Forum Moderators: mack
[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 5:12 pm (utc) on April 2, 2004]
[edit reason] Linked URL [/edit]
Here's some documentation from Mambo, one of the leading open source cms programs:
[mamboserver.com...]
I assume you find MT quite flexible, eh? Any like and/or dislikes in your experiece with MT and it's learning curve that you would like to share would be appreciated. Thanks!
MT is quite flexible, but you have a learning curve like anything else. There are tons of add-ons that will make it do just about anything you need. They have a great community that helps out with all your newbie questions.
The downside for some might be the licensing fee for commercial use. I was initially a bit flustered that MT wouldn't do everything I wanted right out of the box, but once you get used to using add-ons and modifying the system to the way you want to use it, then it's pretty smooth sailing.
How long ago did you look at Mambo?
They also seem to have a great community of developers doing add-ons, including one that enhances the SEF (search engine friendly) URL's that are already built into the current version (snipped) and a developer who is now part of the core team who is working on a completely CSS and XHTML compliant out of the box—coming soon... ;) [xmambo.electricjet.com...]
I'm starting to think that dynamic pages with search engine friendly URLs may be better for our purposes than publishing static pages...
Mostly, I've been encouraged by the (reported in reviews) ease of use and seemingly more content oriented templates (snipped). Although I know MT can be flexible, it seems oriented toward the blog style. Do you agree?
[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 5:23 pm (utc) on April 2, 2004]
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For the projects I'm using MT with there wasn't a real need for dynamic pages. It depends on what you need whether it would be appropriate for you.
Yes, MT is blog oriented. However, you can turn off all the blog functions completely and produce a completely static site if you want.
For one company site I'm working on I put all the product info, company info, and other pages into individual posts on their own pages in their own respective categories. These pages hardly ever change. I leave the News page a bit blog-ish...then anybody can use the MT interface to update news events. New updates show up on the home page, and of course populate the news section. For these types of sites MT just seemed a lot more reasonable than the other options.
According to the xMambo site, that main developer is now part of the core Mambo development team.
In any case, dynamic pages would serve us better for what we've up to. Worthy of at least some testing. Perhaps we'll connect at another time when I know more of what I'm talking about. ;)
Meanwhile, your input is much appreciated and I know that MT is a highly respected piece of software. Quite a challenge really to wrap one's brain around all this. I'm also a little intimidated by the learning curve that you mentioned in your first post.
All the best,
Jon
Mambo is awesome, its new, its up and coming, the community is dedicated, its dev team is great, the next version is xhtml valid, tons of modules...
I use mambo for my sites... but if I was going to make a smaller site, MT would work better.,
See [movabletype.org...]
As they describe it: "Movable Type is Six Apart's powerful, customizable publishing system which installs on web servers to enable individuals or organizations to manage and update weblogs, journals, and frequently-updated website content."
A CMS that produces XHTML valid output seems like a rather rare beast. Mambo looks really great, save for the deal breaker: it requires site maintainers to use Internet Explorer on Windows. Ack! mine are all running Macs!
Not to mention the irony of OSS developers requiring their users work with IE on Windows... :-/
Can anyone suggest something solid? Anyone know if Mambo is moving away from IE towards standards based browsers?
It's at the top of the list of the Google category:
Computers > Software > Internet > Site Management > Content Management > Open Source
From my limited view of it, I'm guessing it just has higher PR from all the international support. I heard of it from someone using it at the Univ. of California. It's built using Python which is an open source programming language I've also heard good things about.
jleland said:
It's hard to evaluate these CMS packages without actually using them.
If you go to www dot objectis dot org, You can actually create a Zope site for free as long as it's non-profit.
From my limited view of it so far it's very easy to create pages, folders, meta content etc., and it has all kinds of plugins like events calendars, polls, blogs, etc.
I haven't gotten to the point where I can tell if there's a way to resolve the pages to .htm or whether it's free to use commercially.
Anyone ever used Zope?
Using it is a breeze, and there are so many things on it. I'm really pleased with it.
The website is snipped and the place I had install it for me is snipped. Mambo itself is free, but I paid for the install because I think it's worth it.... I've screwed up more than one install in my lifetime.
HTH!
- Dave O.
[Note: Edited to remove the price I put in here.... don't want to look like I'm advertising. Sorry!]
[edited by: obryen at 9:45 pm (utc) on Mar. 31, 2004]
[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 5:27 pm (utc) on April 2, 2004]
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Daniel, I don't think that's entirely correct because I use Red Hat Enterprise and the guy who installed it for me uses Mandrake.
thanks for the heads up on the browser compatibility issue. I use Macs too but also Windows machines, and we expect to have Mambo up shortly (I'm also paying a programmer to do the install).
also, I'm not sure, but I think Zope is more of a platform or language like ColdFusion or PHP rather than a "pre-configured" CMS (if that's the right term) as I understand Mambo to be, but I'm not sure about that. Sorry to be vague.
I think Zope is more of a platform or language like ColdFusion or PHP rather than a "pre-configured" CMS
I think using Plone on Zope essentially makes it like a pre-configured CMS.
Now if only saying "specializing in Zope/Plone" could sound less freaky sci-fi like - specializing in Zardoz Beezlegrok... ;)
The only seemingly constant problem is security... one gets tired of patching 'sql injection' problems and such. And when there are many people developing modules and add-ons and such, there is even more chance for security problems.
an alternative that ive heard good things about is "plone"
