Is a Content Management System in Your Future?

1. Is a Content Management System in Your Future? An overview of Drupal, Joomla!, and Plone

2. Overview • Introduction and Disclaimers • What to Keep in Mind • Overview: Technologies • Ease of Use • Core Features, Add-ons • Customizing

3. Darci Hanning • Software Application Developer • MLIS, Information School, June 2005 • Coursework on Content Management • Oregon State Library, Technology Development Consultant • Plonista :-)

4. Disclaimers • There is no Silver Bullet • Head start on research • Presentation will be available at NW Central: http://nwcentral.org/

5. Things to Think About • Your organization’s goals? • Current technology skills? • Where will your website live? • Library-specific features? • What about YOU?

6. What is content management? • Create/edit/delete content in a shared repository (database) • Organize content • Content can be published/visible or not based on conditions (workflow, access permissions) • Layout control through CSS (+ template of some kind)

7. Some benefits • Manage website through a web browser • Multiple content editors (access control) • Allow patron participation • Control of branding elements • Archive and reuse content

8. “Good” CMS • Content types • Workflow • User roles and permissions • “Versioning” • Security (unauthorized access)

9. Technology Platform

10. Ease of Installation • Drupal and Joomla! • Web-based installation wizard • Assumes Apache, MySQL installed and working • Plone • Command line install script for Unix/OS X and binary install for Windows • Installs “everything” you need (Python, Zope, Plone but not Apache)

11. Ease of Use • PLANNING YOUR WEBSITE • What kind of content? • Blogs, events, news, etc. • What kind of features? • Commenting, sorting, searching, etc.

12. “Content Soup” “…Drupal treats your content as a giant soup, with each piece of content having properties… Specific kinds of pages, specific sections of your site are created by pulling up any content with certain properties…” (Joomla is similar to Drupal)

13. “Content Soup” Dynamically filtering content based on properties to display the web page you want. “…properties like number of comments, creation date, author, associated keywords, etc.”

14. “Content Soup” • Joomla! Demo

15. Considerations • Ultimate in flexibility • Mix/match what shows up easily • Think in terms of properties • Natural approach for many people • Manually create menu / navigation. • Content creation has unique interface.

16. Hierarchical • “In place” content creation/editing • Lots of content types • Page, news item, event, file, image, etc. • Common properties for all types • Title, description, creator • Unique properties for some • Event versus Page

17. Hierarchical • Plone Demo

18. Considerations • Create content “in place” (go where you want it and add it there) • Navigation/menus automatically created, harder to customize • Lots of default content types

19. Default Content Types • Drupal • Page (no author, timestamps, or comments) • Story (author, timestamps, comments, and is always on the “front page”) • Joomla! • Articles • Links • News Feeds

20. Additional Content Types • Community contributed • Drupal modules • Joomla! extensions • Plone products

21. Workflow • The ability to control availability of content by its “state” • Drupal: add-on module • Joomla!: ?? • Plone: built-in

22. Security • PHP is relatively non-secure • Monitor PHP security announcements • Monitor Drupal and Joomla! security announcements • Zope/Plone is relatively more secure • Still, monitor Zope and Plone news announcements

23. Core Features

24. Library Features • Drupal • MARC, OAI-PMH, Bibliography, III Authentication, Z39.50 search, Millennium integration, remote search • Joomla • ? • Plone • OAI-PMH, Bibliography

25. Customization • Layout / Display: • Templates: page structure • CSS: style and color • Contributed Themes • **Documentation** • How quickly does it become hard to do interesting things?

26. Customization • Functionality • Drupal modules • Some core features are not ON by default • Joomla! Extensions • Plone products • Some core features are not ON by default

27. Customization • Be thoughtful in your selection • Not all extensions, modules, products are created equally • Responsive developer? • Good history? Other contributions? • Good documentation? • Don’t go crazy with a ton of add-ons! • Upgrade issues • Potential conflicts with other add-ons • Test it first!

28. General Closing Remarks • Must have a team the works • Learning curve • Some support problems • Extensions are written by anyone in the community – ANYONE! • Play! Ask Questions!

29. Resources: Drupal • http://www.drupal.org/ • drupalib: http://drupalib.interoperating.info/ • groups.drupal: libraries: http://groups.drupal.org/libraries • Free, 2-hour sandbox site:http://www.opensourcecms.com/cms/drupal/ (user: admin pass: demo)

30. Resources: Joomla! • http://www.joomla.org/ • Joomla in Libraries: http://www.joomlainlibrary.com/ • Free, 2-hour sandbox site: • http://www.opensourcecms.com/cms/joomla/admin.html (user: admin pass: demo)

31. Resources: Plone • http://plone.org/ • Install Plone locally: http://plone.org/products/plone