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A Simple, Family-Oriented CMS? 66

Posted by Cliff from the a-home-for-your-clan-on-the-'net dept.
jbarr asks: "I would like to host a private, family-oriented Content Management System (CMS) that would allow geographically-separated family members to easily share online things like photos, comments, stories, calendars, etc. I would like it to have friendly yet secure front-end and have an easy interface that wouldn't intimidate the less-than computer-savvy. I could always just install and tweak PHP-Nuke and create a family-friendly theme, but is there something else that you would suggest? I would prefer an Open Source solution, as my host is Linux-based."
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A Simple, Family-Oriented CMS? More

A Simple, Family-Oriented CMS?

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  • Isn't that what yahoo groups is for? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:16PM (#13055701) Journal
    Not my kind of thing, but that sounds like exactly the feature set of yahoo groups.
  • As the owner of GmailTips.com [gmailtips.com], I'm sure you will appreciate the irony of my post :)

    I've known a couple family groups who ended up using Yahoo Groups [yahoo.com] for this very purpose. It was the cheapest and simplest solution. Do you really want to host a web/email service and provide technical support to your family? (Not that there's anything wrong with that) :)

    I've run two dozen different lists through them for a variety of groups (Work alumni groups, self-help groups for job seekers, geographically dispersed groups, etc). Each time we debated what services to use, Yahoo Groups won out because it had the most complete feature set and was the easiest to use. Nobody really cared about having a full-fledged CMS--they just wanted to be able to post stories, comments via email or the web.

    Yahoo Groups is good enough, with a few caveats.

    Yahoo groups supports comments & stories as regular old posts, photos & calendars. The group members can receive the posts via email or on the web, which makes it simple if they just want to use their regular email.

    It doesn't have a good secure interface, the default login screen is HTTP, but you can log in via HTTPS as well. The groups can be invisible to outsiders, closed to non-subscribers, etc. Not sure if that's what you meant by a 'secure interface'.

    The solution is not open-source, it's not something you can custom host, they have ads, and you need a Yahoo account to use the advanced features (I think).
    • Do you really want to host a web/email service and provide technical support to your family?
      Well, assuming the guy is your standard "I need to get my hands dirty" geek, the hosting part is a given. And whether he wants to or not, he's going to have to do tech support -- Yahoo Groups is well-designed, but it's still complicated enough to intimidate the non-techie.
  • Mambo. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

    • Re:One Word: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jgaynor ( 205453 )
      Ummm no. I recently moved away from the nuke set (phpnuke too closed-developmkent, postnuke to full of security holes). I chose mambo because of it's popularity and ease of setup. It's been a nightmare since then. Mambo is unorganized as HELL. The documentation is horrible and the administration panel is a GUI junkyard.

      Want to make your own theme? Good luck. There's like 9 user-definable php insertion points and if you remove one of them your modules go with it. It's not intelligent enough to move t
      • i've done a few sites in mambo and i love it. i came from postnuke, the themes/templates were difficult to make and managing the site was a pain in my @$$. Granted mambo doesn't have the core development help site like postnuke does with all their "PN" sections, mambo has a ton of people always available to help out on your projects. As a question and it will be answered within a few hours or a day. All the core files are easily modified and there are tons of modules.

        I love mambo, i recommend it to anyone

  • e107 (Score:4, Informative)

    by schnits0r ( 633893 ) <nathannd@ s a s k tel.net> on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:21PM (#13055771) Homepage Journal
    I like E107 [e107.org]. It's very useful and customizable and has a great theme and plugin developer community.

    for me it suits everything from community sites, to corporate sites.
    • e107 indeed. Aside from looking great and having lots of plugins it has a great admin side that is clean and easy to use but still powerful.

      You could run the sight with a couple of admins and everyone else could submit pictures etc as news items.
  • You could always use it as a way to learn to program , assuming you don't already know. Or if you already can program, those kind of things are always nice to use as a test bed for implementing new technologies that you feel like playing with.

    • A better approach might be to take one of the existing CMS (Tiki is my favorite) and extend it to your needs. This get's you up and running quickly and still allows you to learn something.

      More to the point, I had this very same thought about 6 mos. ago. Most of the current CMS will do most of what you want. From family perspective there are somethings that are special that most CMS do not cater to.

      - A real robust photo gallery. I just want one with Gallery integrated

      - A good calendaring program. Aga
  • I am currently using Exponent for a development blog of sorts ( Improbable Drive [improbabledrive.com] ), and set it up for my girlfriend's personal site who, while computer savvy, has no web skills to speak of.

    Setting up a few users and appropriate permissions for the content items (this can be done on a content item-by-item basis) is both simple and should mask away most of the CMS-y bits that would be tricky for non-computer users to use.

    It's OSS, and exceptionally easy to set up and use.

    It can be found http://www.exponent [exponentcms.org]
    • My first mod parent up post, I feel so ashamed.

      I've got to give it to Exponent, it's a great system to work with. I'm working on moving an intranet portal away from a propriety system to Exponent. The only feature loss, moving to Exponent, was pop-up menus for site navigation, but being OSS a quick bit of hackery and I got the PHP Layers Menu integrated. Good features, easy to install, easy to admin, easy to modify, and easy to use.

      And to karma whore Open Source CMS.org [opensourcecms.com] has links and demos of just about e

  • I've said it before, and I'll say it again (Score:4, Informative)

    by captnitro ( 160231 ) * on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:24PM (#13055813)
    Geeklog [geeklog.net]. Pathetically easy to set up and use, even moreso to administer. Plugins aplenty from squatty.com [squatty.com]. And of course you need themes [axonz.com].

    PHPNuke is OK, but I've found Geeklog to be a lot cleaner, and the community support is insane[ly good]. For your purposes, comments, stories, and calendars (including per-user calendaring, I believe) is included. There are several plugins that connect Geeklog and Coppermine, Gallery, etc.
    • This would be my first choice to you as well. I would not use php-nuke. If you don't update the modules constantly with php-nuke you will have problems. I have seen more sites hacked due to flaws in php-nuke than any other CMS.

      Also, take a look at Post-Nuke. (www.postnuke.com) Another more secure php CMS.

  • Got to recommend Drupal (Score:4, Informative)

    by mogrify ( 828588 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:32PM (#13055912) Homepage
    Drupal [drupal.org] is a pretty slick CMS that I've been using for a while. It's the only one I've used whose code I haven't immediately wanted to heavily modify.

    Here's what you might like about it:
    • It's modular, so the base install is pretty lightweight, but you can add a lot of features. Activating a module is usually as simple as untar'ing it into a directory and switching it on, and maybe running a SQL script.
    • Granular user controls. Permissions and interface can be configured at a pretty fine level, so they only see what they need to see. It's easy to have multiple authors on the same site. Also easy to limit content for anonymous users.
    • Supports all the stuff you mentioned, either natively, or through native-looking modules. (i.e. you don't need to integrate Gallery).
    • Great admin interface. Lots of options are exposed, more than I've ever seen.
    • Active and large community... 'nuff said.
    A lot of CMSs offer these, but I've been happiest with Drupal's feel and overall ease of use.
  • I think this is up to the end users and not the software. CMS systems are generic enough to be "anything that needs a CMS" oriented.

  • LiveJournal (Score:4, Informative)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:37PM (#13055974) Homepage Journal
    LiveJournal [livejournal.org]

    Was created by Brad to help his family keep in touch, and at the same time be as user-friendly as possible. Has a bunch of GUI apps that allow posting without ever touching the Web interface.

    "Friends" aggregators allows the users to read the stream of postings of the friends they choose to add, so no need to browse 15 journals at once to see whether they added anything new over the past few days.

    E-mail notifications, commenting, pictures, etc.

    And it's open source.
    • ...And it generally won't be usable if you're on a shared, rather than dedicated, hosting plan.

      It's also very dependency-heavy and a hell of a lot of overkill for this kind of project.
  • Of all the freeware wiki's I've installed on my testbed server http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/ [wikiwikiweb.de] was the easiest to install and control.
  • We setup a Neverwinter Nights server and community site using it and it works pretty well. Alot better than the other AMP bundles or separate systems I tried first. Alot of themes and plugins too.

  • "Family" (Score:4, Funny)

    by antizeus ( 47491 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @02:43PM (#13056033)
    By "family" I assume that you're using a euphamism for the mafia. In this case you may want to use good encryption, and host the server in a country with weak ties to law enforcement in your native country. Perhaps you should have been more up-front in your request for information.

  • http://drupal.org/ [drupal.org]

    Drupal, an open source content management platform.

    Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal can support a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.
  • Can't go wrong with Drupal, except for the fact that they are temporarily offline.

    http://drupal.org/ [drupal.org]
  • Open Source Web-Based File Management? [slashdot.org] from 2/17/05.
    OSS Web-based File Management? [slashdot.org] from 7/7/05 ... 7 days ago!

  • After getting tired of messing with postnuke, I moved our family site to xaraya -- allegedly a much cleaner and more flexible CMS. Yes, it was more flexible, but the learning curve was very steep. In addition, even though there is lots of documentation, the basic stuff that I wanted was rarely there.

    So, I did a little checking and very little hacking, and moved the site to Wordpress. I have not regretted the move since. Even though it is first and foremost a blogging tool, it has plugins for pictur
    • I use a slightly modified version of wordpress for my personal site. I didn't have time to write my own, tried a bunch and settled on wordpress for many of the points mentioned above.

      It has worked nicely for me.
    • I agree, Wordpress is easy to install, easy to administer, and easy to use. You can do a lot of customisation simply by editing templates (as I did on this site [moneyterms.co.uk]). If you need more extensive customisation plugins are not difficult to write.

      The community is very helpful and there is already a huge range of themes and plugins available. There are even several threads in the support forums on family blogs [wordpress.org]

  • Pick one out yourself. (Score:5, Informative)

    by SocialEngineer ( 673690 ) <[invertedpanda] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @03:05PM (#13056314) Homepage
    hit OpenSourceCMS [opensourcecms.com] and go through the lists - most have online demos available so you can play with them. :)
    • This is the site I used to pick out software for myself. Very convenient being able to try so many out in one place.

    • Lousy site (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      OpenSourceCMS is not about open source, or CMS for that matter. It is only about PHP. There are PHP non-CMS products, and there are non-open-source PHP apps.

      If all you want is PHP, and don't really know if you want a CMS, then the site is fine. But if you really want a comprehensive comparison, look elsewhere. Maybe a site like http://cmsmatrix.org/ [cmsmatrix.org].

      Otherwise you might miss out on top-notch CMS products like Plone and Bricolage.

  • Try MediaWiki or Drupal... (Score:4, Informative)

    by kosmosik ( 654958 ) <kos@kosCHICAGOmosik.net minus city> on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @03:10PM (#13056367) Homepage
    Try Drupal [http://drupal.org/%5D [drupal.org] it is simple but powerfull CMS/Blog system. With easy user interface (at least I think so) and writen very well (meaning code) - it is clean, object oriented mostly, and modular. The tarball is just half megabyte.

    Or maybe go with MediaWiki [http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/%5D [sourceforge.net] it is the engine behind WikiPedia - it uses simple wiki markup, supports images, stories and stuff. Also it has access control, revision control etc. - it should be suitable for such tasks.

    And to be honest dont go with anythink with *nuke in name - this is spaghetti code shit. It is very awful for me. Unclean, not modular.

  • shameless plug (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hammeredpeon ( 572012 )
    my friend and i wrote exactly what you're talking about for our senior project. dotorg [sourceforge.net]. that will do what you want; it's pretty easy to set up, you can share files, it's easy to secure (uses jaas) and you can write your own plugins for it.
  • I've been using Multiply [multiply.com], which does everything you described, and lets me specify my relationships to people, so I can have content that's only available to relatives, or to friends, or to colleagues (or to relatives, their relatives and their relatives, for example.)
  • Please stay far away from PHPNuke. Not only is a terribly bland and badly designed CMS, but the code is also a complete security nightmare.

    You don't want your site hacked by some bored South American teenagers just because you forgot to apply this week's PHP-Nuke band-aid.

  • How many of these are static? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @03:41PM (#13056697)
    I want a CMS I can use to be as dynamic as I want to be on the development side, then with one click, push it up to a website as static pages, so I can host it on a site without scripts. Obviously I'm not looking for a forum, but a blog publisher, one with reasonable CMS features like templates though, not just journal articles.

    Anything like that kicking around?
  • I saw a good site that had allowed you to test drive the admin interface of many popular CMS software.

    http://www.opensourcecms.com/ [opensourcecms.com]

    Personally, I use e107, but its missing a built in photo gallery. Most family sites want to share pictures. Also the banner ad's are a little weak, and theming could be easier. But all around, I like it better than Drupal.

    The last phpnuke I used was hacked in a day, so I stay away from that. If I download the latest you would expect it to have all the security updates, but
    • Personally, I use e107, but its missing a built in photo gallery. Most family sites want to share pictures. Also the banner ad's are a little weak, and theming could be easier. But all around, I like it better than Drupal.

      Coppermine [e107coders.org] gallery?

      and there are many Themes [e107themes.org] and Styles [e107styles.org].

  • I'm surprised Plone [plone.org] hasn't been mentioned yet. For a low-volume site it should work very well.
    • Tried it, too complex (feature rich) for less savvy family members.
      • too complex

        Just ignore the extra features. Take the defaults which are pretty much wide open. The only things you'll want to change is to not let anyone create an account and don't allow content to be searched by folks who aren't logged on.

        The end user experience is, IMHO, not excessively complex given that content management is what you are truly looking for. You want to add a document/image/whatever? Click on "my folder," select document type, click add, fill out the form, click submit, you're done.

  • Mambo! (Score:4, Informative)

    by nege ( 263655 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @03:56PM (#13056856) Journal
    You may want to take a look at Mambo CMS (www.mamboforge.net) It is GNU licensed, and in my experience, a very mature CMS app. There are tons of plugins (including a cool Dreamweaver extension that makes theme-ing pretty easy). I use the blog and gallery plugins for my site and I am very happy with it.

    I have also used e107 as well, it is a pretty nice app as well, but Mambo seems to have more features.

  • I'd say install a wiki! Currently, I'm all for using Oddmuse [oddmuse.org]. It's just one Perl script which keeps its stuff in plain files. Yeah, it's not a CMS, but it's the simplest you could possibly want: the flattest learning curve possible. This is valuable when faced with clueless users.
  • I don't know if it's exactly what you are looking for, but I use it for similar things.
  • This site was great when I started reviewing CMS. Basically it nukes the demos every 2 hours (so people can't stuff them up to much) and allows you to do almost anything with them.

    From what you've described you may want groupware more than CMS.

    My favourite simple CMS is Mambo but that's just me.

    http://www.opensourcecms.com/ [opensourcecms.com]
  • For pictures: Gallery [sf.net]. Super-easy to use, pretty easy to set up, OSS, and requires a couple OSS (I think) libs (ImageMagick or NetBPM.) Makes nice galleries, good looking thumbnails, and any user (if you allow it) can add comments to pictures.

    For content, including calendar: GeekLog [geeklog.net]. Pretty easy to use (the user model throws me a bit but I haven't spent much time with it since I'm the only user), works a lot like Slashdot (stories, comments, etc.), looks a lot like Slashdot (sections, polls, etc., but gorg
  • WebGUI from Plain Black ( http://www.getwebgui.com/ [getwebgui.com] has a number of features in a CMS that bear investigation. It is somewhat of a challenge to set up on a Linux Server, mainly because of the perl library requirements. However there is plenty of help available and WebGUI itself has a fairly long history. So see the WebGUI user community for their comments. I have used WebGUI to set up a church site in which I needed to be able to force login to get to some areas of the church site. I also needed to have

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