CMS Discussion

[adavis]

I'm trying to decide between two CMS systems and am looking for some input. Between Typo3 and Mambo/Joomla. Has anyone had any experiences with either one of them? If there are any others that I need to consider, throw those in as well.

One reason is that I'm giving up the school site. They will be looking for someone to customize whatever is chosen to their needs, to take my code and implement it in with the CMS for modules like homework that won't be availabe in a CMS, also tweak the calendar feature so that it has a sports feature which contains driving directions (link to mapquest of similar map site) to away games and scores for after the games are over, etc...

Also, I've got a new project, which is an orphanage in Ecuador. The director will need to be able to make updates to text from down there, so thus the need for a user friendly CMS.

Thanks,
Alisa

[Elizabeth]

I really like phpWebsite, seagull, and exponent. Mambo and/or Joomla are also good... I think it all depends on what you're comfortable with and what your specific needs are. I would recommend trying them out first to get your feel for what you like-- which you can do at http://www.opensourcecms.com. You will also find a lot of comments about each one; a lot more than you will find here.

[Shrike]

Mambo is the only one I have tried and it's very decent. I haven't tried the offshoot Joomla yet. I note that www.opensourcecms.com is built with Mambo :)

I did notice that the recent BC issue reared it's ugly head with my Mambo installation running on PHP 5.1 for Windows. I'm not sure if they have released a fix for this.

[Jason Batten]

www.e107.org

[SteelValor]

Personally, I would write my own (again) since most of these apps have or have had major exploits in the csx/SQLinj areas. Secunia.com has a pretty good history of exploits. It really gives you an idea on how good or not the app is.

[Jason Batten]

Well, you should really hire someone to do a security test of your website if you're using a CMS. Security is only a measurement. You can't exactly have the worlds most secure website without loosing functionality... the sad cruel world we live in... *sobs

[piersk]

whilst on the subject of mambo, does anyone know of a good "howto" to creating mambo themes/templates? I've searched but the only one of any use is the one involving the DW extension which I can't install due to admin restrictions.

[SteelValor]

Well, you should really hire someone to do a security test of your website if you're using a CMS. Security is only a measurement. You can't exactly have the worlds most secure website without loosing functionality... the sad cruel world we live in... *sobs

Actually, it's pretty easy to code for and you should loose no functionality at all if the app is written to industry standards. You just need to validate the data coming in from the users (forms, cookies, urls, referring domains/pages, ect) and strip any hostile code. Believe it or not 80-90% of the web apps out there are not doing this and getting r@ped for thier ignorance/laziness/priorities.

[adavis]

I agree, stripping executable code isn't hard, just another step.

The deal is that if I had time to do this, I would have done it a while back. I just don't have time anymore. 40+ hour at a paying job plus a family life either doesn't leave time for intense development or sleep. I'd prefer to sleep most night :rolleyes:

I'm willing to turn my code over to whomever and let them roll it into the website. To get what they want, they will have to hire someone. They haven't offer to hire me to do it.

Love you guys,
Alisa

[SteelValor]

I've discovered echo$_SERVER["LOCAL_ADDR"] Once I have my methods converted I'll post them so you peeps can love 'em or bash 'em. Gimme a few days as I'm converting from Cold Fusion to PHP and need to learn some server vars and such.

:D