The not so big CMS thread

Kosmo

I was thinking of making a dynamic community run site that would be powered by RoR and Vanilla, it was just a thought, since I don't have any idea what a site with that description would have :D But just believe me on this, Django will definedly help you slap together a site with news system, blog, flat pages, and admin (flat pages and admin are rolled in to Django which is extra) and all with commenting system in a day, yes I said it, in a day, I know it is doable since I did it. The fronend doesn't look so nice since it was just slapped together, but another day for making the template, graphics and css (but that would take it's own day anyway, regardless of the framework). In a week.. boy, you can do what ever you want, no limit (expect your knowledge on python perhaps) but the beauty is that you write your database models and all in intuitive syntax, get ready made admin for it (customize if you want but it's pretty damn awesome already) and then you whip together the views/templates and you are done.

Bergamot

How hard is it to tie together a PHP-based page with a Ruby or Python page? Especially in the area of sessions.

Kosmo

I guess it would boil down to hooks, how much integration you want and if there is a data that should go both ways. But with my understanding, it shouldn't be THAT hard, if there just is a good API.

Kosmo

3Stripe, have you tried out django yet?

3stripe

No I've not - think it's a bit beyond me - still bashing away with Wordpress at the moment...

lech

Aye, I am just finishing cranking out a second, and more thorough "template" for WP (if you can even !@#$ing call it that) for my needs, the process makes me wish to stab people.

Kosmo

Do me a favor and try it out, I guarantee that you'll see the power of it instantly. It's like a blogging engine with incredible flexibility that is dare I say .. easier to use than Textpattern in it's simplest form (generic views) but still has the power to be anything you ever want it to be. If I had to do a quickie project I wouldn't peek at any ready made engines but roll my own with Django, you can do a simple News/Article app in few seaconds (even commenting is built in) and rest will be handled by flatpages (that are built in, with comments if you dare).

Minisweeper

Care to make me a very small cms for a mates site then kosmo? :P

Kosmo

Maybe :) Depends what he needs and if I have the time.

Minisweeper

Literally all it needs is the ability to upload pictures/videos and add them into a post. Guestbook and News thing could be handy too (though news could just be a post without videos). It's to replace this. I was trying to set it up in wordpress but i've never used it before, cant find a particularly great video uploading addon, and i keep getting major sidetracked.

Kosmo

I have to find out if the FileField is a good solution for a video but there is a ready built ImageField with validation etc. Whipping that up with WP wouldn't be so optimal, TXP would be much better because it has file and image uploading "tools" the Guestbook isn't my foray, I would change it to Vanilla ;) btw. where is the site hosted? Is there a possibility to run Django?

3stripe

I'm starting to find Wordpress really easy to use recently - the learning curve was steep for a dufus designer like me - but after a year of using it, most of it is pretty simple to understand/hack/extend. That said, I'd still love to see a really simple to use CMS that was equally extendable and had a nicely styled admin panel. I still reckon Swell could do the job later in the year, with a static-page extension of some kind? I'm sure the admin side of it looks nice as well.

Minisweeper

By guestbook i just mean a shoutbox type thing. I could ask him about putting vanilla on there but i think he just wants people to type their name and a comment.

I didnt look at txp to be honest. It's hosted on my cpanel server, what requirements does django have?

And yeah, i can see how once you're used to wordpress it's a decent enough piece of software, but while i've understood bits of it i'm not really tempted to put a lot of time into learning the ins and outs of it since i probably wont use it again in the near future.

Kosmo

The setup for Django is where things get tricky, and is the main problem with me using it on our sites right now. It requires Apache with mod_python and some configuration, but it's not a problem if you have used Linux and have shell access. I was going to write a example here, but I ran out of time when I had to leave work. But basically it was an example where I write a complete News publishing system and the template in about 20 lines of simple code, and extend it to have events and such with mere 10~ lines. RoR being my main platform these days, it makes me sad to see how insanely easy Django is when creating web pages compared to RoR, you don't have to figure out your Admin side authorization and security or validation etc. Tho I leeched the subversion of Radiant and took a gander and it could be used as such in some sense, it has alot of the grunt work done and if you know RoR you can extend it to hell and back without breaking a sweat. The main problem is that generated code vs. hacked program? I'd take the general use code any time over someone elses hacked prog. I used a good year or so just going through alot of CMS systems, back when the new site was just under the drawing board. And while I found alot of CMS systems sufficient in capabilities, I often found them bloated and hard to modify (it may be the lack of my PHP skills) but Django brings screaming fast developing in to the fingertips of an average designer (I'm not a coder by any means). So IF you are a designer and need to open that third eye a bit, just try out Django. You may want to read http://www.wilsonminer.com/posts/2006/may/10/are-you-generic/ http://www2.jeffcroft.com/2006/may/02/django-non-programmers/ and http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/tutorial1/ As a designer I was always prisoned by someone elses programs that I had to make work with what I got, and it frustrated me, and don't let languages like Ruby or Python scare you away, they are basically scripting/small programming languages, but extremely powerful and modern, Ruby is an excellent place to start if you don't know jack about programming because Ruby is truely object oriented and it is easy as hell (and I have learned visual basic for crying out loud).

3stripe

"open that third eye a bit" rofl - that's the name of the company i work for - third eye design. thanks for all the info kos.

Minisweeper

As an immature teenager i could think of hilarious references to phrases containing the words 'third eye' you know...

3stripe

Go ahead, heard them all before. We also have a running joke about never opening an office anywhere in Ireland. Anything that helps a designer to build things really really appeals to me, def going to have a shot at this Django nonsense when I find a spare minute. Think I need to set up a localised mysql install and stuff on my Mac first though... (?)

lech

If I have to use another "plugin" to fill the gap for a feature that should have been originally shipped with WP, I think I'm gonna chokeslam someone. Note to mark, screw the template tags, bring on the swell!

Kosmo

lech, truer words were never spoken by a madman before. But I would also be hyped by the coming of swell, it would be so swank. I hear that django setup on a mac is rather easy, and it was easy on the linux, but it was the most difficult thing I have ever done on a windows machine and it still doesn't work right. One thing where RoR takes the points home, extremely easy to setup on any platform and documentation is second to none. If you have visited iisi.fi, one of the pages I admin, I made a django backend for it with tools to simply update everything so that a monkey could do it, and all it took was about four hours and about 40 lines of code, the flatpages were done for me and most of the apps I wrote use generic views. Sadly it's not operational because our host is a poopie head and won't give me shell access that is crucial to run django.

tmcw

Drupal if you have user interaction, Textpattern if you don't. Fear anything that's an offshoot of Mambo or *Nuke - they try to be everything to everyone and fail. Lucid was promising, but abandoned it isn't doing much good.