I have a web app project that I will be starting to work on shortly. One of the features included is going to be a content management system where users can add content and then that content will be combined with a template and then output as a regular .html file. This .html file would then be FTPed to their own web host.
As I've always believed in not reinventing the wheel I figured I'd see if there are any quality customizable CMSes out there that do this already do this. For instance, Blogger.com allows you to post all of your content to your account there; but offers the option to let you use your own hosting. Any time you publish a new article then a new .html page is generated (as well as an updated index page with links to the new article) and then the updated content is FTPed to your own server.
What I would like is something like this that I can modify to more closely suit my needs.
Required Features:
Able to host on my own server
Written in PHP
Users add content through their account, then when posted it is FTPed as .html to their server
Any appropriate pages are also updated to link to the new content (like the index page or whatnot)
Templateable
Customizable
Optional (but very much desired) features:
Written in CodeIgniter or a similar PHP framework
While CodeIgniter isn't strictly required, I would very much prefer it. It speeds up development time and makes things much easier to implement.
So - any suggestions? I've stumbled across a few CMSes that push to remote servers as static pages, but the ones I've found all are hosted on the developers servers which means that I cannot modify it at all.
Adobe Contribute might work for your situation. A developer/designer creates a set of templates with Dreamweaver and publishes the templates. Authorized users can then create pages based on the templates and only make changes within the editable regions. It includes systems for drafts and reviews prior to publishing (via many options, including ftp) and incorporates automatic version control. It can work with static html pages or dynamic pages like php.
Sounds like you need a separate application that can do this for you.
For example, you should be able to write something that queries Drupal's menu router and saves the output (with curl) to a directory and then run's rsync to push your content where you want it to go.
Otherwise your requirements are likely to be outside the scope of a typical CMS. Separating this functionality will give you better options.
You'd need to write a filter for your URLs too. It's a bit of work...
Hope that helps!
Related
I am managing around 12 TYPO3 backends with almost similar content. Is it possible to copy and paste a created site between independent backends? Right now I'm creating by hand 12 sites with the same content. There has to be an easier way.
Well, there is not much I could try. Within TYPO3 I don't see any option to export/import sites from other backends.
First of all you should merge those 12 sites into one backend with multiple root sites and trees. Then you can easily handle different domains and/or languages via the site configurations for those roots.
Of course you can then make use of shared sys_folder pages that contain the content elements, that should be available for multiple sites. To make them available for a specific site, you can use references then.
You can export a page tree and import it into another instance.
On the other hand you can duplicate an instance by copying the complete database and original files.
That includes necessarily the fileadmin/ and uploads/ folders.
typo3conf/ should be duplicated by deployment but might differ in the files typo3conf/LocalConfiguration.php and typo3conf/AdditionalConfiguration.php (e.g. each instance should have other databases).
You can use the core extension impexp to import/export content parts. There is even a context menu entry
Be aware of some drawbacks:
if assets are exported, those are exported & imported you can hit the limit of your memory_limit
take extra care about which uids should be used, e.g. forcing uids can lead to drawbacks
Of course there are other options as well like:
create a custom extension which exports/imports the content on the fly using either something like a custom endpoint or fetching directly the DB if possible
use 1 installation as discussed already
if e.g. using ext:news use something like rss feeds for a poor man import/export with ext:news_importicsxml
To preface this I'm not an ExactTarget expert.... We use ExactTarget and are interested in more archiving our email newsletters so that our subscribers can later use our articles as a reference. We have an archive folder set up in the exact target system, but that is not customer-facing and contains things like extra code.
As I understand it, the current process for archiving involves taking screenshots of the email that is sent out which is stitched together as a PDF. The PDF's are then stuck behind a password protected folder on a website.
Obviously, this is a hacky/low-tech way to do this.
Are there any ways to export these mails for archival purposes that people are using?
I am guessing from the above that you are using the premade templates and creating content using the Exact Target WYSIWYG editor. From there I am assuming also that these articles are in content boxes and HOPEFULLY each 'article' is in a single content box.
If so, then your best bet is to go to the HTML tab on this box and copy that code there and have this inserted onto your company blog (or website if you do not have a blog). Your network admin or website designer will likely know the best way to insert these snippets of code to fit the layout and navigation of the site.
If your message is not personalized, or if so you mdke a generic recipient in your list, you may be able to use the 'view as webpage' link to get the source code. Not sure if those links expire after X days or something though.I have never tried this or tested, but on most email sends there is a "view as webpage" link, maybe try taking one of these links and either hosting on your blog/site or using that link as a reference for your customers.
Using a PDF or screen shots is far from optimal as the content becomes an image and loses a lot of value.
Hope this helps.
I am doing some updates to a site I have developed over the last few years. It has grown rather erratically (I tried to plan ahead, but with this site it has taken some odd turns).
Anyway, the site has a community blog ( blog.domain.com - used to be domainblog.com) ) and users with personal areas ( user1.domain.com, user2.domain.com, etc ).
The personal areas have standard page content that the user can use, or add snippets of text to partially customize. Now the owner wants the users to be able to create their own content.
Everything is done up to using a file browser.
I need a browser that will allow me to do the following:
the browser needs to be able to browse the common files at blog.domain.com/files and the user files at user_x.domain.com/files
the browser will also need to be able to differentiate between the two and generate the appropriate image url.
of course, the browser access to the user files will need to be dynamic and only show those files particular to the user (along with the common files)
I also need to be able to set a file size for images
the admin area is in a different directory than either the blog or the user subdomains.
general directory structure
--webdir--
|--client --
|--clientsite--
|--blog (blog.domain.com)
|--sites--
|--main site (domain.com)
|--admin (admin.domain.com)
|--users--
|--user1 (user1.domain.com)
|--user2 (user2.domain.com)
...etc.
I have tried several different browsers and using symlinks but the browsers don't seem to be able to follow them. I am also having trouble even setting them to use a directory that isn't the default.
what browser would you recommend? what would I need to customize to make it work.
TIA
ok, since I have not had any responses to this question, I guess I will have to do a work around and then see about writing a custom file browser down the road.
When creating a CMS which would you recommend?
Making a htaccess dynamically create the pages based on ?pg=name
or
Making a FTP connection to auto create each file on the fly? This means when a new page is created/edited/deleted the admin, when saved, would ftp into the site and create the page.
Pros and Cons
"Pro" Less files means less space
"Con" More continually overhead for apache to redirect
"Con" More space taken
"Pro" Less work to find file sense its created and only once loaded when changed
ALright, let me clarify. Which is the better option.
create index.php and have all htaccess redirect to it sending ?pg=name and then get the content from database
have an admin automatically ftp into a site when content is created/edited/delete and create the page so when the person types the page in its hard coded
Without a doubt the best way to go for your CMS is using Apache mod_rewrite. This way you have more flexibility in the future for changing the way that you want URLs displayed, and it expedites the creation of new content so that it doesn't have to be uploaded via FTP every time.
If you have to use FTP to use your CMS, I'm afraid it won't be very scalable, which is one of the benefits of a CMS.
Your 'better option' is 1. Stick to mod_rewrite.
If you want to, you can mix those options - use htaccess for nice names for your pages, rewriting them to ?pg=name and then load data from file or database.
I have a section of a web application I’m working on where there are mail merge templates. The documents are word documents. When a user has need to edit the template I’d like them to be able to simply click edit, which would cause word to load with the document loaded. When the user is done, they click save in word and the web page spots the change in the file and pushes this back to the server.
I managed to create a VBScript in a web page that could do all of this, but only when internet explorers security was turned down. The fact that I’m using VBScript to automate is not good as it restricts the browser choice and I’m not happy asking my users to turn their security down.
I don’t want the users to download the file, edit it, save it to their local machine and then upload it back to the server, it’s all very clunky. I also know that there are 3rd party controls that allow editing in a page, but I'd rather avoid them if I can.
Is there an alternative way of approaching this?
You can use Office Open XML to generate the word documents on the Server Side. There is an msdn article, sorry no time to go searching for it, explaining why you should not automate office from web servers using COM/DCOM because of security issues involving shared memory.
you could use google docs API, which is certainly more universal than using proprietary technology that works in one and only browser (IE).
I think you can go for the google docs API. It is more generic solution to go for too.
It is possible, with browser-security caveats, to open Word documents for edit from a browser via an UNC path on an internal network.
The best option currently is to WebDAV enable your website, and use the SharePoint plug-in client-side to open the file in Word over WebDAV.
The SharePoint plug-in for IE gets installed when you install Office. There is also a plug-in for Firefox/ Chrome referred to as NPAPI. Beware NPAPI seems to have an issue with long URL paths.
IT Hit make a terrific framework for WebDAV enabling a .NET-based website, see http://www.webdavsystem.com/. They also sell a client-side library that can open Word documents via Java instead of the plug-ins mentioned above. IIS has it own, more basic, WebDAV capability that you can use too.
I am not familiar with non-.Net / Apache solutions but just search for WebDAV products.
Office will require the use of HTTPS for editing via WebDAV.