Re: Experiences with these CMSs

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

Quim Gil wrote:
> El dt 25 de 07 del 2006 a les 11:27 +0100, en/na Thomas Wood va
> escriure:
> > I still don't think we should rule 
> > out a good build system that creates static pages. 
>
> As Greg requests, can the people in favor of keeping the current system
> make an evaluation of the requirements, as we are doing with the new CMS
> candidates? http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/CmsRequirements
>
> About the current system, I'm specially concerned about:
>
> * a comfortable framework for editing content (commits are showstoppers)

Agreed - committing to cvs/svn requires a certain amount of technical 
knowledge. However, it does have the advantage that our translators are 
already fully equipped to use it.

> * full text search (we would need a tool for that)

I'm sure there are lots of tools we could use for this. This is actually 
the only area I can see where we need true dynamic content.

> Also about 
>
> * shall provide feeds (RSS, Atom, etc) 

If we have a good enough build system, then it could be rebuilt every 
hour or so (e.g. like how planet works).

> and the goals
>
> * Own channel for publishing the official news of the GNOME project 
>   * Single gateway to all the news sources provided by the GNOME
>     subsites
>
> Perhaps we could have all the news related stuff under news.gnome.org,
> manage them through a CMS fully equipped with feeds features, tags and
> all the marvel dynamic pages can offer to news related sites (i18n here
> wouldn't be a problem since news are a one-shot work easy to track, with
> no further editing/updating)

Is this not what gnomedesktop.org is currently doing anyway? I wasn't 
aware we were including a replacement in our revamp plans.

> My last but not least concern is the homepage, that shouldn't be static.
> Au contraire, it should reflect everyday all the activity and life
> generated in the GNOME project. But static PHP (or something) managed
> with the current system could provide a vivid homepage operating with
> the dynamic data spread through the GNOME subsites, isn't it.

I agree that the home page shouldn't become stagnent, but having a build 
system to generate the website doesn't mean it has to. See above about 
planet and re-building at predefined intervals.

> Perhaps the core reason why I think the current system is not enough is
> the possibility of having a 'myGNOME' alike experience being a
> registered user and getting the information and services tailored to my
> interests. Olav, Anne, Journalist A, user B, ISD C etc would get
> different homepages and perhaps also different wgo structure. But well,
> none of this belongs to the current release goals and they are not even
> agreed goals at all. I don't want to introduce red herrings, nor I want
> to stop thinking in the big picture.

To be honest, I hate having to log in to access features of a website. 
What sort of different home pages do you have in mind? I can't think of 
any useful use case for it at the moment.

> I hope my obsession for migrating to a good CMS is more understandable
> now. However, I realize the current system evolved could be a reasonably
> good choice for the strict wgo if we solve the content edition problem.
> IMO this is more important than the i18n problem, since there is no
> point having a good solution for translating if you don't have a good
> solution for publishing first.

Well, I hope I have an obsession for a good CMS too! A proper build 
system (not like the current one) could provide a good CMS. I just want 
to make sure we explore all possible avenues.

-Thomas