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Closed 10 years ago.
I have to choose a content management system to allow dynamic updating of website content. The amount of configuration required and the learning curve with most of these systems really seems to be a lot more than what should be necessary.
I have almost set the site up with Alfresco SURF - but I just find that it makes simple things harder than they ought to be.
I have heard of Drupal, Joomla and Plone - but what I am hoping for is something that is very simple to set up and use. I have heard these are not.
We just need to be able to change things like dates of upcoming events etc. navigation template changes don't need to be supported (but if it's they are and the software is still easy to use then it's a plus).
Can you recommend only very simple to use apps, or explain if there is some reason what I am asking for cannot exist.
Try Wordpress - it's not only suitable for blogs but also as a CMS if you have very simple requirements .
To make installing much easier you can try a BitNami stack. Drupal and Joomla are there.
Basically they are installed as stand alone instances that are meant to not interfere with other systems you have in place (installing their own DB and webserver).
Have you had a look at ModX? You can have it installed in quarter of an hour and have a working site in a couple more and there are loads of tutorials floating around for it.
Drupal is very easy to use (I know since I run my personal site and my wifes site on it) - the modules install is really extracting a folder. And there is a great system internally which tells you about updates for everything.
Install is very easy now (as hard as installing an app) on IIS with the web platform installer which Microsoft released at Mix. If you want the manual approach it is basically create empty database, extract files, go to site, follow prompts. Very simple too, but the web platform installer handles getting pre-requisites for you, and the config of the server.
I believe Joomla is also on it, but I have not used it.
BTW what I did for my wife's site to make it easy for her was to use Drupal and setup the modules that make it useful, then I created all the pages for her and setup Windows Live Writer on her machine which she uses to edit the pages. This way she controls the content but she doesn't have to know anything about websites. Her site is not a blog, it's a normal business-y site, but using WLW makes it easy.
i would use wordpress for this sort of thing. it is simple to install and is quite easy to use. you don't have to use the blogging part of it
the learning curve with most of these
systems really seems to be a lot more
than what should be necessary
I understand. I've felt the same way when I've tried to use one. There is a lot of terminology and configuration (install, user setup, access rights etc) to go through if you only want to throw up some simple information.
If I were you I'd just use a wiki. The advantage of this is you can create a flow however you want and not worry about the rules of the CMS system. And you can take it wherever you want later on. E.g. Python wiki.
The two wikis I'd recommend are MoinMoin because it is very well presented (e.g. Python wiki), easy to use (full WYSIWYG editor option), customisable (CSS etc) and uses flat files (so no DB admin or hidden content in SQL). Its written in Python and I'd recommend using fastcgi or mod_python to make it really fast.
If you don't fancy that, WakkaWiki is excellent. It's PHP with SQL backend though. Easy to setup and easy to grok with good features (e.g. embedding mind maps).
Related
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Closed 10 years ago.
I'm coding in PHP since a long time. And since a few days I've been looking for a job in web development.
Apparently they're looking for people who either knows ZEND or Symfony. I don't know either one (although I did work a bit on CodeIgniter).
And I really wanted to get into node.js these days.
So I'm asking you guys, what should I privilege to get a job? I have a feeling Node.js is going to become something really important and demanded, so I'd better get into it before others do...
What do you think? Are there other things out there I should learn? I really don't want to get into RoR since I do PHP.
I know this is a highly contested topic, but node.js is more of a buzzword than anything and it will not be a skill established companies are looking for. Many people have realized that javascript is far too nuanced to efficiently write large-scale applications, and that doesn't change once it's server-side. If you want job prospects, learn a statically-typed, managed language like Java or C#. These are not trendy, and for that reason a lot of people will tell me I'm wrong.
Agree, Node.js and jQuery are going to be the big winners here; for client side development anyway. Also, ensure you're well versed in CSS (especially CSS3) and are familiar with HTML(5) and how all of these work together to make beautiful web apps.
As far as server side development goes, you're really free to choose whatever, after all, it's rare the client ever sees the actual code that makes a WebService run. If you can make a reliable WebService in PHP, sure. C#? Why not? RoR? Java? Python? The more you know, the more marketable you are, and you get exposed to a lot more code. Personally, just because I'm forced into the big business world, C# is what I use almost exclusively, but only because I use it everyday.
If you get super adventurous, go for some understanding of SQL as well. And network setup etc. But that could be out of the scope of a web developer.
I would agree with the Node.js suggestion but would also learn the jQuery and jQuery mobile libraries for JavaScript.
They offer a huge amount of functions to ease web development along with support for HTML5 functionality. The other nice thing about this is you can write mobile web apps using jQuery mobile and support all platforms (iOS, Android, WP) with one app. It won't be native but it can still be a great looking app with a huge amount of functionality.
EDIT: Definitely agree with everything Breland says and in addition I'd like to emphasize that SQLite on the client-side would be something good to learn. It's a really nice feature where you can create a client-side database if you want to persist data that is a too big for a cookie or you can go with a real database.
Unfortunately AFAIK it's only supported on webkit browsers right now (Safari, Chrome, Android, iOS) but it could be good to learn how to use this and also an ORM like persistencejs which is a jQuery plugin that creates an ORM for SQLite and can work on the client or server-side.
These days, a "Web Developer" means something else than what it used to 3 or 4 years ago. That skill set is further split into disciplines now, mainly front-end and back-end. The path you go with will likely be based on what you've been comfortable doing as a PHP developer.
If you've been building PHP apps the "traditional" way and controlling all aspects of your MVC apps through PHP then learning modern PHP frameworks that make that approach easier would be an easy next step.
If you've been building PHP backends that expose business logic through an API or service layer, you can stick to the backend track and learn to do the same in Ruby on Rails (using something like rails-api) or Node.js if you wish. If you go the node.js route, picking up CoffeeScript will make writing your JavaScript a little more comfortable but it's another syntax you'll have to learn.
If you've done both 1 and 2 above and you like client side development, learn modern Javascript web development. Don't worry too much about which framework to side with yet, just learn the modern way of building large JS apps. A book I recommend for that is JavaScript Web Applications by Alex McCaw (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920018421.do). It did wonders to help me shed my dislike of JavaScript which came from working with the language many moons ago.
My advice would be to learn both sides of the fence and master one or two frameworks on each side. That will make you what's now called a "full stack" developer, which is just a term used to identify those who are effective at client and backend dev thereby making them highly desirable in the marketplace.
Good luck.
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Closed 11 years ago.
What do you think about both?
I began reading a book about Catalyst, and found it pretty complex as compared to Dancer.
so now I'm giving Dancer a try, and it looks easier to learn and more "human friendly".
I think David's comment is very accurate and excellent. However, as someone who has done development in both but is not a developer on either perhaps I can be slightly more objective (and technical) in what the differences are.
Both frameworks provide a variation on the Web MVC paradigm.
Catalyst's main level of abstraction is the Controller. Catalyst expects you to break separate logic out into separate packages in some logical fashion (Login code goes here, Registration code goes there, Search functionality over here). This works incredibly well if you have a team of programmers since each of you can work on separate files and not step all over each other during merges. Catalyst provides a lot of tools for making the Controller logic extensible and flexible, I think the premier example of this is Chained actions which let you split up and build a complex flow for any given request. The downside is that it becomes very seductive to put your business logic into the Controllers and you end up with very fat logic in the Controllers where it (theoretically) belongs in the Model.
Dancer's main level of abstraction is the Route. My experience with Dancer is this leads to much smaller applications. Partly my experience here is tinged with the fact that I have dealt with several thousand line applications in Catalyst but I have yet to write a Dancer app that is longer than 200 lines (with a much smaller scope). I think however that this experience holds true. The push in Dancer is in keeping the Controller logic very thin because it doesn't have the same tools for managing complex behaviors there that Catalyst does.
Honestly I've enjoyed working in both of them. They both provide different opinions on what writing a web application is supposed to be. I would, given the time and inclination, recommend learning both ultimately.
This is a somewhat subjective question, but I'll try to give you an answer in an objective way. First things first, a disclaimer: I'm part of the Dancer development team, so my opinion should of course be considered somewhat biased :)
Catalyst is more widely used than Dancer, and so there's more community support behind it - if you were to look for contractors with experience working with either framework, say, you'd be more likely to find developers who've used Catalyst. So, if you're looking for commercial support, that would be a good reason to choose Catalyst.
Dancer is a younger project, and targeted more towards smaller projects, making getting up and running quick and easy, and trying to stay out of your way. That's not to say that Dancer isn't suitable for larger projects, however; the same habit of staying out of your way means you can organise your project in the way that suits you.
However, it has picked up a lot of support, and there's a growing community of helpful users and developers on IRC and the mailing list, and more and more useful plugins being released all the time. As with Catalyst, Dancer is designed so that you can pick and choose your preferred template engine, session storage backend etc, and it's easy to extend the framework by writing your own plugins if you need to.
For user testimonials to see what people say about Dancer, see the section at the bottom of the homepage on the new website: http://www.perldancer.org/
In the interests of showing other options, there's also Mojolicious, another modern Perl web framework which has been gaining in popularity lately.
Catalyst provides the same abstraction that Dancer does, Dancer's strength or rather Catalyst's weakness or rather Dancer's weakness is in how Catalyst forces the developer to adhere to Perl OO best practices and the MVC design pattern. After doing webapps for a while, this will all become apparent.
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Closed 11 years ago.
Can someone give me some insight on a scenario like this.
Say a company has en existing Joomla site, not complete but just has all the modules, plug-ins, and components installed that they believe they will need.
If someone new where to come in and given the general idea of what the site needs to do, and by accomplishing this they need to make sure all plug-ins share data between each other update information between each other when ever one module is updated. As well as fixing and modifying the template to take shape and form of how they envision the site to be interacted with.
Would jumping into this project be more trouble than its worth? Would creating something from the ground up using custom developed pages rather than using Joomla as a back-end/front-end be too much of a hassle.
Also given that the existing installation has 301 tables to sot through.
Joomla is more than just a CMS, it is also a pretty solid "Development Framework". Modifying existing software will be faster rather than developing from scratch, especially if it is that big.
Read more about Software Development Process, it will help you with your evaluation. As far as I remember development cost is 2x less $ than maintenance in first 5 years.
Starting from the ground up can be not such a good idea for a large project. Working with another framework will result in "reinventing the wheel" and introduce new problems and will require more time for user acceptance.
I know too little to point you in the right direction... 1st of all Joomla is terrific choice, object oriented, it is extensive and very powerful. MVC architecture is huge plus. Plug-in system is easy and extensive. Modules are easy and customizable.
I suggest using Zend Framework if you want to "reinvent the wheel". ZF is exceptional choice but your cost will be MUCH higher. You will have all similar functionality and features like in Joomla: OO, MVC, singletons, layouts, placeholders, modules (components), plug-ins, etc... Comparing ZF to Joomla's "Development Framework" is like comparing Ferrari to Honda Civic.
Long story short: I would try to stick with Joomla and create my library extending Joomla's classes... this will help automating a lot of things (reduce code, etc...). If I was to give a quote to the client I would try to see what they want/their experiences with existing project (check with their IT department, etc). If experience was horrible from day 1 and it was because of software and not hosting/db/hardware/network/etc then I would give 2 quotes: 1st for recreating in Joomla, 2nd for recreating in Zend... and explain strength/weaknesses of both. If software behaved 'OK', with minor to medium problems/bugs/errors I would reuse existing project.
Hope this helps...
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Closed 10 years ago.
On my first job interview, I was asked why did I build my own CMS? Why not to use one of existing CMS, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal...? At first, I was stunned. I couldn't immediately recall all of my reasons for building my own CMS, but this was definitely one of the main reasons: It's my code and if I want to change something in that CMS (which I often have to do, because each website I build needs CMS with different functions) it's not a big problem. For some time I've been using Wordpress and one of the main things that distracted me from using it was discovering bugs in code that wasn't written by me and this bugs were often, especially if I made some changes to CMS or added a plugin...
Here, I can find these 8 reasons why NOT to build own CMS:
It won’t meet users’ needs
It’s too much work
It won’t be a standard solution
It won’t be extendible fast enough
It won’t be tested well enough
It won’t be easily changeable
It won’t add any value
Create content, not functionality
Quote from the same page:
So the main question to ask yourself
is: ‘Why am I really trying to
re-solve a problem that has already
been solved before?’
Well, I definitely agree that it's hard to invent CMS that hasn't been already invented, but on other hand, I think every CMS is (or should be) individual... it maybe won't have a million of functions, it will have 3 functions but their usage will be clear (to a user) and do all that one site needs to have. I think also that it is not good to give to a client a CMS with a lot of functions that are never used and it looks probably more professional when website and CMS together look like one product.
I would also like to comment some quote parts:
"It’s too much work" - I agree, but when using existing CMS and customizing it to website needs and can sometimes be very hard job or mission impossible.
"It won’t be easily changeable" - I disagree with this one.
What is your opinion on this one, why did you develop or didn't develop your own CMS?
Ile
This is an interesting question that applies to most development, not just when building a CMS.
In general, I would say that it's a bad idea to reinvent the wheel (and most of your 8 arguments are correct in most cases), but there are exceptions. The first one that comes to mind is one from Joel Spolsky, In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome:
If it's a core business function -- do
it yourself, no matter what.
The point is, if you're making your money directly from building content management systems, you should not take one from someone else and tweak it until it fits you. You'd rather be in full control over your own product.
Edit:
Also, don't forget that the urge to reinvent things stems (among other things) from a fundamental law of programming:
It's easier to write code than it is to read it
This does not mean that we should take the road that appears to be easier but it explains why we fall for it. Take the challenge and actually read some code, rather than write it, from time to time.
I would build a CMS because it can be fun and a great learning experience.
However, any open source CMS can be customized to any client's need. The biggest problem is that you have to understand how that CMS works in order to be able to change it well.
Either way you would be faced with quite a big task, but I must agree with those who say that you shouldn't start from scratch (unless you are doing it to learn some new technology) exactly for the reasons stated in your question... As they say, don't reinvent the wheel unless you want to learn about wheels.
I've found it works when the context of the project is larger than just a 'content site'. I've worked on a number of real estate sites where the bulk of the content is coming in from data feeds, or already existing in databases that have had their structure set up long before you were involved. Really, we only had a handful of BS 'content' pages that made up the site that were rarely updated. What they really needed was a simple interface to data entry. It was far easier to build some one off components than try and shoehorn an existing system on top of an out of the box CMS.
Like others mentioned though, you must consider overall requirements. Is there workflow involved? Dynamic navigation? Then I'd start leaning more towards out of the box CMS's, but many times people say they need a CMS, when they really just need a WYSIWIG interface to a database. But sometimes not...
It seems to me that the biggest reason NOT to build your own CMS (besides security issues) is lack of support and upgrade path. I consider it a disservice to clients to put them on a custom CMS and then have to rely on you only support and updates. Even worse is having them pay for the development of the custom CMS - they are paying you to reinvent the wheel no matter how simple the site requirements are.
There are plenty of CMS options out there that will allow you to add your own custom extensions if your requirements are beyond what is built in.
The best reason (possibly only) to build a custom CMS is to learn a language well. Building a CMS is a great way to learn web development, but it's not a great way to service your clients.
As a team leader that is always being pushed to do more with less, I too ask the question "why would you write your own?" There are more CMS packages out there than there are programming languages and I find it difficult to believe that you cannot find one that meets most (if not all) customer, business and cost requirements.
If you find that code changes are needed, opt for an open source solution, make your changes and share as needed or desired.
I do know that many times a CMS systems is NOT what is needed. Many customers need a Content Editing System. What I mean is that someone technical puts a site in place and the customer adds/edits/removes pages. The pages are already well designed and formatted. In these cases, I can see where it may be quicker to design & implement something from scratch rather than chopping down a CMS with access rights or removing/hiding functionality.
Unless you're building one for the experience, there's only one real reason for building your own: It's cheaper and/or easier than using one on the market that meets your requirements.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I'm about to start a project for a customer who wants CMS-like functionality. They want users to be able to log in, modify a profile, and a basic forum. They also wish to be able to submit things to a front page.
Is there a framework or barebones CMS that I could expand on or tailor to my needs? I don't need anything as feature-rich or fancy as Drupal or Joomla. I would actually prefer a framework as opposed to a pre-packaged CMS.
I am confident I could code all this from scratch, but would prefer not to, as something like a framework would significantly cut down on my time spent coding, and more on design and layout.
Edit: I should have been more specific. I'm looking for a Content Management System that will be run on a Debian server. So no .net preferably.
I think i may end up going with Drupal, and only adding modules that I need. Turbogears looks a bit daunting, and i'm still not quite sure what it does after it's 20 minute intro video...
TinyCMS doesn't look like it's been touched since... 2000?!?
I think the best is CMS Made Simple. Seems like drupal takes awhile to customize.
http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/
tinyCMS is about as barebones as you can get. (edit: fixed link, I had gotten a little click happy and linked to the wrong thing)
#modesty, I would definitely NOT use SharePoint, as it is anything but barebones. It is a fairly expensive product (especially when compared to the many free alternatives), and it has quite the learning curve to do anything interesting.
Woo, another Debian nut!
I think you need to be a bit more specific here, Forum != CMS. Is this for internal company or external customer use? What language(s) do you know/prefer? There's no point in recommending a Perl or PHP framework if your language of choice is Ruby. Do you need to plan for scalability?
What's wrong with Joomla or Drupal? I would argue that they can be successfully used on small sites. Maybe a framework isn't what you're looking for, maybe you just need a library or two (eg. PEAR?). If you need something smaller, maybe writing your own backend library that you can reuse for future projects would be a better solution.
For a one-size-fits-all framework have a look at Turbogears. ("it's a big hammer, that makes every problem look like a nail")
I've been obsessing over TikiWiki lately. Although it has "wiki" in the name, its full name is "TikiWiki CMS/Groupware" and it's an interesting piece of software. It has a real everything and the kitchen sink feel. It includes support for wiki, blogs, articles, forums, and files out of the box (and a ton of other stuff too). I think the real appeal to me is that most of the stuff can all be integrated together, wiki pages can include other wiki pages and articles (which is more useful than you might think). It's in RC stage for release 2.0 and is still missing a ton of features, but I think I might keep using it and contribute some of the features that are missing, it's a really interesting base right now.
The Mozilla support site is implemented using TikiWiki, for an example of a really beautiful implementation.
Drupal's include system should keep everything relatively lightweight as long as you only include what you need. Despite the fact that it comes with a smattering of modules, what you choose to enable is all that will be included at runtime. If you have to get under the hood and make modifications, I'm also a firm believer that Drupal is a more friendly and elegant system than Joomla. We use Drupal at my work-as much as a framework as a CMS-and it has proven pretty reliable in keeping development practices at a high level.
I realize I'm a couple years late to the party but I was looking for something like this myself and ran across this post while doing Google searches for 'barebones cms'. Along with this post, this turns up:
http://barebonescms.com/
There is also a forum on that site.
A similar combination could probably meet or exceed all of your criteria. Although, as others pointed out, you weren't particularly specific on the details.
While the original author is probably long gone, hopefully someone else finds this useful.
I would suggest PmWiki, it's something between a framework/wiki. By default there aren't even users, just different passwords, for different tasks, but using PmWiki Cookbook 'recipes' You can add additional functionality.
You can check their philosophy to get main idea what it's about.
If you want a Rails solution, Radiant CMS is a good option. It's simple, elegant, extensible and, of course, comes with all of the benefits of being based on Ruby on Rails.
if you are looking .net you can take a look at umbraco, haven't done much with it (company i work for wanted much more functionality so went with something else) but it seemed lightweight.
Edit : if the customer wants a tiny CMS with a forum, I would still probably just go Drupal with phpBB or simple machines forum, almost positive they can share logins. Plus tomorrow the customer is going to want more and Drupal might save you some work there.
Might want to check out Drupal.
Here are the details of the technology stack that it uses.
I have never used it so I can't vouch for the quality etc but definitely worth a look.
how about you use drupal but scale down and code it according to your needs.
definitely will be faster than code-from-scratch-with-framework
I have been working with Joomla for some time and I believe it one of the best CMS for starting off a Website. I have tried others a lot, But Joomla is better because it has Numerous Extentions (Components , Modules) and also its very Easy to Customize. You could also look at the Community Builder Extension for joomla.Other requirement like Chnage Fronpage Articles etc is a Breeze....
joomla.org
For some reason Joomla Does not Suit you try Drupal.
Wordpress is a very powerful but simple CMS.
bbPress is a very simple but integrated forum (easy, Wordpress user account integration with cookies and all).
Since you have programming experience you may find Wordpress to be the perfect match (PHP, MySQL) with plenty of plugins and hooks to help you achieve what you need. For example, there is a featured posts plugin that will put selected content on the front page.
I need to jump on the Umbraco bandwagon here. As far as ease of use from a developer standpoint goes, there is nothing easier than umbraco and v. 4 has full master page support and a tone of other stuff... and it's free.
For windows take a look at the DotNetNuke is asp.net based, free and open source and easily skinned and modified, there is also a thriving market in add-on modules. In addition most hosting companies offer it as a pre-installed application
Expression Engine is fantastic. It's free to download and try but you must purchase a license if you are making a profit with it.
WordPress actually has a forum plugin - it's nothing fancy but it's there. It handles user management et al and has a big community for plugins and themes. I think it is probably the easiest CMS to install & run (I've done some legwork here). There are plugins that update the core & plugins automatically (take that Drupal). I've tested these and they seem pretty solid. As usual - backup beforehand.
For .NET MojoPortal looks pretty good and is lighter than DNN. I saw the edit but thought I'd include this anyway since it looks like it's worth checking out.
Drupal is a language unto its own - I wouldn't tackle it unless you're going to do so with some regularity, otherwise it's just another different framework to learn. The uplink into my brain is at capacity already so I gently pushed it aside. The themes tend to look the same too.
Joomla may suit your users for usability.
I'd go for a pre-made framework myself because it would have a community and expansion capacity. What your client wants today will pale into insignificance tomorrow.