[webdev] Re: Other Content Management Systems (CMS)

[Tom Hull <thull2@xxxxxxx>]

One thing that would be helpful would be to publish a list of the software
that you've installed. E.g., the theme that you're using is not one of
those built into PostNuke .714. The MenuEditor mentioned below is not a
built-in module. I don't know what else I'm missing here, but without a
list we're not on the same page.

Also helpful would be at least a crib sheet on how to install. You don't
need to duplicate info that is easily available (e.g., INSTALL.txt in
the PostNuke .714 tarball) unless it isn't clear. The goal here would
be to make it possible for other people to duplicate what you're doing.
For instance, this might include setting apache up to run the code as
a virtual server. For example, in my /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file I
added:

   <VirtualHost 192.9.201.71>
   ServerName nuke.kinich.com
   DocumentRoot /home/www/nuke/pn_714/html
   <Directory />
       AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
       Options Indexes
   </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>

Given this, I could then cd /home/www/nuke; tar zxvf the tarball; then
connect with the web browser and run install.php; when done I'd cd
/home/www/nuke/pn_714/html; mv install.php install ../

The other big question has to do with layout control and the interaction
between layout and themability. On the openacs-based system, there is
basically one layout for the main site, a second layout for the admin
pages, and no layout policy for user pages (i.e., if a user has a home
page hosted on the site, it can be layed out anyway that the user likes).
As I understand it with PostNuke, the main/admin pages have the same
layout, that layout is themable and users can select from a number of
theme options (I have five in my simple installation), and I don't know
what happens to user pages or whether they're even really supported.
I'm not sure that themability of the site pages is really a feature
(other than that it gives the designer a much richer choice of start
points); I am sure that maintaining themability for user choices both
restricts the design options and makes them much more complex.

Dale W Hodge wrote:
> 
>>Dale W Hodge wrote:
>>
>>>Okay, proof of concept.  Log into http://aclug.neuralmatrix.org  I
>>>just spent 30 minutes and set up a new site. If you want admin access,
 >>>just email me and I'll set you up an account.
>>
>>I tried to set up a user account, but it didn't return mail to me. Lots of
>>things are inaccessible without an account.
> 
> I'll do some checking to see what's wrong.  I literally spent less than an 
> hour
> setting up what you see.  I didn't check all the modules to see if they 
> worked.

The whole thing depends on a fully functional mail system. That was a
big problem for me locally, since I've never configured sendmail and
it doesn't handle domain names. PostNuke itself rejects mail addresses
without domain names (even when configured as an Intranet server -- IMHO,
this is a bug).

>>Some minor quibbles:
>>
>>  * I never found a way to edit the Modules menu. "Recommend Us" is pretty
>>    useless; I don't know what "AvantGo" means; in all cases the concept of
>>    Modules is uninteresting to mere users.
> 
> There's a couple of ways, the easiest is to load the module "MenuEdit", which
> gives you a nice editor.  AvantGo lets you format your content so it can be
> synced to a palmtop device.  Probably not useful and easy to turn off.
> 
>>  * The "Who's Online" block is also dead weight. This isn't IRC. In fact the
>>    notion of being online using a stateless protocol is rather silly.
> 
> True, but it does let you see that someone else is using the site, that it's 
> not
> 'dead'.

A simplified stats display would be better: something like "We've served #X
pages to #Y IP addresses in the last #Z days.

-- 
/*
  *  Tom Hull * thull2 at cox.net * http://www.tomhull.com/
  */