An SMF CMS?

[Miraenda]

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.

[Dannii]

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.

[Creative Insanity]

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.

[Mark_Breznay]

Stop talking about a CMS/Portal and build one.  Keep it simple like XMBXtreme's portal is for XMB.
Mark

[roxpace]

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

[tentronik]

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

[Mark_Breznay]

For starters, what is wrong with using this site's index.php ?
Mark

[[Unknown]]

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]

[tentronik]

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.



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[Miraenda]

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.

[Mark_Breznay]

The Bloczone portal is in beta and not available for download.
Mark

[Miraenda]

I see, I didn't realize it wasn't available for download any longer due to still being tested.

[Mark_Breznay]

I have asked for a copy.
Mark

[bloc]

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

[Valodim]

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)
- 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

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

PS: yes I know there is a [list) tag

[roxpace]

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

[bloc]

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?

[Mark_Breznay]

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

[Dannii]

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.

[Miraenda]

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...