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  • From: matusiak <dave AT matusiak.org>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] CMS recommendations?
  • Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:17:25 -0500

Deborah --

You can find Terminal.app (which is indeed a command line interface to the BSD UNIX subsystem) in Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. Drag it into your dock so it is easier to access next time.

Change directory is "cd dirname" (without the quotes of course). Most of the commands you need to enter are probably listed in that install document.

Out of a zillion CMS offerings, I've never heard of Silva. But I've also not heard of one with the XML file parsing capability you speak of. However, around all the major blog/CMS packages, there is usually a pretty active developer community writing little modules that extend the built-in functionality of the given app.

I'm confident that you'll be able to install the Silva product with a little elbow grease. It would at least be worth the pain of the install to see if you can merge these catalog production duties.

Good luck!
dave m.

PS - a good Mac OS X forum to ask for help is at http://hardcider.org/


On Mar 15, 2006, at 12:25 PM, Deborah Ellington wrote:

The college I work at (A-B Tech) is in the process of evaluating various
open-source content management systems to replace our current software,
FrontPage 2003 (I know, I know, you're preaching to the choir, believe
me). One strong contender is the CMS Silva, which runs on Zope. I know
next to nothing about Zope, but have some experience setting up
PHP/mySQL based CMS'es (Mambo/Joomla for example) so how hard can it be,
right?

Problem is, despite plenty of websites alluding to Silva's "extensive
documentation," I can find hardly hide nor hair of that alleged
documentation. No books. No training available in the US, apparently. I
can't even find user forums on Silva. I went to install a supposedly
free-standing package of Silva/Zope/etc specifically for developing
locally on Mac OSX, but got hit right away with instructions I couldn't
follow, such as "Open the Terminal application and change directory
to..." I know I am exposing my ignorance here when I say that I opened
my Applications folder and found nothing called "Terminal." I gather the
authors are referring to some kind of command-line application but I
have no knowledge or experience in this area.

So why go with Silva? Primarily because one of the college's urgent
needs is to streamline the production of catalogs and course schedules
which are both printed on paper and published online. Currently we
publish the (400-page) catalog to the web as a pdf, and you can just
imagine how popular that is. Silva allegedly can import and export
content wrapped in XML tags, and as our print designer already uses XML
tags in all his production work, it seems like we could pretty easily
produce the catalog content in a single application and then export it
for both print and web.

My dilemma is -- if I can't even figure out how to install the software
just to try it out, and there are no books/forums/training
opportunities, how realistic is this product as a solution for the
school? How the heck does anyone else manage to use it? Are there other
products that would accomplish the same goal (importing/exporting XML
content) but with less of a learning curve--given that I'm already
comfortable with php/mySQL based products.

Oh, and our budget is like, nothing, fwiw, which is why we've been stuck
with FrontPage for this long. I can buy a book, or take a class within a
few hours' driving distance, but that's about it.

Thanks for any advice!

Deborah Ellington





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