We here at Simple Machines have created a forum. it has often been asked of us if one day we'd create a CMS to go with the forum and to date the answer has always been "We'll see".
The reason being that we are lacking on coders to get one done. Not talentwise but timewise - it's a large chunk of time investment.
As a result, I am in the hunt for portal developers out there to discuss possible future options...if you're a coder, or interested in coding a CMS I am asking you to PM me with your experience in coding PHP and what type of experience you have with SMF.
My apologies for asking this, but what exactly is an CMS?
No need to apologize....when thinking CMS think Mambo, phpNuke, postNuke, etc.
CMS = Content Management System
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system
so this would be the Simple Machines Content Management System, or SMCMS? Nice palindrome ;)
Quote from: Meriadoc on February 19, 2005, 04:19:18 PM
so this would be the Simple Machines Content Management System, or SMCMS? Nice palindrome ;)
LOL so it is.
Would it be based on SMf code or written seperate and linked or bridged with SMF?
:o I'm interested in using and helping make one!
That PM is on its way :P
Jeff,
Wouldn't it be nice if you first put down here some specifications (MoSCoW-list) you would like to have in the CMS,
Musthaves:- Single Sign-On
- Category based
- ....
Shouldhaves:
- WYSIWIG editing
- ...
Could haves:
- Plug Ins for externa content
Wish to have:
- Downloadable theme for the CMS
- ....
(Or let the community make this list for you)
A new name for this CMS? (or SMF? or SMCMS?)
as for me, Simplemachines CMS is excellent name :P
I like SMCMS :)
.err..sounds like a hickup that acronym... SimpleCMS or SimpleMachines CMS is better. :)
me too
anyway i'm clueless when it comes to developing, but i'd be happy to beta test it
I could live with SMCM maybe. Dunno, more than three letters in an acroynm tend to be hastle :P
SMS.. ;D or even SCM.. :)
Well, the name is not the *most* important thing...
we're like expectant parents naming the baby in the first week of pregnancy :P
Quote from: nave on February 20, 2005, 01:16:51 PM
we're like expectant parents naming the baby in the first week of pregnancy :P
LOL!
Quote from: nave on February 20, 2005, 01:16:51 PM
we're like expectant parents naming the baby in the first week of pregnancy :P
now you know how they feel
Quote from: CapriSkye on February 21, 2005, 12:31:24 AM
Quote from: nave on February 20, 2005, 01:16:51 PM
we're like expectant parents naming the baby in the first week of pregnancy :P
now you know how they feel
oh but i do, i have 4 children
Me too, 3 of them here... ;D
Quote from: nave on February 20, 2005, 01:16:51 PM
we're like expectant parents naming the baby in the first week of pregnancy :P
More like expecting parents before conception, heck before dating.
It's still a very early thing and may never come to fruition.
when i win the lottery, i'm going to buy..
yea, it is
I would definitely use a SMF CMS. Since IPB has gone paid only and IPB Nuke is tied to it and that is what I was using for one of my sites... well I am in the market for a new good forum software/cms combo.
The idea of an SMF core and addons, gives me a good feeling.
I would guess that with an SMCMF that less peeps would use Mambo, freeing support rescources for SMCMF development and support.
Quote from: Jeff Lewis on February 21, 2005, 11:41:09 AM
may never come to fruition.
Are you trying to provoke a riot of what?!?
There's a desperate need for just the sort of thing it could be... and it sounds like you've got a willing bunch of
victims guinea-pigs queuing up to try it... :)
Quote from: nokonium on February 21, 2005, 01:52:15 PM
The idea of an SMF core and addons, gives me a good feeling.
I would guess that with an SMCMF that less peeps would use Mambo, freeing support rescources for SMCMF development and support.
I concur... the SMF core is tight and robust... if Noko & me can't break it nobody can... we're a walking tag-team disaster!
There's the germ of something very useful in Bloc's mini-portal... might be a signpost for a good direction to explore?
That guy has figured simple and solid, both very valuable attributes in a 'production' environment, and deserves a good deal of credit for doing so. :)
I think a CMS would be nice, as long as it was only an option add on.
An online gamer like myself would love to see more incorporation for something like VWAR. They may even come on board and help with the CMS. They had stopped work on it last I checked and then today I went and it looks like they made a new website so they may be working on it again. There are lots of us gamers out there with lots of websites. Having a CMS with extras like team management and/or competition tracking would be a hugh hit and I could help with the word of mouth part ;) . Personally I like using everything like SSI and only wish a little more flexibility and some more stuff in the SSI. I know there are lots of ways to use SSI just need a manual and it be nice to have a small version of the calander to place on website through SSI. The shout board is great and I started using it on my website as soon as I realized it was in the SSI. One item that would be nice is an upload/download section. Really though, as i write this, to me it already is a great CMS but I'm sure others would like the themeing ( is that a word?) ability of a CMS though. So I would support it. ;D
The Simple Machines Content Management System
Looking great...
SMCMS would be great to have. It would be nice to have an CMS seamlessly integrated with the forum. I hope y'all can make it happen. 8)
It would be great if there was a Simple Machines CMS! :D
Knowing how great Simple Machines makes SMF, I am sure the CMS will share the same great quality the forums do. :)
Well if it's being compared to a relationship, it already needs viagra ::)
Wasn't there already a few people eager to start on it , Jeff..?
Quote from: Bloc on February 22, 2005, 05:05:49 PM
Wasn't there already a few people eager to start on it , Jeff..?
There is a large diffrence between interest and action....we'll see how things go I guess :)
I would like to help but uneless you are writing it in vb .net i can't help, lol, though i might start using it rather than MK if it intergrates beter as far as permissions and all that other good stuff. I wouldn't mind beta testing it for you guys eaither if you need some beta testers. aside from that i couldn't help unless you would have a diffrent doc writer for the CMS and SMF.
well this is a very good idea i really wanna help with this ican mkae the graphics, help with testing, help with find and solve the bugs,make idea's , or even lead the project and more e-mail me on
[email protected] as you need me.
This are some features i want too see.
*A build in package maneger and installer
*Template system
*Advertising management
*Statics
*verry good intergration with SMF
*and more
What about Smf Portal, or Smportal, or SMP?
SMP or SMCMS
what is the diffrence between these 2 ??? :-[
I like that idea to create so...
cos i ve searched all over the world for an great
CMS or PORTAL that could do the job
but i haven't found one jet and i know that mambo etc,
did a great job but not as i like it !!
;)
/me give all the coders some handshakes
a SMCMS?
YES PLEEEEASE! :D i'm waiting for it! *thumbsup*
how about a template system that shares with the SMF templates. So it just uses the same title bars and colors and such.
yes that is a verry good idea. we need the same as phpnuke has with phpbb. as that is too difficult too make can we also make new tmaplates with the same style for smf and the cms
Quote from: RyanB on February 23, 2005, 11:21:47 AM
aside from that i couldn't help unless you would have a diffrent doc writer for the CMS and SMF.
Been wondering what that meant since you posted it, so perhaps you'd like to explain?
i think he sayd that he can't help but as they need help he can be doc writer
yeah i like to help but don't know php well enoguh to be a developer, i suck at graphics, about all i could do is write documentaton for it, lol, and/or beta test it. :-\
btw i vote for SMP after all we are going for three letter abrivation right, like SMF?
yeah smp is the best name Simple Machines Portal it sounds great
Personally I wouldn't cry if it didn't have a name starting with "SM"...
-[Unknown]
What about if it starts with vB, IPB or phpBB :P
How about alienineCMS? I know I lack modesty, but I think it is a good idea.
wtf does alienineCMS mean ::) and i don't think i can say that lol alienineCMS that is a way too difficult name
Quote from: supreme-Web on February 26, 2005, 07:35:34 AM
wtf does alienineCMS mean ::) and i don't think i can say that lol alienineCMS that is a way too difficult name
It means, elegance, quality, and a hint of supernova-like glory, those who cannot speak it aren't worthy of its spoils.
sorry i was in a verry bad mood when i sayd that :-[ :-[ :-[ now i see it but still i like SMP more
No problem. I was of course only joking :)
Instead of building your own CMS, why not create interfaces for all of the other existing CMS's out there? Your forum software would become more popular than you could ever imagine.
Quote from: RickW on February 26, 2005, 10:34:45 PM
Instead of building your own CMS, why not create interfaces for all of the other existing CMS's out there? Your forum software would become more popular than you could ever imagine.
There are already some bridges, but generally these are an uphill battle, and make for difficulty in support...
Anyway, there are people on the team who are very interested in working on a CMS.... not on bridging with one.
-[Unknown]
like me i am verry intrested and i really wnat to help wit it. i think we shoulf make something like phpnuke not like mambo.
I liked the look of Jerrys little portal/type thing, it looked nice and simple. Didnt o0ver crownd you with junk, from what I understand it worked with themes and well although it was done with SSI maybe a admin panel and a bit more bulk to it, it would be rather nice.
Jerry's portal very professional. I like it...
And a suggestion for name: MidPortal :P
Some of you guys might be.
As a forum, is SMF good enough?
I don't think it is. So, another question is, could I believe the same team create a excellent CMS?
I couldn't.
Generally I agree with Jeff Lewis and RickW!
1. When thinking of CMS, please think Mambo, phpNuke, postNuke... in advance.
2. Instead of building your own CMS, why not make it together with some of the most popular CMS's out there? Your forum software would become more popular than you could ever imagine.
Here is an example:
AS a forum, SimpleBoard is indeed very very simple and in my opinion, actually, it is TRASH. But now in the Mambo world, it is popular!
I bridged SMF with Mambo, and made my website the most popular Mambo site in China. But then I found it's not a good way to get them together....just because it's just bridged. (BTW, I know nothing about php and mysql)
Chinese people like the speed and multilingual fuction of SMF. But before they decide to use is, I think SMF should be better. Cause vbb and phpbb are powerful and popluar.
On a first-come, first-served basis, there is still a long way for SMF...
Visit my website if you can read Chinese (it's a utf-8 website): www.mambo.cn
uh..so whats the point of saying SMF is not good enough in thread about a new product...?
You are all wrong in assuming SMF is worse than the big guys. Just because they cost money does not mean they are better, nor the fact that they are popular. If they go better with Mambo - so what? Its supposed to be a stand-alone forum, not a plugin in another software.
Sorry if this sounded harsh - I am just so tired of everyone complaining about SMF being the wrong and all the CMS's out there being "right".
Quote from: Bloc on February 27, 2005, 08:50:48 AM
Sorry if this sounded harsh - I am just so tired of everyone complaining about SMF being the wrong and all the CMS's out there being "right".
I agree with that last statement, I feel SMF is the power, nothing compares to a forum.
well i think smf is great and a cms for it would be great all those who think smf is not good are crazy. but thats just my thought.
and about the themes. you would not ave too make that all themes that for smf are out now also work with the csm that should be impossible just make new themes and improve the otheres so they work with the cms too.
Zhoushi, I'm sorry you don't feel SMF is "good enough". And, you may not like any CMS we might make... that's fine.
But some will. And some don't feel Invision is "good enough". Some don't agree with you. And some don't agree that PHP-Nuke is "good enough" even... some want something more, or something different.
Can't please everyone, Zhoushi, you're right. We can't, but neither can anyone else.
-[Unknown]
Actually i have exp. in creating and managing websites. If you want my feed back about what options it should have i can help.
In short the most important thing is to not create another phpnuke wich sucks actually ;/.
Many modules that you wont use and such.
And i think that the best would be to create it as a cgi in c++ or create something similar like in php but in asp and not in php.
this way you can create a full, opensource or not ( you dont have to make it opensource ! = less hack atemps, more safety, a lot more commercial value ) program.
I realy dint like the template thing in phpnuke and such. It was very limited !.
The app should use a databes ofcourse and using it generate static html files.
We all know that serch engines have problems with dynamic websites.
I think that it should be at the same time for newbie and for experienced coder. Its not that hard to make.
The best thing would be something that works like a dll that you just add to youre website and call the functions that are inside.
Ofcourse that would work diferent but with the same idea.
a big documentation would be need but that way you would be able to create olmost anything.
For instance:
You create a html file whatever way you like, you want to display news in a table, so you add the library or how you call it in the website root folder, open the documentation, open the part with examples and find there and example of creating news.
And you read something like this:
"to create simple news you need to use functions: n.n.n....n ( names of functions and at the same time links to the part in function list where the function is described along with all the parameters you cans end to it and such )
call it there and there and place this and this where you want the return data to apear...
here is the code:
display_article(last,1,news...)
display_link(68,readall...)
display_link(69,comment...)
.....
<td class="bleble"...>
<news>
<br><....><readall></....>
<comment>
</td>
...."
so you add a similar code, in the documentation it says that for functions display_article the first var is the number of the article and the available options is: 1,2,3......,first,last...... The second var is the number of the category that article is in ( for instance you create a category caled news where you keep articles that will be the news ). The third var is the name of the tag you want to use to show the place where the return data should apear. etsetera etsetera and lots of other vars that can be used, ofcourse you dont have to use all of them, thsoe that arent sent are 0, the body of the functions has a very simple if(....) or a loop.
And ofourse there would be many funtions, the main idea of this is istead of creating mods, modules or any other ******y thing you can just create an additional function that wont mess the other things.
For coders there would be the code to write to call the functions, send them anythig and add theyre own and for newbies a gui that would generate the code.
The way i presetned would let to use one function, in this example display_article for many thigns, all depends on the "configuration", it can have lots of possible vars, like how much chars should be displayed and such. All the text on website could be shown using this function ! that would be very easy to use. creating categories using the gui would be easy too !.
the function(args) could be stored in an external file.
using a gui you would be able to first create all the tags you would need and configure them to show the right type of data and then just add them in youre html file.
No templates, no mods no anything and very easy to use.
I think it would be easy to write too.
I can help you with some ideas if you want but i dont have exp in programing using php so i cant create real code, sory.
If you would create this kind of app I would buy it for sure.
you then would be able to create thing like: free download, no source code. paid license, source code. and such
CMS is all about displaying content and editing it but the main thing is how much you can bend the out-of-the-box options to your needs.
I can say that phpnuke and olmost all ( 80 % ) of the cms'es out there that you can use for free just suck !
All the portals look the same and creating something that looks difrent and is just what you need is same or more work than writing all the things your self.
And olmost all of it is in php. php is not bad but its not a thing for commercial use and for really mature non commercial.
basically its just too bugy, not safe and slow.
SMF forum is a really cool app, its a lot more mature than phpbb. Create a cms similar to the smf forum is not a bad idea but i my self would rather like to see something similar to the thing i described above. If i can compare I would like something like DirectX with a wraper instead of a quake level editor. Yee sure why use directX and a graphic enginge dll when you can just use a level editor for quake, the answer is becouse a quake level editor can do only things it was designed to, create bsp levels for quake ( or other game that supports the file format ), you can do lots of stuff with it but still they will all look similar or the same, with directX and for example truevision dll you can create anything from 3d desktops to games simulating cooking egs.
And lets be honest, newbies does not create proffesional portals, if someone does not know how to program, atleast the basics there is little chance he or she will create anything practicall and mature no matter what the software is.
Ok its the middle of the night and iam tired, sory for the mistakes and for the long post.
BP
Quote from: Borys Pomianek on February 27, 2005, 08:18:59 PM
And i think that the best would be to create it as a cgi in c++
I disagree.
Quoteor create something similar like in php but in asp and not in php.
I strongly disagree. ASP is not nearly powerful enough, and ASP.NET has quite a few flaws (so does PHP, but different ones.) Regardless, I think we're planning to use PHP - and I know you won't like this from your post - primarily MySQL as well.
Quotethis way you can create a full, opensource or not ( you dont have to make it opensource ! = less hack atemps, more safety, a lot more commercial value ) program.
I strongly strongly disagree. Very very strongly.
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=16971.msg140624#msg140624
Quote
<td class="bleble"...>
<news>
<br><....><readall></....>
<comment>
</td>
...."
Namespacing would be the only way to do that, as ASP.NET does it. It's not perfect but it has its benefits.
QuoteNo templates, no mods no anything and very easy to use.
I don't agree with that even being possible, I think you and I have very different definitions of what a "template" is.
Quoteyou then would be able to create thing like: free download, no source code. paid license, source code. and such
I'm sorry, but frankly that doesn't interest me at all. See the link I posted above. Making it so you have to pay to see the source code basically loses all of the benefits of open source, which you probably don't believe/agree exist.
QuoteAnd olmost all of it is in php. php is not bad but its not a thing for commercial use and for really mature non commercial.
Does that mean I have to throw the several thousand dollars I've made with PHP scripting out the window. Crying shame, no one ever told me I couldn't make money with it... I guess I'll have to stop?
Sorry, I just don't like ti when people bash open source, without even giving it credit for its benefits. That's just ignorance. I don't care if you don't like open source... but you, my good sir, don't even understand it.
-[Unknown]
I think you misuderstood my post.
I was talking about what I would like, not whats best.
My opinion php is that its not a great language, I dont like it but that dosent mean iam saing that you cant use it.
Iam not crytic about opensource, i like opensource and yes i understand it, again you misuderstood my post.
Iam not cryticysing anything iam describing an idea.
making something not opensource is a posibility, I dont recommend it, iam just teling that its a posibility.
You dont have that possibility when you use php.
I would be happy to see evrything opensource, that would be cool but that dosent mean evrything has to be opensource. If there is a need go for it. I my self dosent see any need in making for instance Windows open source but having a possibility is olways better than having only one way to go for.
you can make money out of c-script too but that dosent meen its as good as c++
and not only php can use mysql.
My idea is in my opinion fresh and something i would like to see.
As i wrote making a cms from smf or something similar is not a bad idea, it will be better than phpnuke so go for it if that is what you want.
I dint write "great idea" becouse that will be just another cms with the same basic ideas.
I wanted to tell that it would be nice to get something new and fresh and the best thing i think to do would be to create a library instead of ready website that you can "modify".
Ofcourse there is nothing wierd in you being mad becouse i sad that php is not good, you use it for some reason so its good for you. Bad for me, good for you and i think we can agree to disagree.
And ofcourse its posible to create an app that you dont have to make mods for, but that is all about what we call a mod.
To me a mod is something that hacks an app, i was talking about writing aditional functions and preparing the whole app for easy function adding.
Then just create instances of those functions, many instanes with difrent args using a gui or coding by hand in a separate file and then use something like <? include....?> in the html file.
Then when all that is ready you open other app that is used for editing and adding content, it reads the file that you created and basing on that create something like html forms wich you use to add records to the database.
That is what I would like to see. If you create something 99% diferent, it may be as good, better, or worse depends. I just dont see any point in creating another php-nuke.
And man, dont take it so personaly i just want to give some feedback if you dont want me to write it just tell me before i waste more time.
BP
I believe SMF is just fine as a forum, and having a CMS for it is just a nice add on. I personally don't like Mambo, phpNuke, postNuke, or anyother CMS like them . I believe they are over packed with junk/'add ons'. They come with many features that are not needed imo. If SM makes a CMS it needs to be something basic, that can be added on to instead of something that is already over filled with features.
Quote from: Jerry on February 28, 2005, 01:55:50 AM
I believe SMF is just fine as a forum, and having a CMS for it is just a nice add on. I personally don't like Mambo, phpNuke, postNuke, or anyother CMS like them . I believe they are over packed with junk/'add ons'. They come with many features that are not needed imo. If SM makes a CMS it needs to be something basic, that can be added on to instead of something that is already over filled with features.
Quote from: Trekkie101 on February 27, 2005, 05:54:46 AM
I liked the look of Jerrys little portal/type thing, it looked nice and simple. Didnt o0ver crownd you with junk, from what I understand it worked with themes and well although it was done with SSI maybe a admin panel and a bit more bulk to it, it would be rather nice.
Yes, thats why I dont use a portal right now Jerry, there all too overcrowded and loaded with things like Clocks, you dont really need a clock, all OSes can tell the time.
A nice thing like you had with maybe an admin area to edit some front page stuff and such and maybe some more advanced features like a downloads area would be cool.
well what i really like too have is something like phpnuke but then leave all that standard features. Make all features mods so as people want a download section the can download the download section mod. that would be great also it must be more editeble then phpnuke. as you do all this it will be one off the best cms in mine opinion.
i have to disagree, i want something with tons of features, if i don't use 1, then as ong as i can disable it thats ok. like mkportal, if i am not going to use say the reviews module, i just disable it and isn't a link to something i don't use.
Quote from: RyanB on February 28, 2005, 12:15:56 PM
i have to disagree, i want something with tons of features, if i don't use 1, then as ong as i can disable it thats ok. like mkportal, if i am not going to use say the reviews module, i just disable it and isn't a link to something i don't use.
bloat and features are different Ryan :P
SMf has loads of features but none are bloat, all have a good solid purpose.
Quote from: Trekkie101 on February 28, 2005, 12:23:15 PM
Quote from: RyanB on February 28, 2005, 12:15:56 PM
i have to disagree, i want something with tons of features, if i don't use 1, then as ong as i can disable it thats ok. like mkportal, if i am not going to use say the reviews module, i just disable it and isn't a link to something i don't use.
bloat and features are different Ryan :P
SMf has loads of features but none are bloat, all have a good solid purpose.
well i know i said features not bloat, kinda like smf showing the username on hover would be bloat, if included, as its not needed, as long as most people would use it its a feature not bloat, something like the reviews modle in mkportal is nice but say if i was one to not use it its nice that i can turn it off.
What I am looking for in a portal is something that looks like a website with an integrated forum, gallery etc, with ALL blocks/boxes/modules selectable. For the main index page I would not want all the stats and such that you do not seem to be able to loose. Some peeps do want them, so make a basic shell with modules that can downloaded if wanted and appear L, R, or center if required.
that is what i sayd above too just mkae something that is good editeble too the users wants and don't have too many standeardt features just make many mods so everybody can download what they want and not ahve things on there site waht they don't need
i personally would prefer more standard features that can be easily disabled if the user isn't going to use them, but i would imagine that the smp or smcms, whatever it will be called will have the legendary package manager for easy installation.
yes a package manager is a really need
an equal blend of xoops and smf would be delicious :P
I currently use xoops on several sites and am experimenting with creating cross-site single user database authentication now. I think it would be interesting to be able to customize things like user databases. The element of single-sign on that was mentioned earlier is a must for the forum and CMS, but I think it would be great to take it to the next level by being able to repoint perhaps all of the versions of the CMS to a unified user database even when all of the other modules use a single separate database for their configurations.
I really like the idea of a CMS in the simple machines family. I would be right up front to install and test it out. I think that block functionality is a key component of what makes CMS management easy. Modulization for mods and updates as well as theme installation similar to what SMF does with their packages is great (I've never really understood why themes and packages should be treated differently). Keep us posted on this development and let us know what is needed.
Quote from: RyanB on February 28, 2005, 01:07:16 PM
i personally would prefer more standard features that can be easily disabled if the user isn't going to use them, but i would imagine that the smp or smcms, whatever it will be called will have the legendary package manager for easy installation.
Having millions of standard features that you can 'disable' is what I mean by large... Phpnule comes with millions of features and is 10mb. After you get rid of all the languages (very time consuming) you have about 6mb, then if you get rid of all the featues you are not using it may go down to 5mb, but even then it is still bloated... Having a few features and many add ons you can download would be a good thing imo.
I agree with Jerry
Have a basic, functional CMS with whatever the team / community defines as the bare minimum. Then have a module system where you can add in things like downloads, banners, super neat feature of the month, etc. Not everyone has the same needs or ideas for their site.
You could then offer a basic / minimal download package and then one with all of the extra mods in the same package.
Hmm, maybe during the install have the core components installed and then the most commonly used extra ones as an option that could be installed or not if they were detected in the directory?
cool idea cant wait for it GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD LUCK
Well basically the most basic cms fetures would be just one block.
The most neaded function in a cms is adding, deleting and editing data. No mater what it is: news, articles, rewiews, rules and regulations, help page, contact page ....
I think that this part should be the only one included in the basic package and should be polished to work great. If that would work with olmost no bug and the block itself would be very customizable just then it would be a very good cms. If you then want anything else you can download it or code it yourself.
Olso i think that the graphics of a block should be separated from the content of the blokc becouse that way it would be posible to more easely configure each blocks and to put blocks in a block.
BP
holy yes this is a good idea.
not like you save enogh space to make a real diffrence, i just think it would be more conviente to have many standard features.
I would LOVE a cms from you guys.
AND i would LOVE it to be in php, AND open source....
I mean open source software in my opinion is the BEST software around....
So many devs working on the software and rapidly quashing any bugs which arise can ONLY be a good thing.
Now on to features/ideas.
A minimal install is IMO the best option, as then everyone can pick and choose what is necessary for their own site.
Also the package manager is definately a must in my book.
I've been madly trying to learn php for a while now... and beginning to pick it up, but i don't think I could be much help to you guys yet....
But you never know, maybe soon ;)
And my bright spark of an idea.....
A way of adding custom blocks....
A "blocks" directory, where we can add a file which contains the data for the output blocks....
Then a file separate to the settings.php and sources.php, which gets parsed at runtime.... maybe "usersettings.php" where we can add the custom functions we would like with whatever name we want...
(sorta like this)
'$newsblock' == <?php includeonce 'sources/blocks/newsblock.php ?>
Then in the page you want it displayed, you just go
<?php echo '$newsblock' ?>
Dunno if that makes sense or not... or if it is possible, but yea.. it would be great if it would work.
It's pretty rough, but remember i am still learning basic php... so if its not possible, or a bad way of doing it... forget it.
Just make sure to let me know if it is a crap idea, and i will give up trying to make it work on my testbed... hehehe
Cheers,
Amph.
I'm currently a fan of Etomite. I do not care for Mambo. However, I <3 SMF. That's where I stand. ;)
Can Etomite and SMF be integrated with one another?
ok are theiir developers to make this yet? i eed an mkportal replacement, upgrading cause no only mkportal to mess up but smf as well. and their support is slower than dirt.
Quote from: mister on March 01, 2005, 12:40:29 PM
Can Etomite and SMF be integrated with one another?
I don't see why not? There really isn't much to integrate, though. Etomite doesn't have a user login by default. Do a search for Etomite on this forum and you'll find my other post about it.
Well i understand that you want lots of getures but rethink how almost all the cms that are there work
There basically have very little functions.
Creating 50 mods that do the same isnt creating 50 functions.
I personally dont need 50 versions of the same functions: vertical, horizontal, with flash, without flash, with stats, without stas....
I would rather like one polished functionc for adding, deleting and modyfing text + lots of customization posibilities.
Like a form in the admin cetner where i add a new type of article/data, name it news, Tick the checkboxes that say: data, author, put 5 in the "how much to display at a time", 255 in the "max characters, check the newer first, then in the special field compose the code that will be included using html + special tags that will be replaced by the right code by the form = special table generated and aded to the database, code generated and saved to special file.
Then i go to my index.php and add <? include="blocks/news.php" !> ( correct me please if i pute the code wrong, i used php like 1 yeer ago ).
The data from that file is added and the page looks just right.
Becouse the "settings" like what types of data should be shown can be overwrited by sending arguments directly from the include you can put the same thing in many places like in other pages on the right menu block by adding maxchars="40" ( or something similar ) to the include.
This way it would be productive and wery easy to use. Doing thing like this using cms like phpnuke would need a separate writen from 0 "module" that not would have to be compatible with the whole phpnuke but olso with the not so good database and if you would like the same thing look a little difrent but placed in many places that would rewuire work too.
That is my concept, when i have time to work on the webpage of my team i will use a cms or write something similar what i described above for my self.
I was thinking of using cgi if i would write it my self, becouse i would like to stay with c++
If that would apear to be too time consuming, hello php learning, goodbye c++ polishing ;[.
I know ofcourse how to modify php files and still programing is still programing but that dosent mean i can write something from 0 that will be good becouse of lack of exp. Still if i create something practicall ill post a link to source so maby the smf team will be able to use it.
BP
It seems like a lot of the SMF code could be recycled for a CMS. The user could have an option of using the CMS alone or a combined package of the two with a shared user database and all that good stuff. The most important feature is that it should be simple, which is why I reference Etomite. SMF rocks because it's streamlined, but can be very robust with some mods and the theme development.
Rather than building a new CMS, another option might be to evolve SMF in the direction of a CMS.
This would clearly elevate SMF above the rest of the classic, forum style packages and broaden its appeal considerably.
The project could possibly be handled by the existing development team - perhaps with a small expansion. But overall, the existing management, development and support structure could be retained. This would help keep the focus on actual product development, rather than the internal expansion/re-organizing to cope with a separate product line.
SMF Users would receive immediate benefits of CMS features as soon as they are released – rather than waiting for a whole separate package to be developed.
In turn, this would provide valuable feedback to the development team and perhaps the evolving product would be more relevant to the market and more robust as a result.
The CMS features each user would prefer may vary. But overall there's probably a consensus on priority of features.
Perhaps a list of CMS features could be posted and users invited to nominate their top (say) three most-desired CMS features – then set product development to proceed along those lines. It may be the case that 20% of possible CMS features will satisfy 80% of users' needs.
Also, a slow-grow strategy of adding CMS features gradually, according to user priorities, might help keep the product closely in tune with the current, actual needs of the majority of users. This will help retain current users, attract new users and grow both the user and resource base.
Overall, a single evolving Simple Machines package may be more achievable with current infra-structure and programming resources. It could deliver sizeable and more immediate benefits to existing users, attract larger numbers of new users and fulfill the growing and important niche for a combined forum-CMS.
Dave
no this is a diffrent simplemachines project, a new team need to be formed, i don't think it would take long after getting the team together to get SMP 1.0RC1 done and ready. ;)
Creating a teem is very hard if you want to do it from scrath.
If youre working for instance on a project, you have a 5 people team.
The product was developeped and released,
Now the development slowly continues + support etc. So each of the team members have to work 4 hours a day.
Then a new product is about to be made, you can use the existing teem but without canceling your actual project that can be a problem.
Ofcourse they can work 4 hour on the forum and 4 hour on the development of the cms but that would be 8 hours a day and the development still would not be as fast.
If the other project would eb canceled there would be 8 hours free for the new one = 2 x quicker - 1 finished product.
If there is a new team of same size = 2 x quicker - 2 x more costs
If the project would evolve rom a forum into a cms = 2 x quicker
So the idea of smf evolwing into smcsm/sms/smcs/scms( simple content menagment system ;P ).... with the curent team isnt bad.
Ofcourse it would be imho better to get an aditional team that would be able to work on the new product but that would cost lot of money.
The good side is that theres a posibility to make those products as popular as php-nuke and phpbb.
I think that smf is just better than phpbb ( i used phpbb for a long time ) and with free advertising that for sure a new opensource cms would create it would kill php-nuke and phpbb.
BP
Has anyone here got any serious php knowledge and time to create such a thing, although its all good and well discussing it actually needs made by someone or somepeople. I have very basic knowledge, echos, variables, connections to DB's but nothing good enough or solid to actually do anything on the coding side. So has anyone got time + experience for something like this that arent the current dev team on SMF.
Quote from: Trekkie101 on March 02, 2005, 11:02:12 AM
Has anyone here got any serious php knowledge and time to create such a thing, although its all good and well discussing it actually needs made by someone or somepeople. I have very basic knowledge, echos, variables, connections to DB's but nothing good enough or solid to actually do anything on the coding side. So has anyone got time + experience for something like this that arent the current dev team on SMF.
i am sure their are, but the planning stage is one of the most impotant, thats why we are disscussing idea here.
No but you need people to say there gonna do this first. No use planning a party if its no-ones birthday plus were not exactly planning, its an organised argument.
Quote from: Trekkie101 on March 02, 2005, 11:23:13 AM
No but you need people to say there gonna do this first. No use planning a party if its no-ones birthday plus were not exactly planning, its an organised argument.
an organised argument is unorginized planning, lol
and someone might just have pmed Jeff. :-\
Quote from: RyanB on March 02, 2005, 11:41:48 AM
and someone might just have pmed Jeff. :-\
Skuse me? I dont understand? :-\
If you can help you are sposed to pm Jeff Lewis. ;) :P
So it does, id hope they would unfold the mystery though :)
These aren't my opinions but rather a summary of what this thread, pages 1-7 says about a CMS and ideas this may be helpful if you don't want to read it all.
Jeff is looking for coders that have good php knowledge and know SMF well and have enough time.
A CMS is a content management system
Possible Names:SMCMS
SMFCMS
SCMS
SMCM
SMS
SCS
SMF Portal
SMP
alienineCMS
MidPortal
RyanCMS
Features:Single sign on, category based, WYSIWYG editing, plug in for external content, downloadable themes, package manager, template system, advertising management, Stats, flexable SSI features, seemless integration with SMF, Sharing of templates, forum, gallery, Left, Right, Center block moveability, feature of the month, news, articles, reviews, rules and regulations, help page, contact page
Comments:separate from SMF core
based on SMF core
Should live up to coding standard of SMF
Jerry's portal is nice and sleek, maybe with admin panel would be good?
Wont be made in C++ or CGI languages, php instead
Lots of mods instead of bloat
Ton of bloat that are disableable
Small file size, not too many junk additions
Separate teams to develop
This is a summary / cut down version of 7 pages of threads, they are all peoples comments to-wards the idea and what they would like to see and use.
Key:
- Red - being debated
- Orange - undecided but no such debate
- Green - was being debated, but solved
EDIT: Theres a secret development on this just now, oooooh, cool.....
eh..alienineCMS and MidPortal..? I think those were jokes actually... or did i miss something?
Quote from: Bloc on March 02, 2005, 01:22:32 PM
eh..alienineCMS and MidPortal..? I think those were jokes actually... or did i miss something?
Ooops for got to format them properly, fixed :)
RyanCMS, lol, seriously i like SMP. ;)
Just so you know there is something of a team working on this now. However, don't expect to see/hear anything from them for a while - I expect development to be kept somewhat under wraps...
well do you need help with developing i will help just say waht i need too do
Quote from: Grudge on March 02, 2005, 02:24:36 PM
Just so you know there is something of a team working on this now. However, don't expect to see/hear anything from them for a while - I expect development to be kept somewhat under wraps...
Ah, thank you for saying.
SMP... ?? There is a difference between CMS and Portals...
Quote from: Jerry on March 02, 2005, 08:23:48 PM
SMP... ?? There is a difference between CMS and Portals...
i don't think their is a diffrrence, its just diffrent names. :-\
From Google:
Portal (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=define%3APortal&btnG=Search):
Quoteportal site: a site that the owner positions as an entrance to other sites on the internet; "a portal typically has search engines and free email and chat rooms etc."
Content Management System (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=define%3AContent+Management+System&btnG=Search):
QuoteSoftware that enables one to add and/or manipulate content on a Web site. Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA). The CMA element allows the content manager or author, who may not know HTML, to manage the creation, modification, and removal of content from a Web site without needing the expertise of a Webmaster. The CDA element uses and compiles that information to update the Web site. The features of a CMS system vary, but most include Web-based publishing, format management, revision control, and indexing, search, and retrieval.
i would love an smf cms.
i can't code worth a lick, but i can photoshop until the cows come home. if you need any help in that regard, i'm available and eager.
Why invent the wheel another time? There are a lot of great content management systems out there. Why not create a smf-bridge for those systems? Look at the Mambo bridge, it is evolving very fast!
If you're going to create an SM-CMS, will it be opensource?
if so creating smf was reinventng the wheel, other BBS already existed, you do it anyway, if people kept saying that their would only be one os, other people who wanted to would just say why reinvent the wheel, their would only be one company for everything, and the whole world would be dull.
Quote from: Puc conDoin on March 03, 2005, 03:58:36 AM
Why invent the wheel another time? There are a lot of great content management systems out there. Why not create a smf-bridge for those systems? Look at the Mambo bridge, it is evolving very fast!
If you're going to create an SM-CMS, will it be opensource?
i, for one, like nearly everything about smf compared to other forum software packages. if given a choice i'd rather than an smf "branded" cms than a bridge to another portal. it would integrate better using themes and other parts and i would just like to see what sort of aesthetic and featureset would come from the people who developed smf.
Hmm, so many ideas... but I like suprises. :)
Just for the record I would imagine a SM CMS would be released under the same license as SMF - give or take.
Would only make sense.
I really do like the idea of an official Simple Machines Portal/ CMS. Although I am not a major coder, I would be willing to do some minor JavaScript Error Messages. As well as being on of the Bulk Graphic Makers with the Simple Machines Graphics Team, if it is ok with you all?
well iam about to test mambo.
Iam really to lazy to create my own cms for my site along with no time ;[.
But really, i had pain with many forums for 2 yeers, then i found smf and its just what i was searching for, it has the functions i want and work as i would like it to work.
I still havent found a good cms.
IMHO no matter how good coder you are there is olways the barier of time and you can save that time using for instance forums like smf instead of coding your own, the same with cms's.
The problem is that Lewis Media hasnt created any cms yet and i just cant wait to see results.
I think that a good idea would be to create something like an early adopters license, people would pay for instance 10 $ for adding them to the list of people who will be able to download the software 1 month or more before official release.
10$ is not much but if 100 users pay that is 1000$ and the ability to get the software 1 month before official release is neat
I think olso that smf is very good at the time being and the dev of it can be slowered.
The spare time can be used ( along with the money saved ) to work on the cms.
BP
I say, we throw away an ideas that have to do with money O_O! Wether it be 1$ or not, once money is evolved, MORE problems are evolved. Lets just stick to the OPEN-SOURCE lifestyle, if this script turns out to cost money, here come the warez community etc, lets keep it free! >:(
Mambo works, in my opinion, like a charm. There is also built a 3rd party addon that creates a bridge between Simplemachines and Mambo that works fine too :)
Hmmm, maybe i could help..
I know php&mysql coding and i'm pretty sure i could handle to code a core for a cms, but when it comes to graphic i suck..
you decide, but still i'm not planning to do everything myself.., i think i could invest a hour/daily for the coding
We all know mambos works.... but that has NOTHING to do with this topic. A CMS made to work with forum software is somthing not seen alot. If you are fine with mambo then use it. There is nothing saying that you will have to use it.
When will be a good time to ask for feature requests?
Quote from: richards on March 08, 2005, 02:24:24 PM
We all know mambos works.... but that has NOTHING to do with this topic. A CMS made to work with forum software is somthing not seen alot.
Actually, almost all of them have some kind of forum or the possibility to add a forum of some kind. Mambo has Simpleboard, for instance.
IMO, the problem with the existing CMSs is that they feel a lot like each other. Xoops sites, Etomite sites and Mambo sites are often pretty similar. It can get a little boring.
It would be cool if someone made something that works completely differently, but is still simpler to use than Xaraya and Typo3.
The SMF team are probably the kind of guys that could pull that off.
So rather than a wish list, maybe we should have a list of what we don't like about other CMSs?
Quote from: Benta on March 08, 2005, 05:16:08 PM
Quote from: richards on March 08, 2005, 02:24:24 PM
We all know mambos works.... but that has NOTHING to do with this topic. A CMS made to work with forum software is somthing not seen alot.
Actually, almost all of them have some kind of forum or the possibility to add a forum of some kind. Mambo has Simpleboard, for instance.
If i remember correctly the mambo team did not make simple board.
Quote from: Benta on March 08, 2005, 05:16:08 PM
IMO, the problem with the existing CMSs is that they feel a lot like each other. Xoops sites, Etomite sites and Mambo sites are often pretty similar. It can get a little boring.
It would be cool if someone made something that works completely differently, but is still simpler to use than Xaraya and Typo3.
The SMF team are probably the kind of guys that could pull that off.
I agreed on this...but as I understand its not the SMF team who is developing this, rather people/members of this board. Correct me if I am wrong here...
What I mean is that SMF is coded in unique style, and already its been talked about coding it in another..so its not exactly the same. I am not saying it will be worse or anything, just so the credits go in the right direction here.
SimpleCMS is a great name. I love this idea. It would be greatly appriciated if it came pre-installed with SMF 1.4 or whenerver you plan to do it.
Quote from: TTA on March 08, 2005, 07:52:21 PM
SimpleCMS is a great name. I love this idea. It would be greatly appriciated if it came pre-installed with SMF 1.4 or whenerver you plan to do it.
Keeping the forum software and a CMS is better left as different installations.
Quote from: Bloc on March 08, 2005, 07:34:31 PM
What I mean is that SMF is coded in unique style, and already its been talked about coding it in another..
Agree. SMF is coded very differently from the CMSs I have seen, that's why I am hoping for a completely new kind of CMS here...The old style CMSs already exist and some are pretty good at what they are intended for.
Quote from: richards on March 08, 2005, 07:21:19 PM
Quote from: Benta on March 08, 2005, 05:16:08 PM
Quote from: richards on March 08, 2005, 02:24:24 PM
We all know mambos works.... but that has NOTHING to do with this topic. A CMS made to work with forum software is somthing not seen alot.
Actually, almost all of them have some kind of forum or the possibility to add a forum of some kind. Mambo has Simpleboard, for instance.
If i remember correctly the mambo team did not make simple board.
You are right. SB is made by a team centered around Jigsnet in the netherlands.
There is also a Loudmouth forum ported by some russian guy that is decent.
None of them compare to SMF, though.
I have neither coding or HTML experience/expertise so I speak as an end user. For a web iste's end users I wanted many of the things that people here have stated. I was originally using YABB Gold but moved to SMF because it had all the appearances that it would be most easily integrated into a variety of CMS. Unfortunately for me it seemed the learning curves, etc for most of these CMS was too steep. Then I discovered a portal that seemingly has not been mentioned here. It is called MKPortal. So far I have SMF 1.0.2 full integrated, tufat Flash Chat and Coppermine. My goal was to allow for just one log in to a variety of services. And of course I wanted a menu system that allowed for users to navigate but non-registered members could not use any of the systems. At the heart is the SMF database and regsitration system. SMF forum is the current heart of the system as that is the most used function on the site.
So given all this, and after reading all the materials in the first 9 pages, what have I missed by implementing MKPortal that I am not getting by using the other systems?
Quote from: Mortie on March 09, 2005, 08:26:52 PM
I have neither coding or HTML experience/expertise so I speak as an end user. For a web iste's end users I wanted many of the things that people here have stated. I was originally using YABB Gold but moved to SMF because it had all the appearances that it would be most easily integrated into a variety of CMS. Unfortunately for me it seemed the learning curves, etc for most of these CMS was too steep. Then I discovered a portal that seemingly has not been mentioned here. It is called MKPortal. So far I have SMF 1.0.2 full integrated, tufat Flash Chat and Coppermine. My goal was to allow for just one log in to a variety of services. And of course I wanted a menu system that allowed for users to navigate but non-registered members could not use any of the systems. At the heart is the SMF database and regsitration system. SMF forum is the current heart of the system as that is the most used function on the site.
So given all this, and after reading all the materials in the first 9 pages, what have I missed by implementing MKPortal that I am not getting by using the other systems?
The reason there is no mention of MKportal is because this is topic is not really about MKportal.
okay, I understand; I did subsequently find other areas as to CMS.
I believe that if you guys want to create a truely unique CMS, with a lot of flare, you need to stay away from the typical navbar on top, then the right modules, center (news and content) and the left modules. I dislike webpages that are all the same, it makes me not want to visit it.
You also need to make the templating system easy, but very powerful.
Building and maintaining a website with CMS can sometimes take me longer than doing it from scratch. Sometimes I'd rather have custom templates for dreamweaver than a CMS. :D
Very good point :)
Building a good CMS or even using a pre-coded CMS and creating own templates do sometimes consume too much time compared to how long it would taken making a site entirely with Dreamweaver, Golive or my prefared editor Scintilla.
If you are going to build a site with a couple of hundreds of pages and the pages will be more and less static it can be great to use a normal HTML/text editor. But if you plan to have a big growth on your site with thousands of pages with several editors you save time with a CMS.
Unfortunately there is no really good pre-made CMS, atleast not free. So I has been forced everytime building CMS solutions for customers to make our own since all customers we have has specific unique needs, and free alternatives like Mambo, Drupal, TikiWiki, WordPress and more doesnt offer enough quality for our customers need so far.
We just would wanna see a more generic and much more simple theme management and maybe a login management system which is dockable into any part of a website not just static in the SMF.
SMF could easy evolve into a shell with login-, theme-, module-/plugin- and discussion forum system so it would be easy to attach more generic features like CMS (not just articles, but also wiki, blog).
Well, sometimes a CMS (like etomite) can get the ball rolling on a new site without a lot of creative direction. At least the pages are up and menu is in place. Once a client knows what they want I can actually export the HTML site from etomite and then customize everything to suit their needs. This process has worked well for me.
SMF... Wow... Using SMF really makes me ask the question "WHY" anytime I look at a CMS. SMF is so powerful because of the SSI that I really don't see the need for a complex CMS (like mambo) that has plugins to emulate a lot of things that SMF already does rather well.
So that kind of points me in the direction that a CMS developed by simple machines should be rather simple and integrate nicely with SMF. Let me add on some pages easily and make them look like the rest of the SMF I'm already using. I'd be happy with that. No bridge. No wierdness. Just let me add some pages to my site.
I agree for some clients it works fine to do that way also, but unfortunately not for me, been working most with government departments and most military to setup huge CMS solutions with many editors and high demands of security, stability and visibility of many from blind to normal people.
In real SMF have a lot of potential if you take a close look, like the discussion forum system is in real small articles or blogs so it would be so easy to extend SMF to just manage viewing information that has been classified as articles or blogs so it looks right and instead of replies on a post in a blog it will show up as comments. And that should be able to turn on and off for both of that. It would be so easy to extend it with this great platform.
Ooh, was looking at your site and I liked your integration with SSI, and said it is not so easy to purchase your records here in Sweden, it was good music, keep up that good work :)
All looks good I just wish to reinerate the fact that a major feature would be to continue the download & auto-edit mods. That is a major issue with most other cms's, is that you have to do all kinds of coding edits, and I am certainly capable, but as part of the support team for the largest package of phpnuke, except standalone of course, I know that this will cause great problems and will cause a whole lot of support issues to arise. Can't wait to see the fruit of this seed.
Gosh, time stops here.
Quote from: davo88 on March 02, 2005, 12:38:05 AM
Rather than building a new CMS, another option might be to evolve SMF in the direction of a CMS.
You have to remember, though: some people want a forum, not a CMS...
CGI would be slower anyway; if it were in C, it would have to be sapi... which would be really complicated, in the long run.
There is definately a difference between a CMS and a portal.
-[Unknown]
I'm a php coder of 7 months experience, i've recently started coding my own cms.
I would be happy to help out with this, although alot of posts have already been posted, i'm not quite sure whats happening with it.
Will it still be done in PHP with MySQL ?
[half-joking]I say use Python, It is as powerful and more so then php, and it is faster since it can be compilied into bytecode, and any OS worth its salt contains Python (heck, even Mac OS X comes with Python). ;)[/half-joking]
Quote from: [Unknown] on March 17, 2005, 06:39:15 PM
Quote from: davo88 on March 02, 2005, 12:38:05 AM
Rather than building a new CMS, another option might be to evolve SMF in the direction of a CMS.
You have to remember, though: some people want a forum, not a CMS...
Absolutely! So you might also like to remember that SMF, good though it is, *already* offers far more as standard than many of us require or will ever use for our forums.
Quote from: OvermindDL1 on March 18, 2005, 01:44:48 PM
[half-joking]I say use Python, It is as powerful and more so then php, and it is faster since it can be compilied into bytecode, and any OS worth its salt contains Python (heck, even Mac OS X comes with Python). ;)[/half-joking]
To be business-wise I say, use Java with servlets and maybe one or two applets combined with servlets, also when coding in Java it is so easy to make GUI for any kind of environment for administration and more, not just a web interface.
Just take a look at Sun Java with servlets and beans with GUI in swing, it's yummy :)
/R
I would love a GUI where I can literally drag and drop elements onto a page. If anybody is familiar with the popular music program "Reason", you might liken this to flipping around the back panel and dragging the wires to the correct audio ports. A CMS that could let me do this would make things really easy. Just apply the style sheet on the fly and go.
What I miss in this discussion is the scope of the project (to be?)
CMS is more than a webdesigners tool, usually referred to as WCMS
The area of Content Management extends to document management, e-mail management just to name a few.
The larger the enterprise the more content to manage!
Any info on the status of the project would be better than all the chitchat passing by on this post.
BTW I AM interested in teaming on the subject! Whatever part, so count me in.
I am interested in teaming for this project if needed also, but don't really know the state of the project.
Quote from: Radianation on March 20, 2005, 01:50:44 AM
I would love a GUI where I can literally drag and drop elements onto a page. If anybody is familiar with the popular music program "Reason", you might liken this to flipping around the back panel and dragging the wires to the correct audio ports. A CMS that could let me do this would make things really easy. Just apply the style sheet on the fly and go.
ive used the program and know what youre talking about. however, the time it would take to make such a thing worth while is not worth the outcome.
It's worth the time, it is a big commercial interest of it, look at all intranets all over the world, I has developed several CMS and I know how many hundred thousands in payment there is for a such system, they are worth a lot.
But maybe not easy always to fight the big companies with more famous solutions. But well many organisations have specific needs and needs people who can customize a CMS to their own need and there is a lot of money if you have the knowledge to accomplish it.
I am having a tough time understanding what would be so difficult about making a drag and drop system? It could be done relatively easy with Flash. I did something like this last week in 15 minutes. Just take out the static stuff and populate it dynamically with code. Just an idea. It would make the initial setup of a CMS easy. Maybe an add-on or mod?
I don't think the point is drag'n'drop feature....but more the underlying system needs to be there. Flash - for example - can then be a frontend to this, and in that respect be pretty innovative.
btw, also love Reason, still having the first version lurking on my PC, used now and then. ;)
A drag-and-drop solution is not at all difficult to develop, but I think the best most crossplatform solution and most approved by institutes, governmental departments and companies would be to use Java like I said earlier and the pages would not be big either.
Maybe time to start a such project with drag-and-drop ? It would be a welcome solution for many...
Sincerely
/R
I would have to disagree because I know of several companies that disable Java. Flash seems to be easier to secure and just as good if not better at cross-platform in my opinion. I could be wrong, but you also have to weigh in the ease of flash creation with PHP and how well they go together. Seems like a natural fit.
btw - I am not a reason fan, just using it as an example. ; ) I like Steinberg Nuendo and Ableton Live with lots of VSTi.
I don't have Flash OR Java installed in this browser, and don't mean to have them.
-[Unknown]
Quote from: [Unknown] on March 24, 2005, 10:22:22 PM
I don't have Flash OR Java installed in this browser, and don't mean to have them.
-[Unknown]
I do not have flash on this one, but I do have Java, tied up pretty well though. You would need to figure out a way that is actually compatable. I have a good idea for one method...
First of all, for many operations in Java doesn't require Java installed on the clients/visitors/user/administrator computer, it's possible to use Servlets. If you wish to use any kind of drag-and-drop you of course needs a Java applet to get some kind of GUI for this purpose.
Flash is not available on all big platforms, and it is not often pre-installed. Many companies never installs it.
My experience is working with companies in many different sizes and governmental departments, there is Java mostly accessable but not Flash (well in the bussinessworld is Flash more common but not more than Java). I have never seen Flash authorized to be installed in any department where I has been assigned.
Last, I would never compare a multimedia extension like Flash which is good on presentations and with limited interaction with Java which have so huge field.
If you take a deep look into what Java is, you will not only see Java applets, but also Java beans, Java Servlets, a gigantic range of professional libraries/classes, JFC/Swing, J2ME.
For example, if a CMS is getting constructed with servlets on the server side and a GUI with Java applet (it would only require Java activated for the superuser or highest administrator, not the common user). With the Java applet you could easy have a drag-and-drop. With J2ME you also could administrate from the most modern cellphones. Java have a superior support for XML which can be necessary in case of export of data to another system or spreadsheet/wordprocessor software.
Please ask and I will try to answer.
Sincerely
/R
Late to this discussion - I just now started looking into SMF as a CMS.
I thought it was already a CMS and that I just wasn't using it correctly... my reason being that SMF has News across the top, messages, whatever, so you could build a forum that also provided articles, calendars, etc, I figured that sure SMF has alread been developed into some sort of CMS.
I built (well, AM building) a Mambo site and linked it to SMF and use the bridge to tie them together, it works well enough, (looks a little clunky, but maybe that's my lack of design on the site up to now).
I think SMF shouldn't try to work on a CMS. This is a great application as it is, my fear is that when you branch into CMS, you won't be able to compete with MAMBO or others, and the focus on a CMS will take away from the development of the F in SMF.
Just my opinion. But hey, if you do make one that's tied into SMF, I want to be the first to know.
roxspace, I suppose we just come from different backgrounds. From my experience, Flash is a more useful tool and is developing more quickly than java. It's visually more exciting, and it works natively with php. Java appears to be a platform that never really achieved the full potential because their CEO is a sore loser and still biting Bill Gates. lol sorry. ::)
Anyways, if you're doing any type of drag and drop, there is no need for java. Do a gui in flash and all of the back end is PHP. Why make it more complex than it needs to be?
Sorry, meant Javascript, I have my Javascript (ECMAScript) locked down pretty well.
beau - Well the CMS isn't being developed by the people who make SMF, its being made by us, the community..
I did see a CMS that included a html drag and drop system, but I can't recall its name :\
Roxpace, don't get me wrong... but we would be fools to write software for wide spread web-based usage in Java. I wouldn't do it in Python, Java, ASP.NET, or anything like that. Java is the WORST of those, because it is installed on an even SMALLER subset of servers.
My dislike and disagreement of Java paradigms aside, using PHP or Perl would be the only real way to go. I, at least, am not going to work on this CMS if it's target is, and only is, people with dedicated servers. That would be a complete and total waste of my time. That's most certainly not the intention with SMF!
And, this goes to database engines as well for those "PostgreSQL RAWKS" or "FirebirdSQL pwns MySQL" people. That's not the point. Frankly, I can do anything without subqueries that I can do with them - it may just be a bit slower (or in cases people like to ignore, faster, mind you) but it works. However, if I were to use FirebirdSQL I might as well write it in Ruby as well. I won't decrease my userbase much more (5% to maybe 3%?)
No. The server side is almost certainly going to, at the very least, use PHP. It may or may not use MySQL - I make no predictions at this point - but if it uses any database engines, it will support MySQL I'm certain. I'm sorry - there just aren't any other options for the server side. It's PHP or Perl, and most hosts have mod_php not mod_perl, so I'd prefer PHP.
-[Unknown]
Definitally agreed with that.
I do understand your points, and I respect them very much.
Flash is ok, and I agree to never make things more advance than necessary. It would be great to see some example of a such thing in the near future made in Flash, haven't been much into multimedia extensions so I may need to learn some tricks here maybe :)
I also understand if one product like SMF is made in less advanced development languages and databases to meet up the most popular server solutions so more people can take advantage of this great product.
But if I would do anything I would use Java / Servlets since I know how much my customers would pay for it and those are larger corporations and government departments/military, and I also I wanna get the most use of a product as possible for many purposes not just world-wide web as some may have understood so far. I aim for little more than this.
But if I would go my own path and use Java / Servlets I also knows that most open-source people could not use that product since their servers doesn't have that technology available.
But I do not agree that MySQL only is a good call, why not aim for a more common solution through ADOdb (one example) and support many databases at once and also use for example subqueries when possible (unless the server is using a less advanced db engine), and I thought MySQL 4.x is supporting subqueries so why not aim for that entirely or is it many out there who is still using MySQL 3.x ?
My own personal conclusion would be, use PHP with ADOdb (only one example) for this kind of product.
Quote from: roxpace on March 29, 2005, 09:40:34 PM
But I do not agree that MySQL only is a good call, why not aim for a more common solution through ADOdb (one example) and support many databases at once and also use for example subqueries when possible (unless the server is using a less advanced db engine), and I thought MySQL 4.x is supporting subqueries so why not aim for that entirely or is it many out there who is still using MySQL 3.x ?
My own personal conclusion would be, use PHP with ADOdb (only one example) for this kind of product.
I didn't say only - I said at least. I said nothing about ADO, ODBC, PDO, etc... just that it would use MySQL if it used any database engines. It might use five, but one will be MySQL - if any. I'm not trying to prophesy here. And PDO is PHP 5 only...
As for MySQL, it has subqueries in 4.1.x, and many do indeed use 3.23.x and a LOT use 4.0.x.
Using subqueries "when possible" is often digging yourself a hole in maintainability.
-[Unknown]
I am in favor of a SMF portal.
Mark
But we're considering an SMF CMS.
Theres already a portal out I think..
I would switch to an SMF CMS in a heartbeat, provided it had the features I needed. I'm currently running the Mambo bridge. I have had an opportunity to try all the popular CMS's through Fantasico, and I will say that Mambo is the best CMS for a coulpe reasons...
1. The ease of adding features/componets and the wide varity of those features.
2. The ease of the overall Mambo design
Both of these "philosophies" seem to be appriciated by Simple Machines, so that's why I'd switch. Its funny because before I knew anything about the bridge I was thinking, "If I could combine the two it would be the best and the best."
You may also find it interesting to know that when members of Mambo ask if Mambo has a discussion componet, the SMF bridge is the first reccomendation...
Excellent work!
I think an SMF CMS being developed is a great idea, and I wanted to encourage that it is actually fully integrated with SMF for those who choose the CMS. The main issue with many CMS systems is that the forum component is usually developed by a different team and not part of the CMS itself, so you have integration issues with it, style issues with it, etc.
I would use an SMF CMS in a heartbeat if SMF were fully integrated and part of the CMS on the get go without my having to get it to work, get the themes to match, etc. Synching up styles easily to where a style added to the CMS fully changes the forum theme would be great. For true simplicity as most CMS do add a forum community, having SMF integrate as part of the CMS itself would be fabulous.
I also think that if you keep a similar admin system to SMF that would help users in SMF to easily transition to using the CMS if they choose that option. I don't see why the CMS couldn't have a forum-type feel for the admin area where you could have just more CMS type options than a forum does.
While we're at it, why not do a gallery packag? Coppermine is kinda bleh. ;)
Quote from: Radianation on April 27, 2005, 05:58:10 AM
While we're at it, why not do a gallery packag? Coppermine is kinda bleh. ;)
you got that right...
hi guys,
what you you really need? maybe not a cms? really, what an really-end-user will want from an community web site?
CMS? maybe not?
gallery? blogs? some portal around them? do you need YetAnotherSimpleOrNotCMS?
or just intergration with some other free, and already existing packages?
i would prefer if some of the open (free) softwares do agree and do manage to have some, at least, bridge system around the users and groups.
then, you can have a cms, galleries, or w'atewa' you want around - or integrate with one - easily.
you can have a talk with wordpress or coppermine devs to support an more or less compatible api - so, for example, an sysadm like me w/o much experience in php can write some code and bridge or fully integrate the two different products.
take a look at some commercial warez - forum, gallery, blog and a file manager;) and you got an considerable percentage of users (not end-users) happy, with all they need to have and start a place for their community. and not JUST a scratch start place.
i think that having such pack, composed from different free/open source softwares, is more important than having an CMS. this may or may not be a complete pack from simple machines.
you can add an CMS - later. as an yet-another-part. or just support one or many already existing cms'es. or they can support you - if they have a clean "point" to connect with smf - api or something else, which will not change often, at least the "interface".
wwell edi
Hi guys,
Interresting idea a CMS but I would rather like a SMFCIS (Simple Machines Communication & Information System), yep, something new (I think).
What is going on on most sites that are great, using a form of CMS or portal? Yes, is communication that is make it sparkling and growing, specially with the wap options, most phones are using these days, included.
A few thoughts first:
- The cms- or portal system that does it all for everybody's wishes does not exist.
Making one new cms will add it to all the (many) others.
- The goal is about communication & information and so community forming, using a forum script, obvious the best there is: SMF.
- Once upon a time there was 'another free forum' that did make a very good move in making there forum modular and motivate programmers in writing modules for it's system. That works very well and it was growing fast as well as there supporting community, until the money started to rule and many good writers left.
- It was not a bad idea to spread the word of the start of SMF by trying to integrate as many as possible 'other scripts' as coppermine, mambo etc. Going to start the competition by making a SMF CMS will not make the 'others' fell in love with SMF.
- Most little handy phones has today options as WAP and other communication thingies as email etc. that users want to use! A site that offers all those options as webmail and information versions as wap pages has a pré.
So in the end (or better as start) make something new (if it's not allready there).
I think the experience in adapting SMF to work with other good scripts, must have delivered knowledge to create a new system, with SMF as engine, some basic modules as start with some interlink system scripts to link new scripts, written by SMF or thirth party's, tested by a SMF-team before going into action.
As user of many systems over the past 25 years I can say one thing about it: Keep it simple for the users! I not only mean the admins, but also the visitors of such sites!
I have lost many users by having menu's with all the options of portals or cms scripts making them run of crazy. So start with little amount of menu-options and give them the option to select more options as they gain experience at choice.
I think of having SMF as base, viewable by wap on chosen topics, having a sms if something happens (at choice), of course my phonenumber at my infobase, having some info pages and a help section, a direct link sort of livehelp/communication, a kind of webmail or link to there own email base, an agenda for personal and for groupwise activities, a notebook, some group pages, options to give lessons with sound and pictures, all with the SMF theme's as base and a banner system, etc.
Hmm, whats that for an idea?
By for now with greetings and all the best,
Abedie.
On a very few occasions flash is okay, but I have never liked it when it builds the website design.
Would this CMS work with other forums?
OT --- Gotta take flash even more serious now that Adobe bought out Macromedia. PDF + Flash + database Connectivity = aaaawesssssssome.
Quote from: Radianation on May 09, 2005, 12:45:28 AM
OT --- Gotta take flash even more serious now that Adobe bought out Macromedia. PDF + Flash + database Connectivity = aaaawesssssssome.
Woah, that made me think of this link I read a couple weeks ago - http://daringfireball.net/2005/04/adobe_translation
Love this bit:
Original acquisition FAQQuoteWhat is the mission of the combined company?
Adobe's mission remains the same — to help people and businesses communicate better. With the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe strengthens its mission through the combination of leading-edge development, authoring and collaboration tools — and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash.
Translation into normal-speakQuoteWhere by "complementary" we mean "the two leading technologies that irritate people when they're used in lieu of regular web pages." Note that we're using PDF to serve this very FAQ — in our synergistic future, perhaps we'll serve our FAQs in a hybrid PDF/Flash format. One can dream.
As well as this one:
Original acquisition FAQQuoteDo you expect to integrate the FlashPlayer and the Adobe Reader?
The complementary functionality of FlashPlayer and Adobe Reader will enable the deployment of a more robust cross-media, rich-client technology platform. The combined company will continue to be committed to the needs of both the FlashPlayer and Adobe Reader users.
Translation into normal-speakQuoteYou think the current version of Acrobat Reader takes too long to launch, runs too slowly, and uses too much memory? You ain't seen nothing yet.
Great find. I got a good laugh out of it, but I hope the merger actually moves things forward. Adobe has moved into a new realm. Microsoft and Apple are in their rear view mirror in my opinion...
is it ready yet?
I wouldn't have use for a CMS. I use Wodpress, SMF, and G2 so I'm fine.
I'd love a CSM for SMF. But the simpler the better.
I build forum sites and, if they are successful, then I like to add other content. Such as news, reviews a links directory etc. But slowly. So it would be nice to be able to add a little bit at a time, rather than bolt a huge top heavy CMS on top of the thing and overwhelm both the users and the editors.
The problem wirth most CMS is that they are sooooo complex that most normal people give up on them. ;) There are blocks and menus and calendars and this and that...
I know that it is very tempting to add loads of features and try to please everybody, but that results in a huge mess. I was on another forum the other day where practically everyone who contributed to the thread had given up on CMS because of the steep learning curve. Bear in mind that this was a web designers, developers, marketeers and content managers forum - more at the business end than the development end. Even Mambo is far too complex in my opinion - and Mambo is one of the best.
Subdreamer is as close to perfect as I've found, but expensive. But its simplicity/elegance of use is unique in many ways. Now, all that's needed is the SMF simple touch. ;D
Destalk, I'm with you on adding stuff slowly. I've had a forum for several years that I want to add stuff to, but I don't have tons of free time, so I'd like to be able to take it slowly. Of course, most of the full CM systems I've looked at have the option to turn off what you're not using, but .... it just doesn't seem the same.
Hi Ping
Yes, you can switch off what you don't want usually. But, even with Mambo, it seems such a convaluted process, that I get dizzy. What would be ideal is if there were two installation options. One to install everything and work backwards removing what you don't want. And another option to install just a very basic CMS - perhaps just a single news page and a menu button - and then add features as time goes on. I prefer the latter option.
Have you had a look at Bloc's TinyPortal? - http://www.bloczone.net/smf/index.php.
I've tried several portal/CMS including Mambo and MkPortal. TinyPortal is beautifully simple. Well worth a look.
That's pretty spiff! Though I confess I am in the beta stages on enough projects right now that I will probably wait for it to get a little more full-fledged before I tackle adding it on. Probably. :)
Quote from: davo88 on July 12, 2005, 07:42:59 PM
Have you had a look at Bloc's TinyPortal? - http://www.bloczone.net/smf/index.php.
I've tried several portal/CMS including Mambo and MkPortal. TinyPortal is beautifully simple. Well worth a look.
Yes, I've beta tested it a couple of times and I'm a huge fan of Bloc's work. But it's still in early days.
Quote from: Miraenda on April 23, 2005, 02:53:27 AM
I think an SMF CMS being developed is a great idea, and I wanted to encourage that it is actually fully integrated with SMF for those who choose the CMS. The main issue with many CMS systems is that the forum component is usually developed by a different team and not part of the CMS itself, so you have integration issues with it, style issues with it, etc.
I would use an SMF CMS in a heartbeat if SMF were fully integrated and part of the CMS on the get go without my having to get it to work, get the themes to match, etc. Synching up styles easily to where a style added to the CMS fully changes the forum theme would be great. For true simplicity as most CMS do add a forum community, having SMF integrate as part of the CMS itself would be fabulous.
I also think that if you keep a similar admin system to SMF that would help users in SMF to easily transition to using the CMS if they choose that option. I don't see why the CMS couldn't have a forum-type feel for the admin area where you could have just more CMS type options than a forum does.
DITTO!
I am a fan and user of many portals and CMS products. If anyone can achieve this project SMF can! They had a opportunity once... until a not so smart fellow introduced a thief into the mix and screwed things up for everybody (*sigh).... anyway, GO SMF.. GO!!
Well its a pitty that most people dont understand the term open-source.
Opensource means only this thing: Open Source.
It means that the source code is the for you to look in to and change it.
That does not mean that you cant have compiled open source projects or that you have to use languages developed by the open source community.
Maby iam a little harsh but to be honest the best software that i ever used where not open source.
Photoshop CE, Corel Draw 11, 3dsmax 7, MacOS X, Windows XP (and yes i think its a really good operating system), Winamp, Truevison3D...
Ofcourse there is a lot of opensource community made software/languages that i use:
Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, mySQL, PHP...
But to be honest if i would have the money to buy for instance Zeus instead of using Apache or to use POSTRESQL ( or how you write that ) or any other "Big" things i would do that.
Its in my opinion impossible to create good software without good funding. Even if thousand of programmers can spend 1 hour a day on a project it would be better to have 100 programmers that can spend 8 hours a day with very good managment becouse open source - FREE projects lack management and without management you dont have good aps.
Being a great programmer, great artist etc. is not enought to create a big app. Even if your the best out there you just dont have enought time or money.
Its very hard to manage a team of people without paying them. You dont have any ways to motivate those people nor ways to manage deadlines.
Look at Lewis Media. If SMF was the only thing they do it for sure would not be that great becouse it would lack funding.
BP
Quote from: Borys Pomianek on July 31, 2005, 12:46:19 PM
But to be honest if i would have the money to buy for instance Zeus instead of using Apache or to use POSTRESQL ( or how you write that ) or any other "Big" things i would do that.
PostgreSQL is free and open source too.
QuoteLook at Lewis Media. If SMF was the only thing they do it for sure would not be that great becouse it would lack funding.
I'm afraid that's not exactly true.
-[Unknown]
If you need designers, count me in
QuoteIts in my opinion impossible to create good software without good funding. Even if thousand of programmers can spend 1 hour a day on a project it would be better to have 100 programmers that can spend 8 hours a day with very good managment becouse open source - FREE projects lack management and without management you dont have good aps.
That's why there is sourceforge, and other organisations, and why people have created massively complicated CVS systems. Look at Debian Linux. Anyone could write something for it, but could it be put in the official release? Not until its passed numerous tests and they make sure it works on a hundred different system set ups. Compare that to microsoft where they'll include it even if it doesn't work properly. Of course everything has hidden bugs, but some are very obvious.
But it still has funding. You need serwers, maintance for it, people that manage everything etc.
You dont create software without loosing money.
Even if you can work for free for 8 hours a day you have to eat something too.
Opensource community is a great thing but you cant say that it can be compared to large companies that are focused on something diffrend than what you talk about.
Windows is not to be compared with debian linux. I Dont like linux becouse as an os its a bad design imho. I dont have time to change everything everytime i want to make something differend in my os.
I used Debian on a dedicated serwer a yeer ago and administering it via schell was a big pain. It dint work the way it should and it had lots of bugs. I could not for instance make TCL.
I understand that you love opensource and that its your only thing in life maby but not everybody is a programmer that is interested in programming and have apps like gimp and think that its as powerfull as photoshop or use apache and think that it can be as powerfull as some commercial serwer technology that can run even big clasters and has special aps to manage it.
And i would like to ask people if they tell that something is not true to tell why its not true. Ive seen what you guys do for money so you cant say you dont do anything for money. Give me an example of an app with no funding that is really good.
And just for your information one fact:
phpBB group uses dedicated serwers for theyr website and they use Zeus serwer instead of apache that they used when theyr where starting the website.
It abvious that iam gona be flamed here becouse i dont like php and apache etc.
Ive seen before in this topic where someone sad that you can use java and servlets etc.
That was actually a great idea becouse its a lot more innovative than using php.
And this is very stupid to say that that would make less customers. Most of the virtual serwers out there support tomcat and other technology not only php and mySQL. To your knowledge every big hosting company in my country supports at least mySQL, postgreSQL and other type of databases along with those not opensource.
I olso understand that this topic is pointless for any biger customer becouse even if you create the next big thing in cms it will still be php with mySQL and if you dont know the flaws of php then you for sure wont develope a great app and only the next Mambo wich is a cool thing but still not suited for someone that needs things that can really on.
BP
Quote from: Borys Pomianek on August 01, 2005, 09:59:59 AM
I olso understand that this topic is pointless for any biger customer becouse even if you create the next big thing in cms it will still be php with mySQL and if you dont know the flaws of php then you for sure wont develope a great app and only the next Mambo wich is a cool thing but still not suited for someone that needs things that can really on.
BP
I am probably not the best to argue..but it always takes money to do something , that true..BUT I think most people doing open-source don't rely on that for their income. So the development is from their willingness rather than needingness. :) :P
Anyway..I am curious, what are the flaws of PHP?
The point is this:
- if the server is not dedicated, it's highly likely it will have MySQL and PHP.
- if the server is dedicated, it is likely PHP and MySQL will be installed.
- if the server is dedicated and without either PHP or MySQL, it is likely they can install PHP and/or MySQL.
So where's the loss? But let's look at Tomcat:
- if the server is not dedicated, it's highly likely it will not have Tomcat.
- if the server is dedicated, it is likely Tomcat will not already be installed.
- if the server is dedicated and without Tomcat, it is likely they can install Tomcat.
This is better... why? I recognize it is better if you think Tomcat is, by and of itself, a goal. I do not agree here, and that is a matter of opinion. So you won't get anywhere with that.
It is also true that it takes more knowledge, experience, and intellegence to administrate a Linux server. But then, it also takes more of those things to be a doctor than a nurse. Do you want heart surgery from the doctor, or the nurse?
-[Unknown]
Its not a matter of intelligence nor knowledge but a matter of time. If i dont have time to learn linux and to read all the documentation where is what even if its the best os on the planet its alos the less usable in my situation becouse i dont have the time.
Also a doctor and a nurse does not do the same things and this is what you forgot about. If a nurse costs less to hire ( so you loose less time that you would need to spend on working for that money ) and is good for what you need there is no point in hiring a doctor.
A more acurate story would be: Why become a doctor when you need the skill to take blood samples only becouse the main thing that you do is research and you dont need to know how to do heart surgery.
If i will try geting another dedicated server for sure i will chose windows serwer or mac serwer or anything with a gui.
Also many host providers can install tomcat on demand without any problem and java is becoming a standard to have on your serwer.
Also java is compiled. php no.
It is not possible to create using php for instance a full fledged gui for a cms, and you can do that using java and as one olready said here you would only need jre in your browser for administration.
But the main point that iam making here is whats the point of using complicated tools when the time to learn to use them efectively and to customize them to your needs is the same or bigger than the time you need to create everything from scratch. If i need a texteditor its a lot easier to install windows and use word 2000 than to compile linux and then spend a lot of time serching for that one file where you can change that thing you olways needed to download the package that will let you finally use that text editor you wanted that you olso need to compile using tools that you first have to download...
Even if in the end you get something "better" by the time you get there i will finish all the things i needed done on windows. Thats the strenght of windows for instance. The strenght of Zeus serwer is that you get a client app that you run on your dekstop do manage your serwers elsewhere along with other apps to acces on your serwers for management.
And if that lets for instance an artist manage his own serwer about art without hiring a specialist for it its a great investment becouse you pay more on the start but you save a lot more later.
If you know who Jef Raskin was and other people like him you know what iam talking about.
We can olways get back to the point where a computer could be only used by a programmer.
BP
There is one MAJOR flaw (as well as a host of minor ones) with your logic here...
The glory of Open Source is that it can be easily customized. If I want Feature-X, either I can pay someone to make it, or I can make it myself... but Joe-schmoe, on his site, doesn't want that... and doens't have to pay for it, doesn't have to use server-overhead for it and doesn't install it.
Let's take one of your previous examples... Photoshop. There are hundreds of functions that I just don't use in Photoshop. Honestly, I would LOVE to be able to get a trimmed down version that doesn't take as much of my system resources and does essentially, just what I want. However, that is not possible. I am stuck with what Adobe thinks is the "standard".
I had this issue way back when... when I started with dial-up BBSing. I started with Wildcat from Mustang software. After 1 month, I switched to WWIV. Why? Because WWIV offered the source code (then in Pascal) with registration. I could customize my BBS, easily... with my own mods or with mods from other SysOps who ran the software.
And your rebuttal to [unknown] about the nurse/doctor doesn't stand up...
You're right, doctors and nurses don't do exactly the same thing... however, most doctors can ACT as a nurse, if it's needed (at leats they have the training to do so). Nurses, however can NOT act as a doctor... no way, no how.
(nor do Windows and Linux do the same thing.)
Edit: and to clarify, that's what I mean. Nurses are generally good at what they do, and better nurses than doctors would be. But, I still wouldn't want a nurse to do heart surgery: nurses just aren't good at that. Now, take my above and replace "nurses" with "Windows" and "do heart surgery" with "host my website".
You only helped prove my point. Most people hire a professional when it comes to important things, not the cheapest slob they can find. And the fact that Windows Server costs a few grand (although Web Server is much cheaper) and Linux is free... helps offset that a bit.
-[Unknown]
Yes but i can make this decision:
Hire a pro that will use linux on my serwer.
Work ony me own using windows on my serwer.
And when i can have windows serwer for 20$ additional bucks at most hosting companys it might be just cheaper.
BP
PHP/mysql is gaining popularity fast..and there must a reason for that.
JSP and servlets on a server via Resin or Tomcat are both far more server intensive, difficult to troubleshoot for error codes, more prone to crash due to just 1 app, more difficult to track down the abusing customer and so on. As a server admin, I spend far more time on finding and helping JSP users than PHP ones even though far more people use PHP on our 140+ servers (only about 1/5 of those servers are even JSP capable). There is simply no way tha JSP and servlets will ever be anything beyond Enterprise level usage due to complexity and instability at the server level for users who do not code properly.
With PHP, when the code is causing issues, it is much much easier to hunt down the abusive user and figure out what script is doing it. Errors that are returned are also far easier to troubleshoot.
I am mentioning these things not because they have to do with an SMF CMS but simply to highlight why using JSP and servlets does not make sense for SMF unless it wants to go into a different market and focus than it has currently. Anyone who believes that JSP and servlets are easy to deal with or better for the server admin to handle, believe me they are not.
Borys Pomianek your arguments would be better if you did consistantely misspell server.
If as you say windows servers are cheaper when you take into account labour+technical costs, why are the very large majority of web servers Unix/Linux/GNU based? Even if Windows servers were $1000 more expensive, if they were as good as you say, I believe the large majority of servers would change to windows. But they haven't and they won't.
Gotta get into this one..
Also we must look at the number of corp companies changing from windows to linux/UNIX based systems for the simple reason of cost. Windows in my view is going to price itself out of the corp market. The number of companies I have switch to Novell and SuSE from a MS setup would blow your mind. Windows is a good desktop end of story, but when it comes to critical data then I would not be suggesting windows servers to any of my clients.. also many clients that in the past used asp I have moved them onto php which in my view is just as good as asp although I do like asp.
Stop talking about a CMS/Portal and build one. Keep it simple like XMBXtreme's portal is for XMB.
Mark
I do not hope that, portal script packages ain't good, useless in the whole big thing. It would still be much better with a CMS, maybe I shall create one for SMF since no one dares to do that, but I would base my main code on servlets so I hope many can use that ;)
Id like to participate - im not a coder but can build themes or create gfx or just a beta testing guy or someone who moderates something :)
Cheers
For starters, what is wrong with using this site's index.php ?
Mark
Quote from: Mark_Breznay on August 14, 2005, 01:18:05 PM
For starters, what is wrong with using this site's index.php ?
Mark
This site is not a CMS, and index.php does not contain all that much besides content here.
-[Unknown]
SMF CMS HOWTO - CRITERIA
Actually its not so much work here :-p?!
I expirience mambo and smf since a few weeks and i must say.
Mambo is jsut to much - smf has most of the nessasary content and technologys withit.
But what is SMF missing?
- A Frontpage module (Block style as cols and rows last posts pagenation an archive manager.)
- Display possibilitys customization such as collapsable news comments as seen on slashdot or basic block style or standard news style.
- An module manager such as site modules with install/uninstall features like copy, edit, new all as seen in mambo admin for modules and components(frontpage style - alignement).
- Compatibility - the possibilitys to include 3rd party cms modules.
- Modification for globalisation of the SSI
- News Manager (which board gets used as the frontpage news board, special css and theme).
- Standard content transportation technologys as meta tag define, website statistics(SSI)).
- A Wrapper - the possibility to display 3rd party php technologys with synchro.
Feel free to correct me or add your additions.
Overall we need the standards from a CMS synchronzied with the SMF SSI technology.
-
Simplicity theme by Bloc and Bloc's Tiny Portal all add a lot of these components you've noted tentronik. You might want to check out both of these off his site to see what I mean:
http://www.bloczone.net/
Simplicity has these options in the admin panel with a huge amount of choices on what the frontpage can display but still retaining the simplicity of the core of the forum itself. A lot of the other ones noted like module manager is not included yet in that theme, but perhaps Tiny Portal includes it (I haven't used that one myself yet).
Basically, just noting that Bloc has already done a lot of groundwork for a simple yet powerful CMS, although it isn't SMF's own CMS but an SMF-based CMS.
The Bloczone portal is in beta and not available for download.
Mark
I see, I didn't realize it wasn't available for download any longer due to still being tested.
I have asked for a copy.
Mark
To clarify...I am holding it back a bit - for a "betatester" group - because its still in beta stage, and may contain errors. Mostly to get to those errors quickly.
But its not very difficult to join the group - what I primarily want is that people test it locally or in a non-important site before using it on high traffic sites, just to be certain it is what they want , and that it works as it should. :)
On the other hand..its beginning to be rather stable, so I am positive about letting it go public again soon.
To tie in with the discussion here...as Miraenda says, its not really a CMS in its true sense, rather an expansion to SMF that allow you to construct pages("articles") around the forum. It adds a startpage area, and set the forum as another "action" instead. "Blocks" are boxes with information that you can have on the sides of the forum, and there are many different types of them, meaning you can use a SSi function, or pure php code, or even just bbc code (which is default).
"Modules" is added functions to this..currently there is only a shoutbox added, but download manager and arcade are planned. I will keep them internal, to make the portal fast and not burden the server with double-up fetching of information.
But the main "feature" is that the theme system is the same as SMF. In fact its just another template file(s), thereby keeping the same look all over. You can also take the TinyPortal templates and change them , just like any other SMF template. Curently it just changes index.template.php to have 3 extra bars (left and irght and right above the forum), and then layout the "blocks" in them. But its nothing stopping you from setting it up differently, using these "blocks" areas even horisontally and in other places than left/right.
Bloc
just thought I'd note this here - I'm currently working on a cms based on smf. saw this thread, found some useful information (thanks for that), not sure if it will meet you guys' expectations, but it'll be as flexible as I can get it. It wasn't meant to be released but if there's interest, maybe.
the most accurate status report I can give is "50 hours of hard work invested", I hope I'll get a good part of the work done within this or the next month, I'll post here once there's some actually visible work. ;)
\\ edit
decided to give a quick overview of what I've planned to do/done so far. please note that I did not even take a look at any other cms 'til date (I'm really lazy when it comes to that), so if there are some outdated concepts in here, I'd be glad to hear corrections (or links ;) )
- the system will be based on sets
- each set consists of modules. there are three types of modules: general purpose, [not sure about a name yet?] and display.
- "general purpose" are modules loaded for every set, which do... well... general things, maybe add one specific bb code or something. bad example, I know.
- "unnamed" modules take care of general stuff of a set, that is, set up outer templates etc (-> template_layers) and do other general things. I need a name for this type of module o-O
- "display" modules are (surprise, surprise) what is displayed in the center (-> sub_template) :P
- sets and modules will use a permission system very similar to the board permission system, and sets will have two groups assigned to them ("members" and "leaders") which work like moderators, permission-wise.
- sets and modules will be called like boards and threads -> http://blah.com/index.php?set=5 and http://blubb.com/index.php?modid=63
- for all this, an event-system will be used (it's flexible but I'm unsure about the efficiency :\ ), I think this is best explained by an example: index.php?modid=16 -> module instance 16 is part of set 4, all modules of set 4 are loaded -> the modules register their events -> event "set_prepare" (or something) is called, some general module reacts (or not) and sets up the template_layers -> event "display" is called, the module with the appropiate module id reacts, sets up its part of $context -> everything is displayed
- other examples for "events": mysql_query (takes &$query as argument), msg_parse, redirectexit, and so on. I'm currently only adding events I need, too lazy to add others :P
stay tuned, or not.
again, I don't do this for the general public but for specific purposes, and I'll continue and (hopefully) finish this project independently from other cms systems there may exist :P
PS: yes I know there is a [list) tag :D
When I read how most people wanna take advantage of SMF I also realises that almost no one knows what a CMS is, most people are confusing CMS to be almost static and boring portals which works for small sites or for site owners with small ambitions. But for people with big flexibility and ambitions there is need for a flexible CMS, no static structures on the web, no static delivery to some certain browsers on a desktop computer.
The most CMS in the world which is free are pure garbage like Mambo, been trying it a lot to understand why it's popular but I can't understand except it looks like a very advanced package in the first look, but so static and confusing for many. I rather sticks with my own developed CMS systems I made for customers with demands of 100% flexibility for the future, not just templates, colors and such. But also the possibility to change the URL structure, there shall not be any traces of what CMS they has been using there or on any page. No static modules, but dynamic modules which you can use within other modules and in any kind of page or "output" which doesnt always have to be a webpage.
O well, I just need to ventilate my thoughts about this discussion thread :)
If Mambo or similar is "garbage", why are they so popular? Why do all sorts of capable people put some much effort and time into developing them? I don't buy that "all people are ignorant" attitude. Sure, sometimes you need to be content with whats offered, but people aren't stupid. If Mambo - or other good CMS/portals - were totally out of sync with its users, they wouldn't gain the popularity they have.
If these systems easily can be out-numbered by a superior CMS system - why don't you make it? What are you waiting for? :)
Why doesn't SMF just simply include Bloczone's portal and be done with it and everyone would have a functional, easy ti install portal?
Mark
Well, 1, cause it's not finished yet, and 2 as they've said before, SMF is a forum, not a forum+CMS system. Once it's finished I'm sure TP will get a lot more emphasis though. Probably even it's own board like Mambo has.
People want something simple not necessarily something gradiose. SMF itself is simple to use, Bloc's Simplicity theme is simple to use (and likely TinyPortal is as well). We aren't wanting a CMS developed to reinvent the wheel in JSP and servlets or so dynamic that no-one out here can use it, but most of us just want a simple way to show content other than the forum with a similar feel to SMF. I think anyone trying to develop something that isn't simple to use and simple to add stuff to it has entirely missed the point of what most of us here want in an SMF CMS frankly...
Amen!
Quote from: Mark_Breznay on August 24, 2005, 07:47:41 AM
Amen!
:)
I really don't want the portal as part of SMF either... :P ;D I mean, SMF is a forum, it should be just that( and excel at it ) . But as a mod its another matter of course....
I keep my statement that Mambo is garbage, but I have complete understanding with those who likes it. They have small demands of a information resource for example WWW with HTML. If you have long experience of better professional systems and self developed numerous of those you know often how good and bad structures for the user is. But like I said Mambo is like VHS, cheap and doing what it is made for and not much else even with the plugins it's still a pretty static produc for the future.
About the comment to not let SMF be a SMF / Portal or whatever in the future I think I have to agree, but SMF could get developed into a direction where some parts are lifted little outside to be more like an external product, like the login- and usersystem. This could be external and then it would be much more easy for external products to use this also, they would not need any own loginsystem and can share the same which is not very good today, its possible to some limits but not very wise for the future.
And Subdreamer is a horror show!
Mark
How close r u to a release?
Cos I want to set up a new site and I'm thinking of using the CMSMF.
The only problem is that I have to b finished till end of current month +10days more or less
fugi, it is easy to get a copy of TP if you wanted one. Just go to Bloc's site at http://tinyportal.net/ to ask to be added to the TP beta testers list in the thread at http://www.tinyportal.net/smf/index.php?topic=152.0
I did this about 4 days ago and already have a simple testing site up using it without having spent much time tweaking it to look great:
http://skewed3.com/
Any updates on some form of CMS for SMF?
MKPortal is cheesy. Mambo is nice, but very complicated and the end result does not justify the work to get it there - and the forum support is seriously lacking.
Overall, I do have to agree that Mambo is basically garbage. I've tried to give it many tries, but it ends up being an app which tells the owner what to do and not the other way around.
I don't buy the argument about its popularity - if popularity were a factor, then vBulletin would be considered the best forum package out there (more junk) and Chevrolet would be considered better than Mercedes Benz. Just because there's a million dummies out there doesn't mean I have to be a dummy, too.
SMF is a stout forum offering. If we were to see a good CMS to go along with it, there would be many more takers.
TO tell u the truth I'm also disappointed with mambo. I don't think it's garbage but surely many was the time I wanted to throw my PC away (in garbage). Why?
If u ever have u dealed with a mambo problem and tried to figure out what is going wrong then u know the answer.
Once I had to reinstall it!
Integration of other packages with mambo is really a headache.
On the other hand upgrading or adding a mod in SMF, it's really a pleasure...
Awe, Mambo isn't that bad. It just has a steep learning curve. I think you guys just don't have the balls to make it work. ;)
(That is a Joke) I too would like to see an SMF CMS. I'd use it in place of Mambo for sure.
Why not make Bloczone's portal the official one?
Mark
Quote from: Radianation on September 09, 2005, 12:29:05 PM
Awe, Mambo isn't that bad. It just has a steep learning curve. I think you guys just don't have the balls to make it work. ;)
(That is a Joke) I too would like to see an SMF CMS. I'd use it in place of Mambo for sure.
I'm using it 1 year now and I still have to experiment some times.
@Miraenda: How did u add this nice clock u have on
http://skewed3.com/
Is it HTML,php based? Any links?
fugi, I added it in an html block, it is a Flash clock and pretty darn quick for one of those :)
It is from http://www.adamdorman.com/gallery.php?TableName=flash_clocks site. He lets you use them on your site for free, although he does want people to email him if they could if they use a clock. This guy is really talented in designing them. I did scale it down to 110 x 110 rather than 300 x 300. You would just upload the clock onto your site and have the path to it in the html block using code like this:
<div style="position:relative; top:-25px; text-align:center"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="110" height="110">
<param name="movie" value="flash/amber_eye.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<embed src="flash/amber_eye.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="110" height="110"></embed>
</object></div>
I was too lazy to get it to display better by tweaking the size and such, so this is not the best way to do it for sure but a quick and dirty way to get the clock on the site and looking okay there.
Well, okay - it really isn't garbage - just a wee bit of trash. :D
Yes, Mambo has a steep learning curve, yet I had it figured out. The add-ons are a headache and too many of them conflict with others.
Many of the templates are unforgiving - unless you use exactly the size image they want you to use, the look is hosed. I know the templates are mostly third party, but still......
We see some really good opensource CMS scripts and we see some really good forum packages - but none together. I want a single look, using a single template/skin/theme without the cheesy feel, operation and look of something like MKPortal. It would be nice to have it all from one developer, so we don't have the feuds like the one currently splitting up Mambo or the tiffs like the one Meo & Co. evidently have against SMF. I guess feuds are the way of the development world, though. They've destroyed many a nice offering in the past.
Oh, one last wish - it should be a CMS and not a portal. While you can make a portal look like a CMS, you can't make it act like a full CMS. Yet you can make a CMS look and act like a portal. Therefore, a CMS would make most happy, except for those screaming for the lower overhead found in a well written portal.
Don't mind me........ I am simply blowing wishes in the wind. ;)
Tiny Portal Rocks, it will be the best for SMF users, it it is not already.
Quote from: gerrymore on November 05, 2005, 06:29:47 AM
Tiny Portal Rocks, it will be the best for SMF users, it it is not already.
That is very true. I'm a beta tester and so far im loving it. its great.
meh, i like using ssi to build my own portal. it's easy and fun, and you can make it look however you wnat.
OK, 16 pages of reading later, and now...a guy who only knows the visual design side.
Artistically speaking, I know what I want. Like many others here, it is not to create a carbon copy of what every other website that has forums/portals/CMS's out there.
Kinda why I am partial to FLASH and PHOTOSHOP, and grateful that the two entities managed to get mangled. I only pray that it will bring a better synthesis of the two, versus simply owning your own competition.
I believe in strong, dynamic, stimulating user interfaces for the visitors to my websites.
So, am I seeking a CMS, or a portal, to blend into my forums (which I also want to tweak into their own unique and dynamic visual)?
Recently, learning I can imbed my fonts into css files was illuminating, to say the least. Can't wait to play with that.
I've seen a lot of interesting approaches, and various perspectives on each one.
I'm a huge advocate of open source. What good is a language if no one knows how to "speak" it?
I have found (and am excited by) the simplicity of SMF, the ability to tweak it being easy, the concept of a strong simple skeleton at it's heart making a great foundation upon which to build the meat of the user's needs.
What I would enjoy seeing, is a continuation of this idea...build the strong skeleton which can handle the random assortment of programming that each individual would like to incorporate into their own personal site.
I would suggest a unique and different approach in downloading SMF. (Y'all are gonna love me for this one...)
For those who've had the joy of Windows Update, I point out HOW they have the Update site structured.
You pick your components, checking them off a list, and then download them.
I would propose, to begin, that SMF be offered in the same manner.
Base structure, stripped of all extra parts, and then a checklist of the MODS, PACKAGES, THEMES, etc, that you would want to include.
Pick and choose components to your heart's content, then...
Hit the button that says "DOWNLOAD NOW".
Into your hands, a personalized customized SMF, already set to install.
Using the package manager, one could then update in a similar manner...picking the new features, or patches that you need to impliment. You could even program into the package manager to bring you to an Update/Install page (SMFTP? LOL) to remotely do all this.
In this manner, offering a synthesis of the Portal/CMS/SMF can be a matter of choice, and people who want a fully integrated solution can have one.
I personally, would love to see something akin to the "free form" object-oriented suggestions, as I would love to have the forums, particularly the RPG forums, attach the posts in a cluster style (a lack of "geek-speak", here...trying to describe it in layman's terms), to the POSTER, so that what they see is THEIR story, not their story amongst a hundred other posts...(make sense? One more try: The "character/profile" is the "thread" that they see, not the omnivision that forums give you now, where they can see everything, even if they aren't there...posting within that thread..).
Wow. Ok, so I tracked off course here.
Yeah, I'd like to see a very flexible CMS (at the very least a Portal) that has the strengths of SMF, with the ability to be absolutely freeform for the individual to structure as they see fit.
well im now in the prosess of adding my whole site to smf, so instead of intergrading with my site, i have my site intergrading with smf, been doing php for some time now, and it seems not that hard to make modules for smf cms, ill give you the link when finnished so you can judge for yourself,
Greetz Leipe_Po
I dislike very much portals that for their 'blocks' and stuff make a box with it's own title and borders. It looks very ugly. I therefore suggest to everyone, regardless of which CMS they want to use, that only themes build from the beginning with a sidebar be used. A theme without a sidebar normally will suck when converted for a portal/CMS.
Now for myself, I love Bloc's themes, and I like his TP. It's the perfect match! But again.. only with his themes that already have a sidebar.
I believe now that downloading Bloc's TinyPortal is open to all who wish to use it, that is the future CMS for SMF. I have been a beta tester since near the beginning, and it's good code. Very flexible, and if you know a little about themes, and PHP, offers the best flexibility around. All built to work around SMF, without getting in the way.
First of all "Bloc's TinyPortal" is not a CMS, it's just a portal script system (PSS)
Anyway, it is sure a good package for anyone who have no big demands like small organisations with little information to publish and small demands of flexible website. I recommend that package most for private use when money doesn't count so much.
well i for one, find that verry insulting that i find a phpbb board on your site listed in your signature :P
I has been working with the most applications during all years, and I do not switch discussion forum application just because there are better alternatives, but to calm you down a bit ;) I do really think that SMF is much better than PHPBB in the present time, but sometimes it's not just possible to switch, atleast when you must respect other people also who may have other opinions :)
Now I do not wanna start a flaming thread here about what is best, I would not be in here if I did not prefare this software, that is for sure, but that site you was pointing at has been using PHPBB nearly since it was born and at that time there was absolutely no SMF born yet.
well not to attack bloc or somthing, but all that can easly be made by ssi.php,
ssi has so mutch tricks, even more then the file reveals,
so i belive then its nothing more then a advanced ssi script that he has made and thought:
"if this works on my site, it works on all others"
and ther for, your first "portal" has born,
if you know somthing about php, and themes, just make your own,
if you make your own, you know where to search if somthing doesnt preform well, instead of seaking support,
but its a great thing for somebody that doesnt want to go to to mutch trouble to get ther site up and running
I'm of the idea of Leipe. It would be nice to have done a simple welcome page that is for login/news/welcome without need of modify the smf installation but that works with ssi.php. Like the portal page of INVISIONBOARD.
This is not against the tinyportal of bloc that is a different type more similar to a cms.
So Leipe if you want to work to this portal.php page (index.php for a person who puts there in the site root) i'm ready to help you ;D
well if you want to start a project, register @ my site, and we can team up to develop this,
the site is under construction, so you get a section of the forum,
ill assist you with your coding, but you would be lead, cause i have a site to develop,
the site is: http://www.phpscripters.net/
hope to see you there ;D
Quite right.
The portal I started was merely a extension of SSI.php. In fact it was more of an experiment to see how far I could take themes rather than just getting a frontpage... :) Now its not just using ssi anymore..but its not a CMS either. It can't exist without the forum "backend" , like a proper CMS should, so although very nice to get comments on it being "the CMS of SMF", its just a portal.
People that want a "SMF CMS" need to start from scratch, and rather developing with the goal of having the forum plug in seamlessy along the way. A much harder job, and also more of a php developer's project than a designer's. ;)
but smf 1.0.5 was fairly easy to make it do things i want, without ssi, but complete intergration,
but with the current licence that smf has, i would not be able to distribute it, so since i was working for nothing, i gave that up, and installed 1.1RC2 but the building blocks are there, and it would be quite easy, if it timewise a problem, i would like to donate some spare time ;D
If you want a portal system that integrates with SMF, you should take a look at MKPortal (http://www.mkportal.it/).
Take a look at the top of this (SMF) sites pages. Home, Download, Support, Community, About.. I may be missing a really big boat here, but looks like what most people are looking for pretty much already exsists, A website that just happens to contain a forum. I am not a coder, so what I am suggesting may not be possible. It seems that most want to see how many blocks and boxes they can put on a screen at one time, but this site doesn't seem to follow that idea. The first word in your name spells out what I'm hoping for (Simple)!!!!!
Its not really a cms though.. ;), its a collection of html/php pages using SSI.php to collect some info from the forum.
A cms thats simple - or allowing to be simple - are out there I am sure, problem is integration with SMF. If you need it that is. If you don't , then your best bet is still a editor, html, and SMF by itself.
Thats basically what im doing, I am trying to figure out the ssi calls, I see all the functions I need in the example ssi page. But I dont know the syntax to make them work in my html. If I can ever figure that out, I can make the rest work. Smf is in the standard forum/ directory on my site.
Quote from: Bloc on February 14, 2006, 12:23:06 PM
Its not really a cms though.. ;), its a collection of html/php pages using SSI.php to collect some info from the forum.
A cms thats simple - or allowing to be simple - are out there I am sure, problem is integration with SMF. If you need it that is. If you don't , then your best bet is still a editor, html, and SMF by itself.
Quote from: Jeff Lewis on February 18, 2005, 11:15:26 AM
We here at Simple Machines have created a forum. it has often been asked of us if one day we'd create a CMS to go with the forum and to date the answer has always been "We'll see".
The reason being that we are lacking on coders to get one done. Not talentwise but timewise - it's a large chunk of time investment.
As a result, I am in the hunt for portal developers out there to discuss possible future options...if you're a coder, or interested in coding a CMS I am asking you to PM me with your experience in coding PHP and what type of experience you have with SMF.
I've skimmed through most of the pages of this thread. Would I be right is saying that develpment stopped with the above post, and everything else has been "chat"? - Shame really. :( I'm trying to find a decent CMS, that integrates nicely with SMF, and has all the features that I could wish for. - I going blind with all the reading I'm doing, and I don't feel greatly enlightened for it! :'(
What is the best option? I note that there is a bridge for Joomla/mambo, and an alpha bridge for Drupal. I'm kinda swaying towards Joomla, as it appears to offer all that I'm looing for, but then upgrades (including vital patches) are less than straight forward. Maybe I've just read the wrong posts, after all, these things are usually just a few small edits. Big upgrades would still be a pain though.
OK, maybe the wrong forum, and the wrong thread, but what is the best option for integration with SMF? I am wanting blogging (for all members), and a shopping cart (with downloads). Seems like SMF would be the best place to ask "which CMS".
Comments.
Thanks.
Col, as I said above, MKPortal would be your best bet. It comes with blogging for all members (your members can create their own blog). Take a look at http://www.mkportal.it/ . Note that the version of MKPortal you use will depend on what version of SMF you're using:
SMF 1.0.6: MKPortal M 1.0
SMF 1.1 RC2: MKPortal M 1.1RC1 (heh, MKPortal is only a release candidate as well :P)
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not keen on portals. Maybe I've the wrong idea of MKPortal, but "Portal" is rather suggestive of what it does.
I understand that this is often how CMS software is used, but I'm not interested in pushing loads of information into small boxes on a home page. As I said, I could be unfair in my assessment, as it's not software I have any experience of, and when I come across a Portal site, I move on (they just irritate me). Don't take that personally, as there must be plenty of people who like such sites, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them.
I am looking for something that will manage news too, and allow for several authors to manage the same content. I don't just need a blog space for each member. I've gotta say though, Joomla and Mambo seem to be lacking on the support side. Many posts go unanswered, and I wonder if it's because they are so caught up in an arms race, they forget about the people using their software now, or like me, shopping for software.
Another thing I need is a shopping cart. I will have a closer look MKPortal, but I doubt it will offer everything I'm looking for. One bridge is all that I'd like to have to cope with, so all in one solution would be ideal.
Thanks.
P.S. A heads up. Your site displays a horzontal crossbar for some reason. Res 1024x768. IE6.
I have to recommend Mambo/Joomla, and although you might not get all the support you need on their site, you could certainly find a lot of other sites that handle Joomla or Mambo-related issues.
I have a bunch of sites in varying stages of construction (mainly because I have too many sites and have difficulty getting them all done lol):
http://endar.org/ (Mambo) + SMF forum at http://endar.org/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,44
http://ratingbar.com/ (Mambo) + SMF forum at http://ratingbar.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,26/
http://fatlikeme.org/ (Joomla) + vB forum (I had the license for vB so decided to not let it go to waste, I do not like vB at all though)
http://bestcat.net/ (Joomla, this will replace my http://bestgarden.net site) + SMF forum at http://postaplant.com/
The reason I point out these sites isn't b/c they are terribly active or the greatest in the world. I point them out because a) each one looks totally different than the other and b) I can't design worth a darn and didn't have to know how to very much b/c making minor changes to great Mambo/Joomla templates makes it look like I can.
Just my input, take it for what you will.
Thanks.
Quote from: Col on February 24, 2006, 07:50:09 PM
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not keen on portals. Maybe I've the wrong idea of MKPortal, but "Portal" is rather suggestive of what it does.
I understand that this is often how CMS software is used, but I'm not interested in pushing loads of information into small boxes on a home page. As I said, I could be unfair in my assessment, as it's not software I have any experience of, and when I come across a Portal site, I move on (they just irritate me). Don't take that personally, as there must be plenty of people who like such sites, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them.
I am looking for something that will manage news too, and allow for several authors to manage the same content. I don't just need a blog space for each member. I've gotta say though, Joomla and Mambo seem to be lacking on the support side. Many posts go unanswered, and I wonder if it's because they are so caught up in an arms race, they forget about the people using their software now, or like me, shopping for software.
Another thing I need is a shopping cart. I will have a closer look MKPortal, but I doubt it will offer everything I'm looking for. One bridge is all that I'd like to have to cope with, so all in one solution would be ideal.
Actually Col, MKPortal starts out as a simple portal, but it has a lot more functionality than a normal portal (such as TinyPortal) has. For example, I have it installed with a module for osCommerce (shopping cart) and another module for Menalto Gallery 2 installed. If you don't want a front page made up of blocks then just de-activate the side blocks and just use center blocks, there is also a hack available that allows you to put any page on the frontpage. Sure it's not as powerful as Joomla, or as simple to use as TinyPortal (both of which are great at what they do!), but reading what you are looking for I still think it is the best option for you.
Wolfenrook.
<offtopic>
QuoteP.S. A heads up. Your site displays a horzontal crossbar for some reason. Res 1024x768. IE6.
Which site?
Quote from: daniel15 on February 25, 2006, 10:24:42 PM
<offtopic>
QuoteP.S. A heads up. Your site displays a horzontal crossbar for some reason. Res 1024x768. IE6.
Which site?
http://danstuff.run.to/
It's fine in FF. It's not the intermittant scrollbar problem that you sometimes get with IE, it happens at any width, up 1024, at least.
Quote from: Col on February 26, 2006, 01:46:38 PM
Quote from: daniel15 on February 25, 2006, 10:24:42 PM
<offtopic>
QuoteP.S. A heads up. Your site displays a horzontal crossbar for some reason. Res 1024x768. IE6.
Which site?
http://danstuff.run.to/
It's fine in FF. It's not the intermittant scrollbar problem that you sometimes get with IE, it happens at any width, up 1024, at least.
It should appear fine if you go to the direct URL at http://www.daniel15.be/ . The link in my signature was an old link, it should be fixed now.
Why reinvent the wheel when a cooperative effort could provide a solution for two open source systems. Take a look at CMS Made Simple at http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/home.shtml. They already use your SMF software for their forum and their PHP based CMS software despite being open source is feature rich and user friendly.
I don't get it?
I took the link to the demo, entered the password to gain entry to admin, and found it was a "Geeklog" CMS. - I've had quick look around, and see no explanation. ???
If you just want a simple and easy to manage portal, go with TinyPortal. It is clean, quick and the support is really good. Hats off to Bloc for the effort. I run a pair of sites with this configuration.
If you want a full blown CMS, albeit one with a bit of a learning curve, go with Joomla. I've not had a single issue with upgrading Joomla aside from a recent SMF bridge compatibility problem. I just have to wait for Orstio to finish his latest masterpiece. I run several sites with this setup.
As Miraenda mentioned, the support is poor on the Joomla site, but that is remedied by finding one of the many third party Joomla/Mambo enthusiast sites who are more than willing to assist nearly anyone.
I am still running one MKPortal site (with IPB) and find it far less than satisfactory. It places a bit of a high load on my server (for the amount of traffic) and is a bit clunky in operation. There also seems to be some animosity on their end toward SMF. I'd love to get away from it, but converting is not always something to look forward to.
why not build your own, its really easy to intergrate stuff in smf, as the documentation is real good inside the files,
and most of the hard things are done for you, if ther would be a official portal/cms by smf,
i would volunteer right away!
the best CMS (barnone) i have seen is www.modxcms.com, i think can be intergated SMF very nicely
That modxCMS looks really good, but it's a real shame that they have chosen to hid the SMF copyright on their forums (it's black on black).
It's all a matter of your monitor settings. I don't think that they would try to hide the copyright even though they are doing an integration for SMF. There are other parts that are a bit hard to read also.
Yup, that's pretty much what they have said on there. My guess is that they have their gamma turned up far to high because the only way I could make the copyright visible was to turn my gamma right up.
Looks good, though it's obviously still early days for them.
who cares if a copyright can be seen or not, there's more important things in life besides a copyright that's not even on my list of things to check out on a website he he, besides there's no rule that says a copyright has to be in all caps and so visible that you have to be able to read it 50 feet from the monitor. Be greatful that it's even there :P
Its not a question of whether you are interested in it or not, the license dictates that. And that says it should be "visible in plain sight".
Anyone used That Subdreamer taht keeps getting advertised?
It does cost money, but it does seem easy to use. The problem with Joomla/mambo and some of the others, is that they are so difficult to actually get to work the way you want them to work.
Having said that, Subdreamer appears to be Mac hostile, so it's not getting my support.
I just want something easy to use. I only want to be able to copy and paste a bunch of text files and link them to each other. Yes, I could do it in html/Dreamweaver, but content management systems can make the process so much easier to manage for global changes and forum integration.
Quote from: Bloc on April 04, 2006, 05:36:40 AM
Its not a question of whether you are interested in it or not, the license dictates that. And that says it should be "visible in plain sight".
it says to have it on the site somewhere, nothing about visible to this degree or that, as long as its on there it's fine. Nobody can regulate how large a copyright has to be, its not an advertisement banner its just a copyright, an acknowledgement nothing more. As long as its on the site it can be as small as can be visible to the naked eye, as long as we can see it its ok :P
QuoteAll copyright notices within source files and as generated by the Software as output are retained, unchanged.
It says that it must be displayed unchanged.
Consider yourselves lucky that we allow you to change the CSS at all.
i agree with eldacar,
its a small effort to show a link to the site of the creator, so just dont whine and b*tch about it,
leave as is, or make it larger, but dont try to hide it, cause that would really piss some people off,
especcialy the copyright od RC2 is verry basic and minimum.....
So, umm.... The CMS idea is dead then?
Quote from: ruzster on May 18, 2006, 10:57:03 AM
So, umm.... The CMS idea is dead then?
Not yet ;)
Please don't let this die. Maybe this could be integrated with Bloc's TinyPortal.
Nothing dies :)
And it's pretty easy to make a well working CMS which works as platform for forums, blogs, article- and newssystem, versionmanager, documentmanager, usermanager and mailing list functions.
Since SMF have already the base of this, why not add the rest ? It will go fast and make it unbelievable popular if it just is made with future proof stamp, like easier module management for all functions and more... The fantasy have no limit :)
I need to add this, you may ask me why do you say its easy ? If so why not do it yourself ? Well, I has constructed seven different CMS / document / publicationsystems until this date, never for opensource, only commercial purposes. Thats why I say a such thing. But someone needs to initial a such project first at SMF before it can be reality since we normal "users/developers" have nothing to say or contribute with since there are no CVS available to the public to give example of better development branch alternatives.
Quote from: roxpace on May 20, 2006, 07:32:49 AM
Nothing dies :)
And it's pretty easy to make a well working CMS which works as platform for forums, blogs, article- and newssystem, versionmanager, documentmanager, usermanager and mailing list functions.
Since SMF have already the base of this, why not add the rest ? It will go fast and make it unbelievable popular if it just is made with future proof stamp, like easier module management for all functions and more... The fantasy have no limit :)
I need to add this, you may ask me why do you say its easy ? If so why not do it yourself ? Well, I has constructed seven different CMS / document / publicationsystems until this date, never for opensource, only commercial purposes. Thats why I say a such thing. But someone needs to initial a such project first at SMF before it can be reality since we normal "users/developers" have nothing to say or contribute with since there are no CVS available to the public to give example of better development branch alternatives.
Just wait about a month ;) It's on its way ;)
Quote from: roxpace on May 20, 2006, 07:32:49 AM
Nothing dies :)
And it's pretty easy to make a well working CMS which works as platform for forums, blogs, article- and newssystem, versionmanager, documentmanager, usermanager and mailing list functions.
Since SMF have already the base of this, why not add the rest ? It will go fast and make it unbelievable popular if it just is made with future proof stamp, like easier module management for all functions and more... The fantasy have no limit :)
I need to add this, you may ask me why do you say its easy ? If so why not do it yourself ? Well, I has constructed seven different CMS / document / publicationsystems until this date, never for opensource, only commercial purposes. Thats why I say a such thing. But someone needs to initial a such project first at SMF before it can be reality since we normal "users/developers" have nothing to say or contribute with since there are no CVS available to the public to give example of better development branch alternatives.
I am sure people would work with you and show some examples etc there. But if you go into this having never developed for open source/free you have to be aware that a lot will depend on yourself. If you have the will and drive, it will happen. If not, well nobody can do it for you.
And that goes for everyone proposing to start on such a project - in this topic and elsewhere: don't wait for "another" one to start something, it will never happen then.
lordmenace, TinyPortal is never going to be a fullfledged CMS for SMF, it will always rely on SMF to run. But as its progressing now, I think it can useful as a SMF addon. ;)
I know I'm liking TinyPortal more and more. And as a addon it is a great thing. I think after SMF 1.1 final comes along I just may jump in more with it. Just playing with it on a test forum now.
A CMS is a cool idea but for some of us it is a little bit of over kill maybe. Not sure only dabbled with some of the opensource CMS last year and just did not find them to suit my wants and needs.
A portal however is cool for what I have going. I guess if you have many things like a forum, wiki, blog and such a CMS would be great to have.
but this idea is dead if you dont get premmision to distribute the smf files from lewis media....
We don't need to distribute any SMF files. We will just distribute our own files, and if needed, a modification package to modify SMF to work with the CMS.
My opinion on SMF CMS is that it would "rule the internet!" if it would be coded like this great forum ;)
Quote from: eldacar on April 28, 2006, 12:20:30 AM
QuoteAll copyright notices within source files and as generated by the Software as output are retained, unchanged.
It says that it must be displayed unchanged.
Consider yourselves lucky that we allow you to change the CSS at all.
We bow down and give thanks.
So what's the situation on this? Also are there any CMSs out there that easily can or are already made to integrate with Simple Machines?
- Deathbliss
I don't think that a SMF CMS is that useful to waste much time with it. It is more reasonable to bridge SMF with other CMS.
Reasons:
- Exisiting CMS have already that what a user expects from a CMS and are developed well (Drupal, Joomla, ...)
- A potential SMF CMS will never get that quality of well-developed CMS (at least not in two/three years)
- But the most important: SMF needs more native forum features like custom user fields etc. etc. to remain competitive, so don't waste your valuable time on developing a CMS instead of developing SMF itself, please.
It is better to concentrate all your efforts you give to SMF on the forum itself b/c SMF should do _that_ job well.
Quote from: Roi Danton on June 30, 2006, 05:29:31 AM
I don't think that a SMF CMS is that useful to waste much time with it. It is more reasonable to bridge SMF with other CMS.
Reasons:
- Existing CMS have already that what a user expects from a CMS and are developed well (Drupal, Joomla, ...)
- A potential SMF CMS will never get that quality of well-developed CMS (at least not in two/three years)
- But the most important: SMF needs more native forum features like custom user fields etc. etc. to remain competitive, so don't waste your valuable time on developing a CMS instead of developing SMF itself, please.
It is better to concentrate all your efforts you give to SMF on the forum itself b/c SMF should do _that_ job well.
I couldn't dis-agree more, from a new persons perspective.
SMF will take it's time in the lime light because they don't leave out the little guy.
One stop shopping smf/cms/etc. SMF already surpasses ease of use over most cms's out there.
My last attempt at cms was MODx complete failure. I've tried everything avail. They all have way too high a learning curve.
I've settled on wordpress/smf/alsClassifieds. I would like nothing better than to template/skin out my whole site with "smFox - Rediscover SMF"
My hack attempt www.my-yardsale.com (http://www.my-yardsale.com)
Quote from: Deathbliss on June 30, 2006, 04:51:31 AM
So what's the situation on this? Also are there any CMSs out there that easily can or are already made to integrate with Simple Machines?
- Deathbliss
There are a few:
- Mambo/Joomla - via bridge or intergration, Stable
- Xoops - Bridge, Alpha release, unstable
- XCMS - intergration/Bridge, no public release yet to my knowledge
- PHPNuke - SMFNuke, intergration, stable
- PostBuke - Module/intergration, unstable
- MkPortal - Bridge/Frontend, stable, does require small hack for wrapped effect
- SubDreamer - Bridge, frontend, stable, unsure on hacking
There are more announced daily.
::cricket cricket:: :D This still in the works? :)
Quote from: HarzeM on May 20, 2006, 09:36:58 AM
Just wait about a month ;) It's on its way ;)
Its well over a month :P
Ok. after reading through most of the thread, here's my 2 cents.
I think the SMP name sounds the best, it relates a lot to the SMF name and is short, sweet and descriptive.
As for the databases, I would think there should be 2 separate databases so that the forum could be used independently by people who did not want the portal (why would they not want it ???)
Tiny Portal ins't a CMS, right?
Cool idea ;D I would really like to see this, it is much easier if the admin controls are the same as SMF.
Quote from: christicehurst on October 30, 2006, 07:29:39 PM
Tiny Portal ins't a CMS, right?
No, it isn't. :) And I hope people stop thinking it is...its a portal for SMF, nothing else.
Are we allowed to start a CMS based on SMF as long as it keeps full copyright? I would use the forum as a base and work up from there.
You can, but you can't release SMF with it.
QuoteYou can, but you can't release SMF with it.
If i did start developing one, it would make minimal changes to the forum software.
Yep, and you could release those changes as a mod :)
Quote from: eldʌkaː on November 03, 2006, 10:17:39 PM
You can, but you can't release SMF with it.
I'm more of a spectator here, but why can't we release SMF with it.
I thought we could do anything as long as we kept the copyrights.
You are not allowed to redistribute SMF.
Read the licence. You can only distribute mods. This is to ensure that it is kept secure, and to keep support in the one place.
So it short, no one but the SMF Developers can actually make a seperate CMS?
Quote from: Panzer- on November 07, 2006, 02:21:57 PM
So it short, no one but the SMF Developers can actually make a seperate CMS?
No. You can make a SMF CMS without including the SMF files in it.
Make an CMS and make a small mod that changes SMF to work with it for example.
Okie dokie... thanks guys.
I wont bother starting a project then.
On that SORT of topic
is there a mod to make the SMF have a front page, so its almost like a website
-if so what is it
And will it support new themes?
I can never find anythign like it, or maybe Im using the wrong keywords..
As for the SM CMS :(
that would have been awesome, the forums are amazing and at the minute bridging is troublesome.
Anyone recommend a CMS that bridges easily with it?
(thats why im thinking just make an intergrated frontpage on the forums... for news new gallery photos etc etc)
Check Bloc's signature Livethefire. ;)
I got linked to that once, and got confused.
Ill have a read, Danke
After many retries on many portals and cms, i could not found any useful (for me) CMS.
So i decided to write my own mini cms to work with SMF ('cause i like it ;) ).
My questions are:
if i have some questions (about coding), can i post them here?
if i finish it and decide to release the source, can i use the smf as part of the name? (CMSMF f.e.) or it is not allowed?
Thanks in advance...
Yea you can come and ask questions if you need help. In regards to the name AFAIK you can't use SMF name on it.
I no prob not in right thread but i seen this bloke on a forum selling these names:
officialsmf.com
onlinesmf.com
smfland.com
smfnation.com
supersmf.com
Maybe one of those ...lol ;D
I currently use cpgnuke for my CMS. However, I was getting loads of spam posts because they use some for of phpBB forums.
SMF would be the perfect solution forum for me, but I would like some small CMS type functions.
-a frontpage that I can put advertisements on
-custom blocks that I can place right, center, left, bottom
I have used many CMS's in the past, I just want it easy, a way to advertise and a way to block/monitor spam posts.
Great work with the SMF though, I would just like to see a SMF CMS also.
I have also seen the vbulletin CMS that works similar to what I am looking for, but I think SMF can pull this off very easily with just a small php frontpage with blocks, polls, etc. on the main page.
..just my 2 cents
Have you looked at tiny portal? It does all that and is built as an SMF mod package.
When would this CMS ship? I have read none of the topic posts.
Birger :)
That's probably why you don't know that this is not a planned project. It won't ship.
Quote from: JayBachatero on November 05, 2006, 03:15:51 AM
You are not allowed to redistribute SMF.
Am I allowed to print out the code, and then consume it, to see how everything comes out?
???
You may download and use the SMF php files on your own server, you may not redistribute. I think that is fairly clear.
I like SMCMS also!!
Quote from: UFO on June 20, 2009, 01:50:12 PM
Quote from: JayBachatero on November 05, 2006, 03:15:51 AM
You are not allowed to redistribute SMF.
Am I allowed to print out the code, and then consume it, to see how everything comes out?
Haha, this guy wins :D
Tinyportal is awesome. I recommend it.
I'm going to lock this topic. Currently there is no work being done on an official CMS script