All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Survey: Which feature do you expect in a good CMS?

Beatnik on 2003-08-24T19:25:54

As an attempt to improve the usability of one of my pet projects, I decided to ask what you would like to see in a CMS (Content Management System). Easy access to documents? Calendering? Contact management? News managment or bulleting board features? XML support? GUI client? Speed? Ease of installation? Documentation??

Comments! Comments! Comments!

Hackability

Juerd on 2003-08-24T21:10:47

Hackability (includes documentation)

Ease of use (includes documentation)

Scalability (efficient programming. No needless complex and large OO structures for simple templating, for example)

Image management (javascripts to insert the images in the html after uploading)

Almost everything disabled by default (options enabled only when needed, so simple things can stay simple)

Comment fields for internal use (at least one for every type of storage)

Integrated version control and easy backups

A good way to separate test servers from live servers and synching

An easy way to provide alternative interfaces for the disabled (and text-browser lovers)

Last, but very important item: NO OBSCURE URLs! URLs should be easy to remember, easy to type and easy to parse. Write your own web server or mod_perl handler, or use PATH_INFO, or mod_rewrite. No "&", no "?", no ";".

Re:Hackability

Juerd on 2003-08-24T21:12:00

I forgot:

Mailinglist interface. If the CMS supports news items, it should also support sending the news to a mailing list.

Re:Hackability

Beatnik on 2003-08-24T22:34:40

What if I provide a very easy way to add both front end handlers (preprocessing certain tags) as back end handlers (adding admin sections) by just allowing module drop-in? :)

Documentation is always a hard part but I already included POD everywhere.

Obscure URL bits.. I use mod_perl handlers, for example to fake real HTML files.

Alternative Interfaces shouldn't be a problem, I barely have any layout data hardcode (except for some form generating).

I'm not sure what you mean by Image Management...

Version Control uhm yes.. that should be doable, with some hacks here and there.

Explain what you mean by comments for internal use? Is it like uhm ToDo lists? or Changelog?

Thanks for the suggestions :)

Re:Hackability

Juerd on 2003-08-25T05:46:00

Image management ::= the ability for the user to upload an image and have it inserted in the page that is currently being edited, at the location of the text cursor, combined with means of removing images from the server

Comments for internal use ::= comments attached to pages, images, forms, etcetera, used by the people who maintain the site. I include these things with every project, and people always seem to find a use for them :)

Weelllll.....

madprof on 2003-08-24T22:42:35

Flexibility. Power. Simplicity.

Think of it like Lego and you'll not go far wrong. Lots of simple building blocks that I can use creatively to make something more complex. No CMS can cope with all situations well though so decide what situation you wish to aim for and stick with it.

How about what not to do?

neuroball on 2003-08-24T23:55:59

Don't do anything that the following three (in reality two) products do: Microsoft CMS, Vignette, Epicentric (now owned by Vignette).

Don't try to box the developer's / Content Editor's (if existing) in. I.e. Don't allow Content Editor's to write HTML. And if they have to write HTML don't offer any edit boxes that write HTML for them.

Keep the structure dynamic and allow for a sudden change in design concepts.

Btw. The above is almost impossible... I konw this because I had to work with all the evil CMSs and with their mis-use. Do your best to allow for dynamic and fast development and you are on my good side. ;)

/neuroball/

Less is More

samtregar on 2003-08-25T03:59:24

Less code, less features, less screens, less stuff users don't need. Just about every CMS I've seen is just too big to ever work right. I say figure out what your users really need, build just that and then stop. If some other users need something a little different, build a plugin interface but for heaven's sake don't just add it to the CMS.

-sam