[SLUG] Geeklog.

[Paul Teasdale]

On Friday 02 May 2003 12:28, Al Girling wrote:
> On Thu, 1 May 2003 19:43:56 +0100
>
> Ian Eade @ IGM Web Design wrote:
> > Some good points Al regarding the Geeklog CMS, bear with me whilst I
> > through my shiny spanner into the opensource works (coffee at the ready):
>
> <snip>
>
> > Very much the reverse Al, standing up and voicing your opinions is
> > positive and helps everybody. What we need to do is decide exactly what
> > we want and how we can use what Jamie has provided as a foundation to get
> > there. For now I can't see any point in continuing any further work on
> > Geeklog and will leave things as is.
> >
> > Ian
> >
> > ps
> > As it has taken a day or two to compile this lot a few more posts have
> > been raised, so bear this in mind when reading this
>
> Lots of good points Ian, and I'm sorry that my comments have stopped the
> development of the Slug Geeklog site.
>
> As you say a few new posts have been made regarding this subject and need
> to born in mind.  On Wednesday's IRC meet, Paul suggested a possible
> alternative to Geeklog which I think should be investigated. 
>
><snip>
>
> Looking forward to the future.
>
> Al

I have had a little bit of time to spare this weekend so I have knocked up a 
really quick example of how web pages can be kept dynamic without the need to 
upload each new change to the SLUG web space. It's based on my past post 
whereby I gave the example of keeping the meeting date up-to-date, via a web 
browser, using a passworded admin area.

Firstly goto http://www.ryedalebusiness.co.uk/slug and you will see slightly 
redesigned SLUG website. I have altered Jamies design slightly so it fits 
better with my favourite template engine, that being patTemplate, and is 
otherwise no critism what-so-ever of Jamies original design. Down the left 
you will see the mock up next meeting date; so far so good. (BTW if anyone 
wants an explanation of why I believe template engines are a "good thing" 
then I will be only to happy to answer at a meeting or in another post.)

Now go to http://www.ryedalebusiness.co.uk/slug/admin that being our "secret" 
passworded admin area that normal browsing users do not know about (except in 
this case it's no longer secret and it's not passworded). Change the meeting 
date as you wish. As soon as you press 'Set Date' your selected date will be 
written to MySQL and you will be redirected back to 
http://www.ryedalebusiness.co.uk/slug. Now look down the left and you will 
see the new meeting date that you have just set. Note that you may need to 
refresh your browser to pick up the new date you have just set as I have not 
put in any page expiry stuff thus there is nothing to force your browser 
to automatically refresh (although it usually does depending on your caching 
policy).

Obviously this is noddy stuff but goes to prove the point we could, with a 
little amount of effort and some time, write our own tailor-made CMS. Again I 
am NOT saying Geeklog is a bad thing (I like it personally) but would like to 
fit in with everybodies general idea of what's required and, so far, there's 
excellent points been made by both sides.

To sum up I have tried to point out the main advantages and disadvantages of 
developing our own CMS.

Advantages of writing our own CMS:
	Tailor-made to our exact requirement.
	The fun of learning and doing.
	Common look through-out.
	Unique look through-out.

Disadvantages of writing our own CMS:
	Time.
	Effort. 
	Re-inventing the wheel.
	Bugs & security (probably not such a big deal in our case).
	Organisation of work (assuming more than one person is working on it).

With the above in mind it would be nice to sort out the exact website roadmap 
at the next meeting.

Kind regards,

Paul.