP). E.g. Google uses ZF to provide access to their services.
You may easily use Symfony or CodeIgnitier with Zend Framework together.
BTW, To be precise, tutorials you ask are not blogs, but just a simple CRUD controllers. You may use Wordpress to create blog in 15 minutes, (then customize it) but not a PHP Framework.
Ruby On Rails, Django or ASP.NET MVC.
Which is better? What are the pro's and con's?
Just curious as to your opinion, please no flames.
Disclaimer: These are only my opinions not facts
Depends on your Needs.
Rails +
big community
quick to get up and running
cheap to host
Rails -
slower and will need some "help" if you
want to scale it(this will hardly be
a problem for most people)
harder sell to the boss
ASP.NET MVC +
Easy Sell
Phil Hack(need I say more)
Will be widely adopted(IMO)
Lots of support
ASP.NET MVC -
More expensive(hosting)
Still in Beta
Django +
Python is one of google's choice of
languages so right there it is worth
a look
Runs in google's cloud environment
(app engine)
dynamic -easy to use cheap to run
Django -
No Function overloading(v2.5)
Again slower then a compiled language
not AS big of community(IMO) as some other
languages
I included some links of other people's positive options of all 3 options....
It is very very rare for a choice in language\technology to be the downfall of website, project or business.... IMO
IMHO that question isn't really the right one. Given that you'll be writing all your business logic in the language of your framework, I'd say decide on a language first. All the frameworks you listed are for different languages.
Pick a language you like (or that fits the job best) and then research what frameworks are available for it.
Ruby on Rails.
Ruby is a really great dynamic language that can adapt to the programming challenge. Most people that I've talked to have found it really easy to start off with a new Rails app. The Railscasts are also really great as a tutorial.
Django is a very nice framework to work with. Great for doing "simple" apps, though I say this based on the experience I've had with it, which is limited to doing "simple" things most tutorials cover. Like blogging apps.
I don't have any experience with Ruby, or ASP.NET, so I can't really chime in on their respective well-known frameworks.
The right answer is this:
the one that you like
NO ONE can argue with me about this. No matter if a language is faster or even you get more money for what you do, because if you don't like what you do, will be a real pain in the... (guess)
If you were going to start building web sites as a consulting business on the side -- keeping your day job -- and you also had a toddler and a wife, what frameworks/tools would you pick to save you typing?
Any language.
I'm looking for a productivity superstar stack that won't tie my hands too much when I have to update the site 6 months later, or "evolve" the data model once in production.
It needs to allow me to say "yes" to the client: community features, CMS, security, moderation, AJAX, ...
I would suggest Django. Super simple to get something up and running really quick. You are using Python which has a large library to go with it. For me Ruby on Rails would be a close second.
I'd probably look at DotNetNuke. Its easy to set up (a lot of hosts will do it for you) and easy to use and put together a custom site that business's will be able to maintain in the future.
Its fairly easy to create custom modules that are specific to a business and hundreds of modules for sale (or free) that can be integrated into DNN for special uses.
Take a look at Microsoft's Sharepoint server if you'd like a pre-made framework with many options for plugging in your own code. Sharepoint is kind of a world unto itself but it is a very powerful environment.
Update: I'm surprised to have been voted down on this one. Keep in mind that the questioner specifically requested frameworks that included a CMS. Sharepoint meets this criteria - unlike straight .NET or other web development frameworks.
If you are going to vote the entry down, I think you owe it to the person who asked the question to explain why you don't think he should not even explore it as an option. You could be right - collective wisdom is what voting on SO is all about. But without an explanation, we don't know why you think you are right.
My answers are going to revolve around the .NET stack.
Use Master pages and CSS templates. This makes it so much easier to pop in a new look and feel for your customer.
For sure I'd include the Dynamic Data framework in the .NET world.
Hosting might become an issue for your customer. Questions around managing email addresses, procedures on how to quickly update the website to include the new contact phone number (different for each customer, I'd assume) Consider getting a reseller account on your favorite webhost, and dole out webhosting accounts as appropriate. There are lots of issues around this point. It may turn out to be a nice source of recurring revenue.
Build yourself a few patterns including a database wrapper which would handle all your data calls (i.e. a dll which wraps all your data calls, sets up your ADO.NET objects, runs your sproc calls, and picks up the connstring from app.config or something similar.)
This goes a long way to maintainability as well.
I would recomend going with anything MVC in a language you can undertand! Theres a couple of CMS's in python, php and ruby using that design and well... that allows you to be ready for combat for Ajax and expanding anything very fast.
This is definitely not a question that can be answered.
I prefer asp.net webforms because I think it allows for extremely rapid web app development, but I am sure you will receive recommendations for:
asp.net mvc
Ruby on Rails
PHP and some framework
Python and some framework such as Django
I believe PHP has the most pre-built apps that you can use, though asp.net also has the things you are looking for.
All of these platforms and frameworks can do what you want.
Choose between Rails and Django. They both have different strengths. I like Rails better in general, but Django's admin interface can save you a lot of time when you need it.
There's another factor to take into consideration here: what are you the most familiar with? I believe that some studies have found upwards of a 30% loss of productivity when trying to learn a new language/framework.
Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with just sticking to what you know. But if you're interested in what languages/frameworks to learn, I'll refer you to the other posts because the above was the only thing I really have to add.
I recommend looking into Grails. It uses Groovy which is similiar to Java (so if you know this already you're good to go). Groovy runs on the JVM so you can still use all the great libraries already available for Java. Yet, since it's a dynamic language with a lot of the similar bells and whistles like Ruby you can use closures and that kind of neat stuff when you need/want to. And you're not slowed down by Java's traditonal slow compile-deploy-test development cycle.
Grails is already setup with Hibernate and Spring. You can create CRUD application in practically no-time (pretty much like Rails applications), and at the same time drill down and be able to control every little details since it's built on such proven and well-supported technologies. In addition there's literally hundreds of plugins available that helps you easily set up things like mailing lists, security, AJAX components and so on.
Otherwise, if you want to set up a community site and don't want to code a single line you could always check out ning.com.
I need to create a internal website and can't figure out if we should be writing our own, or using an existing framework.
Most of the website will essentially be a front end to a database. We need to have a number of people enter data into forms. We then want to be able to show different views of all this data -- including running small queries (e.g. how many resources do we have with attribute 'X'). As is usually the case with this, we will want to tweak the UI on a regular basis.
There actual data design is not a simple 1:1 mapping of resource to entry. For example, we might track several attributes for one item as the "base set of data" for that item. Then we could have several additional sets of data.
Imagine a recipe application. You might have a recipse for a starter. This could then be referenced by several other recipes that need that same information.
I feel like this is best suited for a general framework (Ruby on Rails, Django, etc), but I wonder if it might not be good for a "traditional" CMS platform like Drupal? I specifically mention Drupal since the people that would develop this have the most knowledge using php and MySql.
I usually lean towards wanting to use an existing platform, but am interested in other people's thoughts. To give you an idea of scope, I would imagine if we wrote this from scratch we are probably talking about 3-5 weeks of development.
Would you recommend writing our own, or using an existing framework? If you would suggest using something that exists what would you recommend?
Would you consider this to be best suited for a straight framework or a straight CMS?
Thanks!
It's possible that Drupal will be a good solution for you, though you'll probably need a few key additional modules like the "Content Creation Kit" (CCK) and "Views".
Unlike other web CMS systems (WordPress, Exponent, phpNuke), Drupal treats your entries as a "pool" of content, from which you pull various subsets for different areas of your site.
There is a lot of documentation for Drupal (almost too much), the biggest problem is finding the piece that's relevant to what you're trying to achieve. Diving on to one of the interactive IRC channels can be a good idea, as the community is quite helpful and is almost always willing to give you a pointer in the right direction.
The power, flexiblity and capability of Drupal is both its biggest strength and weakness - I know it took me a bit of effort to get my head around key concepts, and I'm far from being a Drupal Expert.
One last comment: Having written my own CMS from scratch, which I abandoned in favour of Drupal, I'd suggest your 3-5 week estimate is likely on the light side.
Stay away from Drupal for any site that requires customized functionality. I recently used Drupal for a website at work, and it was VERY difficult to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted it to do. There is a lot of documentation out there, but all of it is unhelpful -- it answers very specific questions about specific issues but does not provide any context as to how you would approach building the site as a whole. If you're a programmer, using a more general framework will probably work better, as CMS's are designed for a specific kind of site, and if you want your site to have non-standard functionality you are going to be fighting the system instead of working with it. If your developers are most experienced in PHP, try one of the PHP frameworks that mimics the architecture of Rails -- e.g. cakePHP or CodeIgniter.
CMSes usually make sense when you have a broad and potentially expanding array of different content types and modes you need to handle. Drupal has literally dozens. Given than you mentioned RoR, it sounds like what you need is more of a MVC style framework. Maybe similar to the sort of thing stackoverflow was built with. .NET an issue for you?
If you are really limited to 3-5 weeks, however, I think a Rails-based strategy makes sense so go with RoR or CodeIgniter
If Drupal can do what you need easily I would say go with Drupal. I don't know much about Drupal though.
Otherwise, what you describe sounds like a data driven web app or more like a reporting app. It sounds like you might have some very specific needs or that users might want very specific needs in the future. That is something hard to get from premade software since you have no idea what users are going to request. Since I'm a programmer I would probably want to build it myself.
Funny you should ask... I just came across this in SD Time's Linkpalooza this afternoon:
Ten free powerful content management systems…
There are at least 4 more mentioned in the comments to this post.
It seems to make little sense to develop a new one with so many from which to choose!
BTW, this is neither a recommendation nor endorsement of any particular CMS.
Treat Drupal as a framework. Core modules + CCK + Views is a good start to build on.
If you're doing something that you might want to expose to other applications, consider the Services module. A lot of interesting things have been done with flex frontends connected to drupal running services with amfphp.