More Linux geekery: What tools to use in planning, developing, and maintaining my own Web site and the one I'm developing for a county historical preservation project? Should I have static Web pages? PHP and MySQL? Could I get by with Perl (which I already know how to use)?
I'm not very knowledgeable in Web 2.0 database driven stuff, but I'm going to need a photo gallery, thumbnails, and a database for the county Web site. That's why I've been reading up on "Content Management Systems." Here's a list of links showing what I've learned about so far.
- Drupal requires Apache, PHP, MySQL. Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites.
- Joomla! is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla! the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone. It requires mySQL and PHP, which most ISP's provide.
- Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal and Plone. Another review of relative merits.
- Drupal vs Joomla! comparison on Drupal's General Discussion Forum. The consensus seems to be that Joomla! is easier to use out of the box, but Drupal is better in taxonomy, search engine optimization, and customizability.
- phpWebSite provides a complete web site content management system. Web-based administration allows for easy maintenance of interactive, community-driven web sites. phpWebSite's growing number of modules allow for easy site customization without the need for unwanted or unused features. Client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative requirements. Founded and hosted by the Web Technology Group at Appalachian State University, phpWebSite is developed by the phpWebSite Development Team, a network of developers from around the world. phpWebSite is free, open source software and is licensed under the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL.
- blosxom :: the zen of blogging: Blosxom (pronounced "blossom") is a lightweight yet feature-packed weblog application designed from the ground up with simplicity, usability, and interoperability in mind....Despite its tiny footprint, Blosxom doesn't skimp on features, sporting the lion's share of features one would find in any other Weblog application or full-blown content management and publishing system. Blosxom's plug-in architecture allows the core of Blosxom to remain small and sleek while providing room for extension and integration into different environments and uses....Blosxom is simple, straightforward, minimalist Perl affording even the dabbler an opportunity for experimentation and customization.
- WordPress. It's not just a blogging tool, WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless...
- Plone" Plone is a ready-to-run content management system that is built on the powerful and free Zope application server. Plone is easy to set up, extremely flexible, and provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets. Zope doesn't seem to be supported that widely by ISP's.
- PHPMYADMIN is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields.
- CMS Mini (very very small CMS): A small PHP application for manage content for small web sites. Not intended for a cooperative group of editors and rewiers: simply one editor can insert new contents, immediatly pubblished on web: "one task, one click"The editor can edit through a browser interface; sounds really nice, but it seems there are security vulnerabilities.
5 comments:
I hear bad things about Joomla vis-a-vis comment spam. I don't know about Drupla, but if I had the php skills (which I don't), that would be my choice. WordPress does have some very effective anti-spam plugins (Akismet, Defensio), and is adequate for a CMS, though the native galleries functionality is not ideal - you'd have to use a plugin. With its huge userbase, WordPress has more plugins than any of the others, but also attracts the most hackers, so you have to keep up with the security upgrades. My two cents.
(Drupal, not Drupla!)
Thanks, Dave! I'm leaning toward Drupal, but had not even thought about spam issues. The functions I would probably put up first do not invite user feedback; but eventually, it would be good to implement a blog and perhaps a forum.
As for my own website, I'm hand-coding for now, but I'll probably switch to whatever system I need to learn for the county website.
I am totally confused when it comes to computer lingo....However, I would like to say that I think Linux may be the system that my nephew did a "how-to" on on You-Tube. See if you can find it. He sent it to me but it was all "geek to me" (smile) but he does a great job explaining the system to people who may be new to it, and there are links to Sarah Palin (who happens to be Governor of his state) who also is apparently a real computer geek as well! If I find it, I will try to link it to one of my posts.
I tried to install Drupal once and I couldn't get it to work. WordPress, although it has some limitations, at least will install fairly easily!
I use PhpMyAdmin, and I consider it to be a very useful tool for someone who doesn't want to learn the intricacies of bare-bones MySql administration.
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