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Um,

This is not about java on the client it is about java on the server via tomcat, jetty, or some other java app server.

All of the sites listed at http://www.opencms.org/en/support/references/index.html are java based, as is opencms.org itself.

This is about getting the post blog entry function to work. the html is more or less trivial. The server side is a bigger issue, as you have access control. data sanitation, and bunch of other minor details that will get your website compromised if you screw them up.

This is about grails vs rails vs django vs drupal vs zope vs web app framework du jour.

Personally, I wish there was a way of including php code in python, so I could extend existing php with django, and slowly convert the legacy code.

There are plenty of good open source CMS systems in Java.

At the bank I work at we use OpenCMS.

Magnolia Community Edition is probably better.

Apache Lenya is another CMS written by a well known group but I can't vouch for it

JBoss Nukes is poorly documented but written by JBoss so should be good.

For me it works pretty fast.
btw. you can check their reference sites list which is quite huge

Obviously one would check http://www.opencms.org/

OpenCms is based on Java and XML technology. Therefore it fits perfectly into almost any existing modern IT infrastructure. OpenCms runs in a "full open source" environment (e.g. Linux, Apache, Tomcat, MySQL) as well as on commercial components (e.g. Windows NT, IIS, BEA Weblogic, Oracle DB).

or you can check other Open Source CMS on wikipedia. Comparison of content management system

OpenCMS (http://www.opencms.org/ does what you describe- xhtml is extra work, tho, if you want to use in-place editing (the div's they autogenerate aren't xhtml as far as I can tell).

Not only does it have multilingual support, the workplace is pretty well localized (english, german, japanese, etc)

It is a java application, so if you want all this in php, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Hrm...I thought you meant that you were copying-and-pasting code. In my experience, abused like crazy in scripting.

But you meant you were copy-pasting URLs to find PHP libraries?

BTW -

generating PDF's
http://www.lowagie.com/iText/

dynamic graphics
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/2d/spec. html

menus
huh? If you have a cms like http://opencms.org/, which you should use anyway - you got menus.

DB interfaces
http://hibernate.org/

Blogs were the first[,] and are the most deployed[,] apps to use CMS.

A blog is definitely not a CMS. A true CMS has certain features, such as content "versioning" and support for workflow.

I'm aware of very few apps meant to make a web developer's life easier by allowing online editing as if it were an online Dreamweaver or what not.

To the contrary, many CMS's are evolving in precisely this direction. Increasingly, they are improving their user interfaces (UI) so that the CMS UI becomes, in effect, a WYSIWYG word processor. As an example, I cite the excellent UI in OpenCMS, which somewhat resembles MS Word. Adding content to OpenCMS can be just like editing in MS Word except that the OpenCMS UI still does not have quite as many features or the same ease-of-use -- yet. See also Bitflux and Xopus, which are WYSIWYG editors meant to be used with any CMS, not a particular CMS.

If you want KISS & need to add a lot of content, what is lacking in wikis?

Wikis can be be easy to install, administer, and use. But they lack a great deal.

There [are] way too many content management systems out there that focus too much on the content [sic; "community"] aspect. I found it hard to locate [a high] quality, open source CMS that wasn't trying to be Slashdot-like. Many people just want some[thing] for easily organizing lots of pages in a quick and easy manner.

I am going to assume that you meant to write "community" rather than "content" in the quoted text. If so, then I agree with your comment, and have elaborated on this issue before. There is a difference between CMS software and "community-ware" (CW), which is software that is designed to facilitate the building of an Internet community. The software that you lament is what I would call hybrid software, software that is one-half CMS and one-half CW. Such hybrids are often failures. They are neither good CMS's nor good CW. Examples of hybrids would be all of the 'nukes, including PostNuke, Xaraya, and Xoops. Drupal may also fall into the hybrid category.

Why do so many people misuse the label "CMS" to describe such hybrids? I do not know, but I suspect that it is because they have never used a true CMS, such as OpenCMS, Plone, or SPIP.

At +0200Monday 5/31/04 01:52 AM, Khan wrote:

I'm looking for CMS that have great administration part. I'm not interested in site displaying, speed, HTML standards or anything like that. I just need stable administration part with modules: - News with archives;
- Blogs;
- Some users Can be administrators of blogs;
- Link directory;
- Navigation with multiple categories and subcategories;
- Different news for different parts of my web site;

Web site will be very large and it will have almost any module that you can find these days :)

I like XOOPS. I also have my eye on Mambo. A friend of mine told me that Drupal has best community and if not drupal that I should check [out] EZ.

Keep in mind that the 'nukes (e.g., PHPnuke, PostNuke, Xaraya, Xoops, etc.) are not true CMS's because they are "hybrids," one-half CMS and one-half "community-ware," software that facilitates the building of web communities. For a lengthy discussion of Xoops (probably one of the better 'nukes), see the June, 2004 issue of Linux Journal (page 14). I call this line of software "the 'nukes" because they are nearly all "descended from," or forks of, PHPnuke. For example, PostNuke was founded by disgruntled users of PHPnuke who forked the source code of PHPnuke.

Also remember that CMS's and community-ware (e.g., phpBB) have different purposes, and software that tries to accomplish _both_ purposes almost always fails to do _either_ well. The 'nukes exemplify that failure. The 'nukes are neither good CMS's nor good community-ware.

For an example of Drupal in actual usage, see www.DebianPlanet.org.

Decide whether your primary purpose is to facilitate the management of web content or, instead, to build a web-based community. If your primary purpose is the former (rather than the latter), then you should probably choose a _true_ CMS, rather than hybrid software that tries to do both. The following are often cited as being among the best of the open source (OS) CMS's:

1) Plone -- written in Python and requires Zope, an application server.
2) OpenCMS -- based on J2EE (mostly servlets, including JSP) and XML, requires a servlet container (e.g., Tomcat).
3) Bricolage -- not a general-purpose CMS because it is best suited for newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals. Written in Perl and requires mod_perl, an Apache module.
4) Typo 3

FWIW, the amount of "buzz" that Plone is generating now in the OS community astounds me. I have been following OS for years now (I have been using Linux since '97), and I have _never_ seen an OS software go from inception to "red-hot" so damned fast (with the possible exception of Jabber, an XML router). Heck, Plone is generating more buzz than OpenCMS notwithstanding that Plone did not make its debut until 2002, years after OpenCMS. In the OS community, Plone seems to be generating as much "buzz" as Linux did back in 1995. That amount of buzz indicates that Plone is probably the OS CMS to watch, at least in the category of general-purpose CMSes.

Sincerely,
Paul Bain

Have you had a look at OpenCMS? Its not really intended for blogs, but for more formal web content management. I've used it on a couple of projects and its free as in both beer and speech.

I don't think any of the others have WYSIWYG, browser-based editing.

False. OpenCMS has such an editor, provided that you use MS IE. OpenCMS is released under the LGPL. Furthermore, I understand that WYSIWYG editing (for OpenCMS) is available in Mozilla, too, provided that you buy a proprietary, third-party software.

If it has to be, why not something like OpenCMS? It's java-based and quite robust, though not nearly as feature-full as something like Plone.

For other institutions considering implementing their own "opencourseware" there are several open-source CMS options. At this point, MIT OCW is monitoring six: Zope, Red Hat, Midgard, OpenACS, OpenCMS, and Bricolage. By 2004, most experts agree that one CMS provider will become the clear, open-source leader in this industry sector. MIT OCW will track the progress of key open-source CMS providers during this accelerated maturation. This will contribute to MIT being able to share its experience and understanding of these CMS options with other institutions. The hope is that utilization of open-source model CMS products could lead to less expensive implementations of opencoursewares on other campuses.

we're asking for input on what topics would be of sky-high fascination right now.

I cannot think of any topic of greater current interest to the average, non-technical person (ANP) than CMS. The interest in CMS's is soaring right now because ANP's want to be able to create & maintain a website without the intervention of a web professional. That's just one of the benefits of a good CMS. Others include the handling of workflow (e.g., ensuring that Editor B receives the article/document from Editor A on time and in correct form, so that Editor B can, in turn, meet her own deadlines), versioning, deployment, etc. An example of a good, general purpose, open source CMS is OpenCMS.

monthly seminars that focus on bleeding edge technology,

IMO, a good CMS represents plenty of bleeding-edge technology, especially with respect to software development. There are many CMS's, but few good ones, a testament to the difficulty of writing a good one. Furthermore, administering a CMS by yourself is a lot of work. You need to know web administration, network admin, RDBMS admin (at least rudimentary), and adminstration of the CMS software itself.

presented by vendors' engineers,

You can probably find a sales person (and sales engineer) for any one of the many proprietary CMS's, but why bother? The open source CMS's will soon vanquish them. You may be able to find a local person knowledgeable as to open source CMS's by consulting your local users' groups (e.g., Linux users' groups, Web administrators' group).

Of all of these, I like OpenACS the best, mostly because of its developer community. There are a lot of great people involved, and there's a high signal to noise ratio on the developer forums. Even though OpenACS probably has the least of what you're looking for, it might be the easiest to develop. OpenACS runs on top of Postgres or Oracle, and is written in Tcl.

Redhat CCM is basically a Java rewrite of the original OpenACS. Its CMS modules are supposedly more mature. It runs on a Redhat version of Postgres, and I think Oracle too.

Zope is a whole lotta product, and probably has most of what you're looking for. However, I find it kind of murky, difficult to figure out. YMMV.

These three are the most promising in terms of developer community. This is a bigger undertaking than it might seem at the outset. You'll need all the help you can get, and getting involved with these communities will spare you from trying to reinvent the wheel.

Of course, I'd love to have you guys use and extend the OpenACS toolkit, and share your efforts with the community!