Any CMS guys around?

LeaUK · 22nd April 2007

slightly off topic this but thought I'd ask anyway...

I'm keen to begin evaluating Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to see how easily web management can be included into sites, but even after Googling and reading for several hours just can't seem to find the right info required amonst the raft of MS products.

I'm primarily interested in offering sites whereby clients can use authors to update pages and maybe designers to create the overall feel (that be me probably). Office SharePoint 2007 offers all this and much more but costs £20K per Internet server! Ouuuch.

So my questions are:

1. What are the minimum server software requirement for Office SharePoint Designer 2007 such to support design of web content management sites

2. Cost of licensing supporting server software per server (excluding W2K3 server etc.)

3. What alternative GUI based WMSs are there, especially ones which are open source

I've looked at Plone but unfortunately can't find an associated GUI tool like SharpointDesigner, however maybe I've missed it somewhere..

Cheers for any comment
Lea

Cameron Gray · 22nd April 2007

The easiest method for you will be Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Runs with SQL 2K5 Embedded.

Most other CMSs especially Open Source ones include Web based tools for designing pages and templates; if not can accept HTML from your WYSIWYG editor of choice.

LeaUK · 22nd April 2007

Hi Cameron

Many thanks for the reply.

So to clarify, WSS 3 + Office SharePoint Designer = CMS website development?

WSS 3 = inxpensive ?? - suspect not

SQL 2K5 embedded = inexpensive? Can WSS3 run with Express?

Quote:

Most other CMSs especially Open Source ones include Web based tools for designing pages and templates; if not can accept HTML from your WYSIWYG editor of choice.

Uhm, sounds VERY interesting. Perhaps I've haven't investigate Plone enough? Have you any experience of any? Can you make a recommendations?

Cheers
Lea

Cameron Gray · 22nd April 2007

WSS = Free (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...4-8dc2caf93951)
SQL 2K5 Embedded = SQL 2K5 Express without management features.

Plone is not one of my favourites, neither is Drupal - Joomla/Mambo is slightly better but all of these enforce their idea of what constitutes a CMS.

SharePoint though is more suited to Groupware and DMS than web based CMS.

LeaUK · 22nd April 2007

Quote:

SharePoint though is more suited to Groupware and DMS than web based CMS.

That's what I'm feeling too. SP has a huge range of features based around DMS and business flow, none of which I really require and so perhaps for CMS/WMS I'm better off searching for an inexpensive commercial package designed with CMS in mind (if inexpensive versions exist)?

However, if WSS 3 (Free) + Office SharePoint Designer 2007 = simple CMS web sites this could be rather exiting

Thanks Cameron

LeaUK · 30th April 2007

OK, so teh CMS market is huge and I suspect growing at an exponential rate, there are hundreds of products and of course the question is which fits my needs.

I notice PostNuke is available as a managed item in Plesk with one of add-ons so was wondering if I should begin here..

Anyone with some PostNuke experience?

Cheers
Lea

Cameron Gray · 30th April 2007

A big target for defacers as its forked from the PHPNuke code. You'll have to be incredibly vigilant with updating it.

LeaUK · 30th April 2007

Thanks for the warning Cameron. Oh, so many choices!

Lea

LeaUK · 30th April 2007

Uhm, any thoughts on DotNetNuke ??

Cameron Gray · 1st May 2007

Better as its a clean codebase, TBH I haven't found any .NET based CMS's that are any good especially with larger content sets that aren't based on Microsoft Content Server (read: $$$+££££).

LeaUK · 1st May 2007

thanks

Have you any preference? A CMS that could be handled by Plesk would have some advantages, but it's certainly not essential. Target CMS sites are reletively small (< 50pages) to include blog and pages to allow WYSIWYG browser based page updates - images, text, video etc..

Cheers
Lea

Cameron Gray · 1st May 2007

You're more likely to be looking for a portal application than straight CMS. DNN or Passage.NET is probably what you're looking for...

As usual Google is your friend.

LeaUK · 1st May 2007

Thanks Cameron

Google definitely is and please don't think I'm simply posting without some thought, but there are in excess of 80 CMS engines available of which I'm slowly going through reviewing but you can imagine the time required - hence asking.

Many thanks for the pointers (*)

much appreciated as always.
Lea

Cranky · 2nd May 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeaUK2

OK, so teh CMS market is huge and I suspect growing at an exponential rate, there are hundreds of products and of course the question is which fits my needs.

I notice PostNuke is available as a managed item in Plesk with one of add-ons so was wondering if I should begin here..

Anyone with some PostNuke experience?

Cheers
Lea

The problem with Plesk App Vault is none of the apps can be updated automatically by Plesk. However, this is something which is being worked on currently as I have been asked various questions by Plesk team about it, and I believe automated updates will be possible later this year soon after the upstream vendor releases updates, all installed via Plesk CP.

LeaUK · 2nd May 2007

Cheers Cranky

Looking forward to 8.2 - if I dare to upgrade again!

Lea