[Glastonbury] LUGOG site content management solution

[Phil Wood]

Sean Miller wrote:

> I've been looking at content management solutions for the LUGOG site 
> as folks seem to dislike Mambo...
>
> It occurs to me that we have two solutions...
>
> a) We choose another package... to this effect I could install several 
> and folks could see which they prefer.
> b) We write something bespoke.
>
I'd like to suggest that we use a wiki. There two main problems with 
wikis a) most of them look like wikis b) pages get changed at random by 
idiots. So we need control over how it looks and some level of security. 
I've recently been looking at pmwiki and there are many sites using it 
that look nothing like a wiki. It has a comprehensive security system so 
that you can restrict who can edit which pages. You can even restrict 
who can see certain pages. Pages can be in groups and these can have 
their own permissions. So we could have areas which could only be viewed 
by members.

It uses a sytem of skins which determine what it looks like. There are 
loads of them. Many are based on CSS (style sheets) so they are very 
easy to modify. You can even set it up so that users view it with their 
prefered skin. The data is the same but you see it the way you like.

It also has a large number of add ons which they call their cookbook. 
Maybe we could have a go at writting some of our own if there are 
features we would like which are not there yet. There are a couple of 
addons to do with forums. I haven't looked at them in any detail. But 
maybe we could get involved in one of them or just start our own.

The website is www.pmwiki.org It is written in php and doesn't use a 
database. For those who want a closer look, the add on which adds 
security is called UserAuth and the skin FixFlow gives a nice, easily 
modified look.

I've been looking at it for some other ventures and I'd be happy to set 
up a demo site so everyone can have look. I could also provide free 
hosting for the group if it was needed.

Which ever way we go I'd be happy to be involved.

Phil