From wpiencia at thunderdome.ieee.org Thu Feb 9 14:50:53 2006 From: wpiencia at thunderdome.ieee.org (Walter Pienciak) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 15:50:53 -0700 Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes Message-ID: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> Hi, (blowing the dust off) Greetings to my Perlishly inclined friends and acquaintances. It looks like we have another blast of winter coming tonight, but while anticipating its arrival, I thought I'd ask for opinions on different CMSes you might have experience with. That is, web content management systems. What I'd especially be interested in would be what specific features or functions that you really like (or despise enough to have kicked something into the corner heap of discarded gadgetry). Walter From davek at saturn5.com Thu Feb 9 22:42:59 2006 From: davek at saturn5.com (David Nicholas Kayal) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 22:42:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: Have you heard of the called Interchange? http://www.icdevgroup.org/ On Thu, 9 Feb 2006, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Hi, > > (blowing the dust off) > > Greetings to my Perlishly inclined friends and acquaintances. > It looks like we have another blast of winter coming tonight, but > while anticipating its arrival, I thought I'd ask for opinions on > different CMSes you might have experience with. That is, web > content management systems. > > What I'd especially be interested in would be what specific > features or functions that you really like (or despise enough to > have kicked something into the corner heap of discarded > gadgetry). > > Walter > _______________________________________________ > Boulder-pm mailing list > Boulder-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boulder-pm > From wpiencia at thunderdome.ieee.org Fri Feb 10 07:16:49 2006 From: wpiencia at thunderdome.ieee.org (Walter Pienciak) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:16:49 -0700 Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 10:42:59PM -0800, David Nicholas Kayal wrote: > Have you heard of the called Interchange? > > http://www.icdevgroup.org/ No, I hadn't; thanks. Last night's e-mail was deliberately vague; in retrospect, too vague. So here's a long and rambling version: I have some responsibilities related to a web host that supports a multitude of groups that are diverse in background and goals. Their areas are maintained how they want, when they want, with the style and functionality they want -- each group does its own thing. For lots of reasons, most of them good ones, a "CMS" will be going up on that site for groups to use. "CMS" means a lot of things to different folks. To some, it's an acronym for solutions that provide simple templating for consistent look and feel and easy administration. To others, it's a whole templating/portal/community functionality thing. I expect to be throwing multiple tools onto the system for various groups to play with and use. So . . . this is a fricking HUUUUUGE application space we're talking about. Why an e-mail to you? Well, the common language in my group is Perl. If the killer app is in another language, we can go that way, but Perl is the default preference. Most of us have gone down a common road: We write a web app that displays some web pages via simple print statements and explicit HTML embedded in the code. Pretty soon, abstractions and common sense lead to simple templating tools (Text::Template, whatever). Maybe we write one of the zillion templating systems out there, with version control and other nifty and useful doodads. (I have one of those myself.) If we work for a big company who can throw resources, maybe we got involved with bigger efforts: amazon.com runs mason/mod_perl, I think; classmates.com, something based on Text::Forge, etc. etc. And then there are worthy applications out there: bricolage, axkit, plone, krang, opencms, drupal, and on and ON. And websites that list them (along with unworthy apps.) And there are the toolkits with *all kinds* of complexity and approach -- e.g., Template::Toolkit, HTML::Mason, bOP (Hi, Rob). Hence my e-mail. If you're using something that you really like, I would like to hear that. If you used somethat turned out to be a bad fit, I'd be interested in hearing why. Basically, if you have *any* relevant experience you'd like to share, I'd be interested in hearing it. And I assumed that because we have this mailing list, it would be interesting to a lot of people, if only to file in your "when I get to that" file. Plus the list has been (cough) quiet, and I'd like to change that. Anyway, happy Friday. Walter From davek at saturn5.com Fri Feb 10 07:39:06 2006 From: davek at saturn5.com (David Nicholas Kayal) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:39:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: I wrote a content management system in perl for a low hit count site. Basically the system was content stored in a database and then using template cgi's to display that data. The database was mySql. It was all cgi based, worked fine for the low hit count site. Interchange is a server program written in perl that is rather advanced in its capabilities. Geared more for commerce, it has features like shopping carts and such It uses PostGres as its database. On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Walter Pienciak wrote: > On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 10:42:59PM -0800, David Nicholas Kayal wrote: >> Have you heard of the called Interchange? >> >> http://www.icdevgroup.org/ > > No, I hadn't; thanks. > > Last night's e-mail was deliberately vague; in retrospect, too > vague. > > So here's a long and rambling version: > > I have some responsibilities related to a web host that supports > a multitude of groups that are diverse in background and goals. > Their areas are maintained how they want, when they want, with > the style and functionality they want -- each group does its own > thing. > > For lots of reasons, most of them good ones, a "CMS" will be > going up on that site for groups to use. "CMS" means a lot of > things to different folks. To some, it's an acronym for > solutions that provide simple templating for consistent look and > feel and easy administration. To others, it's a whole > templating/portal/community functionality thing. I expect to > be throwing multiple tools onto the system for various groups to > play with and use. > > So . . . this is a fricking HUUUUUGE application space we're > talking about. Why an e-mail to you? > > Well, the common language in my group is Perl. If the killer app > is in another language, we can go that way, but Perl is the > default preference. > > Most of us have gone down a common road: We write a web app that > displays some web pages via simple print statements and explicit > HTML embedded in the code. Pretty soon, abstractions and common > sense lead to simple templating tools (Text::Template, whatever). > Maybe we write one of the zillion templating systems out there, > with version control and other nifty and useful doodads. (I have > one of those myself.) > > If we work for a big company who can throw resources, maybe we > got involved with bigger efforts: amazon.com runs mason/mod_perl, > I think; classmates.com, something based on Text::Forge, etc. > etc. > > And then there are worthy applications out there: bricolage, > axkit, plone, krang, opencms, drupal, and on and ON. And > websites that list them (along with unworthy apps.) And there > are the toolkits with *all kinds* of complexity and approach -- > e.g., Template::Toolkit, HTML::Mason, bOP (Hi, Rob). > > Hence my e-mail. If you're using something that you really like, > I would like to hear that. If you used somethat turned out to be > a bad fit, I'd be interested in hearing why. Basically, if you > have *any* relevant experience you'd like to share, I'd be > interested in hearing it. And I assumed that because we have > this mailing list, it would be interesting to a lot of people, if > only to file in your "when I get to that" file. > > Plus the list has been (cough) quiet, and I'd like to change > that. > > Anyway, happy Friday. > > Walter > _______________________________________________ > Boulder-pm mailing list > Boulder-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boulder-pm > From charlesa at pobox.com Fri Feb 10 08:27:26 2006 From: charlesa at pobox.com (Charles Albrecht) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:27:26 -0800 Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: At 3:50 PM -0700 2/9/06, Walter Pienciak wrote: > >while anticipating its arrival, I thought I'd ask for opinions on >different CMSes you might have experience with. That is, web >content management systems. Mostly, I like Bricolage. Probably because I'm biased toward Mason and PostgreSQL. Its requirements are a bit heavy, though, and it definitely imposes its own idea of the ideal workflow that may cause some to bristle. On the far other end of the spectrum, I toss in Kwiki with markdown support. -Charles charlesa at pobox.com From nagler at bivio.biz Fri Feb 10 09:25:36 2006 From: nagler at bivio.biz (Rob Nagler) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 10:25:36 -0700 Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: <17388.52368.604027.77693@ski.local> Walter Pienciak writes: > So . . . this is a fricking HUUUUUGE application space we're > talking about. As you know, I would pick one group that you know you can work with, and get them to use something. Here are two recent examples: BVSDWatch.org just launched, and uses Mambo. I spoke to the guy who put it together, and it's really quite impressive what you can in a short time. Mambo is PHP, which has its downsides. OpenBVSD.org uses bOP, which is Perl. It doesn't look nearly as good as BVSDWatch.org. OTOH, it was easy (through EasyForm) for us to create some pages that do something whereas BVSDWatch.org couldn't create a petition, for example. I'm personally moving rapidly away from Web-based content management systems. I don't think the Web is a very good at building GUIs, and every site has a different UI. (AJAX is just making this worse imiho.) Yes, you can do it, but it is more work, than, say using DreamWeaver or Word to create a site for the end-user. Native interactivity goes away, and you aim for the lowest common denominator, rather than the best tool for the particular CMS task. We are building a CMS into bOP, but it is very low-tech. The interface is WebDAV, which integrates with most Web site development software. Versioning will be dead simple: store all the previous versions, and allow people to drag-n-drop them via WebDAV. If people want to "diff" them, they'll use native tools, e.g. Track Changes in Word. One of the reasons we added EasyForm to bOP was to allow ordinary folks the ability to create forms. The output is stored in CSV format along with additional fields like remote IP, user email, and date/time. They can add whatever fields they like at any time. This allowed us to get the blade.org contact form going very quickly. It's all editable via WebDAV, and you can see who the contacts are via WebDAV, and see if you have any errors in your forms via WebDAV. The next major item in this work is to create an RSS feed for "recent items" so that when, say, a new mail item comes in or a new calendar entry, you get to see it come up in a list. We already have and RSS feed for the Calendars, and we use Sunbird to edit them with their nice shared calendar feature. We have plans to interface the mail system via HTTPMail, which allows people with Outlook and Thunderbird to read the mail archives any forum natively including searching, sorting, etc. People won't have to change contexts to read their mail from our forums, and more importantly, they won't have to write a filter to put all their mail coming from forum X into folder X. They probably won't even have to subscribe, just click on the Forum folder and it's there when you want to read it. This will probably reduce the load on our servers, because not everybody reads every message, and when people go away, they won't send vacation mail to everybody. ;-) In summary, I think most CMSes are ill-suited, because they try to solve every content creation problem *again*, when in reality, there are perfectly good solutions already out there that people are used. With our approach, we avoid the religious wars of what is good and what is bad. If people want to use vi to create their forum's website, more power to them! My $.02, since you asked. :-) Rob From paul_m_thompson at yahoo.com Sat Feb 11 06:44:18 2006 From: paul_m_thompson at yahoo.com (Paul Thompson) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:44:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> Message-ID: <20060211144418.68975.qmail@web51701.mail.yahoo.com> --- Walter Pienciak wrote: > Hi, > > (blowing the dust off) > > Greetings to my Perlishly inclined friends and > acquaintances. > It looks like we have another blast of winter coming > tonight, but > while anticipating its arrival, I thought I'd ask > for opinions on > different CMSes you might have experience with. > That is, web > content management systems. My favorite site for CMSs: http://opensourcecms.com/ Granted, their requirements don't necessarily align with your desired environment - they're php & mySql, but having done web apps in both, FWIW I must say I prefer php for that (heretic!). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aviggio at bivio.biz Sat Feb 11 17:02:23 2006 From: aviggio at bivio.biz (Alex Viggio) Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:02:23 -0700 Subject: [Boulder.pm] Perl-based CMSes In-Reply-To: <17388.52368.604027.77693@ski.local> References: <20060209225053.GE1289@thunderdome.ieee.org> <20060210151649.GA11716@thunderdome.ieee.org> <17388.52368.604027.77693@ski.local> Message-ID: <43EE891F.4070109@bivio.biz> Thanks for the snow Walter. My trees needed it. If you haven't ruled them out, I'd consider starting with a simple wiki. This might be the best place to start if your users/groups don't know what they want or there is wide variance. Consider the simplest Perl-based wiki that you can get away with to avoid "wiki gone wild" syndrome. As content and workflows take shape, decide if more functionality or structure is required. In addition to the bOP ideas and plans Rob discusses below, we are also adding basic wiki functionality (bWIKI?). A simple integration of bOP bWiki and EasyForm might suffice where support for workflow is not required. The Free Software Foundation site uses Plone (Zope/Python). Not sure if that is an endorsement or not... - Alex