Forum OpenACS CMS: CMS - Some Basic Info

Posted by Nicholas Smith on 07/14/03 08:10 PM

What exactly is a Content Management System. Is it something to use on magazine-type sites where tons of similar content gets published (like slashdot or news sites). Or is it also approrpiate for regular sites where you would like site admins to be able to update page content?

Basically I'm writing a website for a real estate company. They want to be able to update the content of their pages (company information, announcements, etc) themselves without having to call me, would the CMS be appropriate here or would I be better off just writing something myself from scratch?

Also is the CMS ready for real use or is it still a work in progress, I didn't really get a clear understanding from the posts on here.

Thanks!

Nick

3: Re: CMS - Some Basic Info (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 07/14/03 08:23 PM

A content management system is many things. THe current CMS package was designed to handle almost any situation. It could accomodate a magazine type workflow, or a simple workflow when admins directly publish the changes.

The user interface of the current package exposes some of the internal workings of the content repository to users. It was desinged as a tool. See cms-news-demo which was one alternative interface designed to CMS.

There is an effort to clean this up and build an easier to use content management system. Right now the closest thing in the toolkit is edit-this-page which is used to publish some of the pages on OpenACS.org.

2: Re: CMS - Some Basic Info (response to 1)

Posted by Jarkko Laine on 07/14/03 08:26 PM

Hi Nicholas,

OpenACS CMS is a powerful system with an awful user interface. I would not use it in your case. Instead, take a look at edit-this-page. It's a simple "content management system" made especially for needs like yours. Of course, whoever updates the content has to have some basic html knowledge.

For announcements etc. you could use news or press packages.

You will need to do some custom hacking to build a working system with these building blocks but for the needs you mentioned you probably don't have to do anything from scratch.

4: Re: CMS - Some Basic Info (response to 1)

Posted by Nicholas Smith on 07/14/03 09:43 PM

I've just gotten my AOLServer and PostGres installed and working on FreeBSD. Now, before I download and install OpenACS, is there a demo system setup online somewhere I can login and play around with, or do I need to setup my own system and start working with it?