The Perfect Publishing + Community Tool
August 31, 2005 | 
32 Comments
No, I don’t know what that is. I don’t think it exists, unfortunately.
I’ve got a few projects I’m working on, and I’ve been trying out various technologies (Movable Type, Wordpress and Drupal so far) trying to hack something together that fits my needs. Mike recently brought up some good points about where blogs as CMS are lacking. This got me thinking about what I’m missing myself. Below is a bit of a brainstorm, be warned…
My Projects and My Problem
The projects are all pretty similar. The basis being an editorial magazine or blog concept thats slightly extended to allow for user created content, integration with various APIs (Flickr, Upcoming.org, Wikipedia (doesn’t have an API, but…)) and great handling of categories, tagging and related items.
Nothing I’ve come across so far really fits. If I were a programmer I’d probably just start from scratch, although, to be honest, that might be more trouble that it’s worth and most blogging systems do most of what I need to do. They allow for lightweight content management, newsfeeds, comments, etc. This puts me well ahead of what I’d consider the competition for these projects.
I just need a little more.
A Blogging Community Engine?
I’ve been told that Drupal does what I need. But it doesn’t. Not really, at least I can’t get very far with it. It’s pretty clunky to be honest and I’ve still not figured out how to customize it’s output to my liking. The closest I’ve come so far is with Movable Type. I think with a little bit of help I might be able to get it 75% of the way to what I want. The biggest piece it’s missing is user-type functionality (forums, user accounts, user blogging, tagging, etc.) which would have to be separate. That is something I do like about Drupal, even if I can’t really figure it out.
My biggest hurdle, right now, is how MT handles categories and related items. I can’t seem to find a plugin that will pull related items when on an individual archive in a logical way. Plus, while I have made my own MT Plugin in the past, I’m no Perl hacker. Heck, I’m not a hacker at all, that’s probably my problem.
Maybe MT+Drupal = what I want. Or maybe there is something else out there? Something I’ve never tried. Maybe I need to hire a programmer? If I only had the money. I can pay for a CMS, but I don’t think I can pay to develop one. ;0)
I’ve got a vision.
To me, the perfect community building CMS would have an admin interface, be as easily customizable and have the basic features of Movable Type. It would allow for some kind of user management, where people could create an account, submit content, comment, tag, share and connect with others—kind of like how Flickr and Odeo. But maybe even have blogs themselves. Yet it’d have open commenting as well, for non-member people. It’d have hooks built in for pulling related photos from Flickr, related events from Upcoming.org and supplementary content from places like Wikipedia, technorati and del.icio.us.
The perfect publishing + community tool.
Ah, well, sounds a bit far fetched, but one can dream.
Filed under: Web General
Keyword Tags: web+publishing cms blogging
Comments
1. Nick Dominguez said:
Expression Engine + Discussion Forum Module? Not entirely fitting the needs above but maybe close?
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:30 AM | #
2. Adrian L. said:
I run a “community” site which has been going through growing pains for the last year. I’ve tried many of the open source php-type tools out there to accomplish what I’ve wanted, with little - or no - success. Drupal could do what I want, but what a nightmare to configure and work with!
Eventually, I stopped trying to integrate several different packages into one unit, and took a lightweight forum system (http://www.punbb.org) and hacked it to do what I need it to.
So far, this has been a far more successful path. I’ve made more progress in the last three weeks on this new back end for my site than I had in months trying to wrestle inappropriate software to my will.
Maybe not what you’re talking about, but a similar problem, and the solution I found.
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:32 AM | #
3. Dudu Figueiredo said:
You dont mention Textpattern,
have you ever tried it ?
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:34 AM | #
4. Aaron Gustafson said:
I agree. Having worked with several blogging packages and integrated them with sites, I have found the systems out there each to be good at one thing and, unfortunately, one thing only. Consequently, I often end up building custom apps.
Traditionally I did this in PHP as I have a library of functions and classes to quickly whip something up, but, lately, I’ve become a Rails convert. When you are dealing with apps like this in which features grow almost organically, it is a great tool. I think perhaps a good Rails programmer could build what you’re looking for in pretty short order.
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:36 AM | #
5. Aaron Gustafson said:
Dudu: I tried textpattern and it was pretty nightmarish to hack apart, especially with all of the code changes prior to the final release.
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:38 AM | #
6. Kevin said:
Seems like you need Mambo CMS. http://www.mamboserver.com
I’m a designer also, not a dev. I’ve been using it for many of my client’s site such as http://maktub.com/ and http://refreshSeattle.com
It puts the updating of the site in the hands of the non-technical clients. They can post articles obivously, but can also add / delete / change menu items, administrate users, etc.. Mambo has huge community of people developing free plug ins (components) such as email mailing lists, photogalleries, community features, shared calendars, media management, forums, you name it. All sync with Mambo’s core role-based login and install in seconds. (no joke, you upload a zip file of a forum component and a few seconds later it’s up and running and sync’ed with your existing user logins and roles, etc.
Hope this helps.
- Kevin
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:46 AM | #
7. Ryan Thrash said:
I had the same problem. So with some other folks much smarter than I, we started an opensource project as the solution (almost a year ago). Been under the radar on purpose, but it’s finally starting to reach the point where it bears wider exposure. It’s great now, but will be incredible in the future.
http://modxcms.com/
We currently have a mini-blogging system that is a great start, but still needs some polish. It’s an INCREDIBLE platform for building custom web apps for clients in and I’ve done that myself many times. Adding a tagging system to it would be pretty trivial. We do offer a front-end content editing module as well to make it easy for end-users to update/fix their own content, too.
We also have have a module that integrates SMF forums with the manager, so if you have protected web pages, you also get automatically logged/synched to the forum user system. Have another one coming out for IPB as well. And others are in the works.
So in summary, no crazy forced templating system, easy as heck to convert existing static sites, pretty decent (and getting better) API and wonderful community that’s growing. All in all it’s pretty close to completely flexibile in it’s ability to be able to do what you want however you want to do it… and quickly, too!
We built our own support site in it in 5 days from start to finish, including writing the initial content and tweaking the templates. This included custom API-documentation tools (auto-formats all the API documentation from a simple table input format), integration with SMF forums, integration with Flyspray bug tracker and several other custom coding pieces.
Posted on August 31, 2005 11:06 AM | #
8. ZaMM said:
Interesting thoughts.
I’m no programmer, but my loved one is working on a CMS from scratch (he’s using Movable Type and he’s not happy with it)… these ideas will surely be helpful. :)
Posted on August 31, 2005 11:12 AM | #
9. Dylan Bennett said:
I don’t want to dangle an (at the moment) unreachable carrot, but the engine that drives my site sounds close to what you want in terms of a framework to build on. I say “to build on” because it doesn’t have all the hooks into things like Flickr that you want, but in terms of the blogging/cms/user stuff, that’s all there.
The best description of the site is a community of blogs tied together through a centralized forum. The “forum” is an aggregation of every user’s blog post. Each user is given their own sub-domain on the site. That sub-domain is their blog. They can style it however they want using an XSL stylesheet. The admin interface lets you manage the users and the site as a whole. It’s different from a standard forum in that because each post to the forum is actually a post to that user’s blog, the original poster has full control over the post. They can lock it, edit the original post to their hearts content, delete it, moderate the comments and so on.
It’s actually kind of hard to describe how it all works together, but it works well and has lent itself to building a very nice community. The framework of the site actually allows a much larger use than it’s actually getting on my site right now. For instance, I’m in the middle of coding a whole “media” section to allow users to post and share media (documents, images, video, anything). The framework I have in place allows me to do this without out too much trouble. It’s just the time of coding the feature itself.
I say it’s an unreachable carrot, simply because there are features of the engine I need to complete before I release the code to the world. More importantly, I would like to port it to Mono and MySQL as well. It’s ASP.Net and MS-SQL based right now, and I know how that limits its adoption for many people. The port actually shouldn’t be that hard, simply because the framework of the engine allows for things like entirely new data access layers without a lot of trouble.
I just thought I’d chime in, so you know that your needs are known and that there are some of us out there actually working to fill that need. :)
Posted on August 31, 2005 11:13 AM | #
10. Anil said:
I think you raise a lot of good points that we’ve thought about with Movable Type. One of the things we’ve realized is that almost everyone needs that “just one more!” thing that a tool doesn’t have built in. That’s why we’ve focused so much on making Movable Type a great platform for developers to add features, and to make sure there’s an incentive to do so, by growing the market around plugins and customizations.
I don’t think any tool is ever going to get to 100% of the functionality that everyone wants, (though we’re sure going to try!) but we definitely want to make it easy to add that last 10% that you need. That’s one of the reasons that being able to plug in additional functionality right within the application, adding to its menus or screens themselves, is going to be so important in the future.
Posted on August 31, 2005 12:12 PM | #
11. Summerville said:
I’ve had good success with e107 for a couple of community-ish sites.
Posted on August 31, 2005 12:25 PM | #
12. Keith said:
Anil – Sure you’re right. And, like I said, MT is fairly close. Close enough for me to build a functioning protoype. What I might do is take that prototype and see if I can use it to drum up some cash to see about getting the functionality I want built in (via plug-ins or some other mechanism) or maybe build something completely custom. Ah, if only I was a programmer. But then again, I might not have had the idea in the first place if I was…
Posted on August 31, 2005 12:27 PM | #
13. allgood2 said:
I’ll echo Nick: Expression Engine (EE). It’s far more like a CMS than a blogging system, and no perl. It’s all PHP and MySQL, very easy to add your own features and functionality to; and there are a slew of plug-ins and modules. It’s a very modular system, so features and functions are as easy as installing a new module.
I love it. I dumped MT quickly once I used EE. It rocks my CMS world.
Posted on August 31, 2005 01:10 PM | #
14. Mark Boulton said:
I’d recommend EE too. It’s out-of-the-box functionality is excellent and all the API hacking you need could probably be done with PHP. Have a close look at the demo…
Posted on August 31, 2005 02:03 PM | #
15. Robert Douglass said:
I can attest that Drupal can do everything you described, though I can see how it might not be completely obvious upon first impression. Beyond the learning curve, however, you’ll find something very close to your perfect tool.
Posted on August 31, 2005 02:16 PM | #
16. Keith said:
re Mambo: I just noticed Dreamhost has a 1-click install of Mambo. I’ve heard quite a few times that it’s a great CMS. I may try that. Looks like it has some of what I want.
re EE: I’ve heard good and bad things.
re Drupal: I think it could do lots of what I want, but the learning curve is too high. As well, I’m sorry, but all I’ve seen is that it’s very hard to customize. I need something I can get to look, feel and function exactly how I want it to. I’ve not given up on Drupal, but it’s been sloooow going.
Posted on August 31, 2005 02:43 PM | #
17. zug said:
Have you looked at xaraya?
After rolling a couple of my own CMS’s a few years ago, this interview with Xaraya’s John Cox really caused me to see how limiting most open source CMS and community tools are regarding their application architecture, particularly in the area of extensibility and customization.
I’m hoping to do a prototype of a knowledge management system built on xaraya here at the hospital sometime early next year to see if it holds up.
We’ll see.
Posted on August 31, 2005 03:17 PM | #
18. Robert said:
As an alternative to Drupal, you might want to look at CivicSpace. I’ve been working with it for a little while on a current project, and from what I gather, it’s basically Drupal, but a little more friendly. So far, it looks like it might have most of the features you’re looking for (and probably some you’re not), but it seems fairly easy to customize (just edit CSS and HTML) and very flexible (tons of configurable options). To see it in action, look no further than Spread Firefox.
Posted on August 31, 2005 03:25 PM | #
19. Christian Watson said:
Keith,
I’d recommend checking out CMS Matrix - a great site for comparing different CMS’s. It has a very cool search by criteria function which makes it easier to hone in on what you want.
Posted on August 31, 2005 04:49 PM | #
20. Richard said:
Zug, above mentions Xaraya. I used it for my own site and a couple of client sites.
Downside is that it has a huge learning curve. Much harder than, say, WordPress.
Biggest problem for what you want is that it doesn’t allow comments from unregistered users. I think you can hack it but I haven’t figured out how yet. Other than that it is a great CMS and delivers standards compliant HTML.
Posted on August 31, 2005 05:13 PM | #
21. Ryan Brooks said:
Like I said on Businesslogs, building a CMS system is hard. What you propose is even worse.
But not impossible.
Let’s take a look at, first, Deviantart.com - there is the perfect example of a site that does everything you’re looking for. Forums, membership, blogs and above all, a sense of community.
Now, istockphoto.com - a little less of a power-site, but still with a lot of the same features - forums, blogs and a couple APIs for their photos.
You’re right, however - there is no system out there that does this out of the box.
But why not take it a step further - something like a myspace.com approach where a user could upload their own stylesheet to customize the look and feel; of course, this would have to go through an approval system that could be enabled/disabled.
It should come with full cms quality funtions (version control, workflow, et cetera).
The hard part would be getting all the requirements together - after that, someone like myself or another programmer with enough gaul could undertake the task.
Great idea though.
Posted on August 31, 2005 09:40 PM | #
22. Nollind Whachell said:
No, the perfect tool doesn’t exist. I’ll agree with you there. I fooled around with tons of different systems until I settled upon Squarespace because it gave me most of the features I wanted in a very simple yet powerful and usable admin panel. Biggest problem? It’s a hosted service so you don’t get full access to the code, just the templates which you can modify with the higher accounts. If Anthony, the main owner and coder of Squarespace, ever released the code for purchase it would a great combo with Dreamhost.
It sounds like you want to build a large community which you could do with Squarespace but it would probably cost you a pretty penny. For smaller communities of say 50 to 100 people tops then you could probably easily (via there drag n drop modules) do some pretty damn cool stuff with it (i.e. variable priviledges, photos, file folders with uploading and/or downloading, forums, different blogs, as well as still allow external members the ability to comment) for just $30/month. The biggest drawback though is that the design theme is set/admustable for the entire site only, so you wouldn’t be able to have a different theme for different blogs (although you could add a page header image banner to give the individual blog somewhat of a personal feel).
Posted on August 31, 2005 10:16 PM | #
23. Mike P. said:
Can I add an item to the list? The ability to power multiple sites with one install. One of the biggest reasons that I wrote my own little cms…
Posted on August 31, 2005 11:52 PM | #
24. Cameron said:
+1 for Expression Engine.
In addition to the discussion forum, you’ll want to take a look at standalone entry forms. Essentially this allows you to create a data entry form which lives inside of a template rather than the control panel. And it’s not limited to just blog entries, but any EE content type you can dream of (unlimited fields).
You can also limit entry statuses to user groups. So posts might default to just display on a community page. The editors user group might have access to bump and entry to a featured level. And only admins could have access to make something a frontpage story. Again, unlimited groups, unlimited statuses.
If you’re a programmer then Drupal should get serious consideration. But for designers I’ve found EE lets you build things you’d never thought possible without coding a single line of php.
Posted on September 1, 2005 12:30 AM | #
25. Jeroen Coumans said:
Mambo is great feature-wise and most people I’ve dealt with are pretty quickly capable of doing advanced things with it. The only thing which really bothers me is that its markup is really horrible by default, and requires quite some hacking in PHP files to clean up. There are various mods and attempts to bring clean, semantic code to it, and the integration of the patTemplate engine will ease this process even more, but for now, you’ll have to deal with unsemantic, dirty markup. (Besides, while its community is large and very active, the core development team recently split to create its own fork. You might wanna wait until the dust settles and the 4.5.3 version is released.)
Posted on September 1, 2005 03:39 AM | #
27. Veerle Pieters said:
Add another fan of EE.
I am a designer and don’t know a single line of PHP but I’ve built a business website using EE and I totally love it! It’s in my opinion very extended in its functionalities and totally flexible. As others already commented here, you can assign different groups of users etc. add custom fields as much as you want and add your own PHP where needed. There is also fabulous forum and support whenever you need quick help.
Posted on September 1, 2005 10:46 AM | #
28. Nollind Whachell said:
Probably off track but still sounds like an interesting community building tool (which utilizes Ruby / Web 2.0).
“Not to mention the excellent social features we’re still adding such as buddy lists, instant messaging and even entire community hub - all without a single page refresh and just a mouse click away.”
Posted on September 1, 2005 11:42 AM | #
29. Albert said:
This article clearly states the mindset of the author. It is intelligently drafted to create intrest of the reader. It brings out the worth of the subject.
Posted on September 2, 2005 04:41 AM | #
30. Spence said:
You mnay want to check out DotNetNuke.com too. It is Microsoft .NET based, but open source. I run everything we build off of it really seems to sing for us.
Posted on September 2, 2005 04:53 PM | #
31. Rogerio said:
I agree with Kevin and Jeroen, Mambo CMS has a small learning curve and it has an Admin interface, high customisation and many many tools. I use it on my website and are now pushing it to my new and old customers. You can easily install it even if your hosting does not support automatic installations (such as H-Sphere). I highly recommend it.
Posted on September 3, 2005 10:52 AM | #
32. Teacher said:
I believe that Movable Type is the best on the area and the most popular, it needs some enhancments but its current features are okay for most communities. However, i prefer forum-type scripts as vBulletin.
Posted on February 18, 2006 03:52 AM | #
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