Content Management Systems again - dm-l

8 Nov 2006


      Hi all,
I thought I'd report on my experiments with Content Management Systems
for my professional web space.
I tried out Textpattern http://www.textpattern.com/ and Drupal
http://www.drupal.org/. Both are open source, mysql- and php-content
management systems. Drupal is by far the more widely used, more
flexible, and customisable; textpattern is far more simple, somewhat
limited in its organisation (it is really a blogging system that is
transforming to a more general CMS). Both work under the major server
software, and so are compatible with anything your university or IP is
likely to be running.
I tried the two systems out on my home (debian/ubuntu linux) and
University (a combination of Redhat enterprise linux and MS) servers
using mysql. Textpattern set up extremely well under the two conditions
(at home, I have root access to everything; at work, I have very limited
privileges to the server or the database). Drupal was more problematic,
and I never really did get it working exactly the way I wanted. I needed
to hack one aspect of textpattern--I need a relatively static front
page, and it is set up so the front page works as an RSS server--and I
am having trouble with outputting search results. But otherwise I am
very happy with it. I was also pleased that textpattern designers tended
to use better CSS than drupal designers, though both allow you to use
your own CSS.
I think if I were setting up a community site, I'd work at getting
drupal to work: it looks like the more sophisticated program. For my
professional homepage, though I had quite specific needs--good xhtml
output, a wiki-based editor, and relatively painless set up. Apart from
the hack, textpattern did everything I wanted.
Here's the URL to the new website if you want to see it:
http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/
There is very little content at the new site as yet, as I only added the
stuff I absolutely needed right now. But adding material is extremely
easy.
-dan
-- 
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Director, Digital Medievalist Project http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Chair, Text Encoding Initiative, http://www.tei-c.org/
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
Vox: +1 403 329-2378
Fax: +1 403 382-7191