(Re)Starting a web site

[aMLC]

Hi there,

The reason I am writing here is to ask you whether or not I should, in your opinion, use this CMS for the needs and functionalities listed below, and I'll be glad if you'd have additional tips or comments to give me.

I have currently begun working on a personal project in web programming, as part of a preparatory year to enter an Ingeneering school.

It is my first time working with a CMS, and I've been programming small projects in HTML/CSS, Javascript, C, PhP, MySQl and Java since last September during the preparatory year's first semester. I have a correct - yet still superficial - overview of what can be done and on which technology I may want to rely in the field of web programming. But it isn't sufficient for me to decide by myself which framework to use in order to go through this project.


I have begun analysis this week, and am currently filling a statistical sheet on about eleven selected frameworks, to define which ones will best fit my needs.

About the website :

It is an already running website, created with WordPress on a dedicated OVH server (providing web, mail and FTP hosting on one domain, x-roi.ch).



My main ojectives are:

- the implementation of a wiki (with useful infos about how to prepare scouting activities)
- the simplification, for non-adept users, of practical tools such as
managing an agenda
managing pictures folders for public display and download
edition of the wiki articles
- last but not least : keeping an interface for the webmaster to rely on, because he doesnt work in the field


Aside form those, I would like to rework the login system to let the "managers" (regarding obj. 2) only use specifically crafted pages to work on. That means being able to change data on the website whilst avoiding working on a dashboard, or by using a very simplified workflow(actually many of my colleagues don't even bother trying because of the very dense and first-hand complicated aspect of the WordPress backend dashboard).

We also have two forms(for notifications, questions or subscription to our scout group) and a few simple controllers over those.

We use very few articles for our website and don't post news, except from the online agenda. The articles aren't often edited, and it will be the webmasters task to edit them.

The agenda is a key feature of our website, as much for the parents than for the persons responsible for the kids. We only use its month view, with "secret" events visible when logged in as an authority. We would like to enable small popups to show onclick for details display(redirects us currently to another page).

The wiki is the current most important step, and I'm already looking forward to use the MediaWiki CMS to implement it aside from the main website. I've been told there will not be any compatibility problem as we can install the framework in another subdomain for itself(I'll figure out myself to what extent).
My colleagues have to be able to read, edit and print a formatted pdf of any of those articles, as well as upload and link - when editing those articles - useful files for download.

Again, it is vital that our webmaster may be able to manage the domain with as much help as possible from the interface, though he is able to tweak small code (mainly html, css, php and WordPress tags) with tutorial help.

At last, it would be a plus if your CMS allows us to customize the website appearance.

Thanks in advance for your answer !


Best regards,

Fridolin Sallin

[yellowled]

The reason I am writing here is to ask you whether or not I should, in your opinion, use this CMS for the needs and functionalities listed below, and I'll be glad if you'd have additional tips or comments to give me.

Serendipity is not “being developed as a CMS”, although it depends a little on your definition of what a CMS is. s9y is a blog engine at its core and is being developed as such. It can be used as a “classic” CMS (which mostly means pages sorted in a hierarchical fashion vs articles published and sorted in chronological order in a blog), but that will require willingness and time to compromise and do some manual tweaking. (Some people would doubt that, so take it with a grain of salt.)

managing an agenda

Not sure what you mean by that, and it seems pretty vital for your project – can you give an example or go into detail as to what this is (not how you would manage it, but what it contains)?

I'm not sure I understand what you're planning to do here, but as far as I understand it, you're looking for something to complement MediaWiki, and I'm not sure that such a thing exists at all.

YL

[maxxx]

At last, it would be a plus if your CMS allows us to customize the website appearance.

Plus one to this. It will make a huge impact on CMS development, I believe.