Overview Session Notes
Thursday, September 20 - 9:30 am - 10:45 am - Hickory Room
In this session, we'll look at four open source CMS systems: Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, MODx.
Download the Presentation (pdf)
Overview |
Open Source Definition/GPL |
WordPress |
Joomla |
Drupal |
MODx |
Choosing a CMS |
Hosting your CMS
For each we'll look at the following:
- The Basics
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Sample sites
At the end we'll look at:
Always remember to keep your open source software up-to-date with patches and upgrades
Introduction
Overview
"Open source content management software sucks. It sucks really badly. The only things worse is every commercial CMS I've used. But it really doesn't have to be that way."
Jeff Veen - October 3, 2004
jeff's blog
Open Source Software - Definition
Open source software is computer software whose source code is available under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner. It is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user generated content.
The most prominent license is the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Source: Wikipedia
GNU-GPL
Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version. The licensee is allowed to charge a fee for this service, or do this free of charge. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that prohibit commercial redistribution.
The GPL does not give the licensee unlimited redistribution rights. The right to redistribute is granted only if the distribution is licensed under the terms of the GPL and includes, or unconditionally offers to include at the moment of distribution, the source code.
Why Open Source?
- Cost - Hey - you can't beat free (sometimes)
- A wide variety of pre-built themes and plugins at no cost of very little cost.
- Run on Apache/PHP/MySQL
- A CMS helps force you to do good planning ahead of time :)
- Support comes from thousands of users, not just a company (that can be good or bad...)
WordPress
The Basics
- Website: www.wordpress.org
- Download size: 960k
- Extensions: well over 700
- Requires PHP 4.2 > / MySQL 4.0 > (v. 2.1), Apache mod_rewrite module for permalinks
- Main Strength: incredibly popular blogging software
- Main Weakness: doesn’t extend too much past that (though for some it’s more than enough)
WordPress is a powerful personal publishing platform - freely distributed, standards compliant, fast, light and free with sensible default settings and features and extremely customizable core. (from wordpress.org)
On the success of WordPress:
"...I think it is mostly due to that we listen. We are users of the blogs ourselves. I mean, every WordPress developer is a pretty active blogger, and we listen a lot to the people using the software. Our assumption is that we cannot and will not know the best stuff for the next version of WordPress, so I do not even try to make predictions of where WordPress is going to be in a year or two because frankly, I do not know. If you asked me two years ago if we would be where we are now, I would have said something completely different."
- 300 to 500 people a day switch from Blogger to WP.
- hosted on your own server or wordpress.com
- there is a multi-user (wp-mu) version available for group blogging.
- Matt Mulleweg was listed by PC World as the 16th most important person on the web - ahead of Jerry and David, the founders of Yahoo! who are #19, ahead of Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay, who is #28, and even the inventor of the internet, Al..errr .... Vinton Cerf, #35.
Source: 09/17/07 interview - http://bloginterviewer.com/featured-interviews/interview-with-wordpress-founder-matt-mullenweg
Strengths
- Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
- New tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
- The visual editor includes spell checking.
- New search engine privacy option allows you to indicate if your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
- Set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else.
- AJAX makes custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. The comments page, for example, lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
- Pages can now be drafts, or private.
- The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
- A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled (essential anti-spam plugin)
- Plugins are available for almost all content types - video, audio, galleries, php etc.
- For simple blogging, or a very quick way to build a small site, WP is an excellent choice.
Weaknesses
Samples:
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Joomla
The Basics
- Website: www.joomla.org
- Download size: 2.7 Mb (zip)
- Extensions: well over 2000
- Requires PHP 4.2 > / MySQL 3.23 > (v. 2.1), Apache mod_rewrite module for permalinks
- Main Strength: very easy to learn/implement
- Main Weakness: No Access Control List (ACL)
History
Joomla! is a continuation of the work of the Development Team which unanimously resigned from the Mambo project in August 2005. By September 2006, Joomla! had 2.5 million downloads and is supported by a team of over 20 developers.
Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways people use the software:
- Corporate websites and portals
- Online commerce
- Small business websites
- Non-profit and organizational websites
- Government applications
- Corporate intranets and extranets
- School and church websites
- Personal or family home pages
- Community-based portals
- Magazines and newspapers
- the possibilities are limitless…
Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations. (from Joomla.org)
Strengths
- Greatest Strength - plug-in and go - for a non-programmer it is relatively easy to get a site up and going.
- Installation - pretty simple - just a few steps.
- Extensions (well over 2000 at last count) including integration with popular, proven scripts - a very broad range to choose from.
- Themeing - a ton of templates that are very easy to edit, both free and for purchase.
- Great Admin interface
- Good platform for a community site - Community Builder is a mature and growing add-on, along with GroupJive.
- Active development and community (over 100,000 validated users in the forums)
- Like the others, can integrate PHP in a content item
- Documentation is exhaustive and concise
Weaknesses
- No ACL (there is a hack - but still a huge weakness)
- only 2 levels of categorization - content can only live in one category. (there is a work around using metadata)
- weak framework in 1.0x (vastly improved in 1.5)
- Themes in 1.0x are rarely standards compliant (fixed in 1.5)
- Blogging is way more cumbersome than it should be - WP, Drupal and MODx excel in this area.
- Upgrading to 1.5 will be a headache.
What's New in 1.5?
Migration - not just a 1,2,3 upgrade.
Internationalization
Foundational work towards cross database support
FTP Filesystem Layer
Overhaul of Joomla! framework
Preparation for usability and accessibility extensions
Separation of logic and presentation layer
Improved caching
Improved SEF support
Added mootools javascript framework
Security and preformance improvements
Samples
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Overview/History
- In 2000, University of Antwerp students Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder set up a wireless bridge between dorms to share information.
- The platform they used was a small webboard. After graduation, they posted it on a live server and called it drop.org
- It was only later, in January 2001, that Dries decided to release the software behind drop.org as "Drupal."
- The motivating factor was to enable others to use and extend the experimentation platform so that more people could explore new paths for development.
The Basics
- Website: www.drupal.org
- Download size - 5.2: 734k (tar.gz)
- Extensions: well over 700
- Requires PHP 4.3.3 > / MySQL 4.1 > or PostgreSQL 7.3 >, Apache 1.3 or 2
- Main Strength: very robust core
- Main Weakness: learning curve
- Hundreds of contributed modules (over 1700 for 5.x)
- Role based permission system (ACL)
- Built in search module
- Good templating
- Excellent blog (though still not as full featured as WordPress)
- Version control
- Forums and more
...
Strengths
- Rock-solid stability
- SEO-friendly URLs
- Easy on server resources
- Can set up multiple sites with a single installation
- Only need to update one installation vs many with Joomla (if you run multiple sites)
- Taxonomy!
- The ability to create many different content types
- Content types support PHP natively
- Versioning
- Sophisticated, flexible content model that makes it easy to define new content types (esp. with modules like Flexinode)
- Strong metadata features (the famous Taxonomy module)
- Good access control system, especially with the node-level permissions modules like taxonomy_access
- Organic Groups
- Active development and community
Weaknesses
- Complexity of interface/management - Probably the most difficult aspect of Drupal for absolute beginners, the "out of the box" functionality is somewhat less than Joomla's since it assumes less about your desired usage. The first time using the Administration interface can be daunting. Drupal 5 dramatically improved the admin layout, but it is still more confusing than Joomla's due to the higher number of options.
- Non-intuitive module development - Drupal's powerful hook and node api system can be very difficult to wrap your mind around if you are not an accomplished developer. It can take hours to write your first simple module. Joomla modules are much closer to simplistic PHP snippets and are easier for beginners (albeit less versatile). If you don't know what "API" means, you could struggle with making a module.
- Complex theme system - Again, the higher complexity of the theme system comes from supporting higher flexibility, but the first one or two themes you make could take up to 30% longer than on Joomla.
- Node hierarchy - The initial content types -- Page, Story, and Blog (all of which inherit from a common "node" type) -- seem unnecessary and confusing to a beginner that just wants a blog with some announcements and a calendar. This confusion will dissipate after only an hour or two using the software, but this is another small piece that adds to the overall feeling of helpnessness to new users.
- Fewer modules - This issue is almost gone by now, as Drupal modules catch up with Joomla's at a rapid pace. Very soon there could be more Drupal modules available than Joomla.
- Can be s..l..o..w if not configured properly
What's New in 6.0?
- Much improved installer
- Improved localization and internationalization
- Theme improvements - PHPTemplate engine in the core.
- improved logging functionality
- ie. get an email / sms message when someone leaves a comment
- Menu system, forum and book modules re-written from scratch
- memory issues being resolved
- OpenID support
Sample Sites
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There are a lot of choices out there...
Here are a few questions you should be asking...
- What kind of site are you building?
- Who will be maintaining it?
- Do you have access to the right people to build and design your site?
- How does this site fit with your overall ministry objectives?
- Which package best suits your need?
OpenSource CMS Hosting Issues
- Gospelcom is fine for Wordpress, but not Joomla or Drupal
- Dreamhost - free but having issues (ask Chad)
- 5Q - $30 per month
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Always remember to keep your open source software up-to-date with patches and upgrades
