OSS/FS Web Based Website Management?

Captain Morgan asks: "I work at an engineering company where we have a website for our engineering projects. The problem is that modifying our internal website requires both file server access and the desire to locate and edit html documents. It would be great to have some kind of web based site management software that ran on apache to enable editing and other tasks via a browser. Simplifying website management would also enable more people to contribute to keeping webpages up to date. I've found a few web based site management projects but nothing that stuck out as being great. Does anyone have any experience with open source/free software solutions to this problem?"

Comments

Wiki

[HRbnjR]

Wiki

Re:Wiki

[scrytch]

If you get a Wiki, please use the free links feature (and don't use it if it doesn't support it), and not the godawful WikiWords. It's almost painful to read and have to write things like "CeePluePlus" or "HTMLMarkupLanguage". WikiWords destroy searchability when not using a stemming search engine ... to say nothing of the aesthetics of StudlyCapsEverywhere...

No matter what Wiki you use, keep in mind that most every Wiki stores pages in a database of some sort, and not directly in the filesystem. Wiki is not intended to, and indeed cannot manage an existing site.

My advice is to use DAV, which can be exposed as "web folders" to windows clients (it's an buggy awful DAV client, but it does work), and given simple command-line access through cadaver. I believe Zope has support for DAV, should you need to expand to greater functionality later (Zope also has a wiki product, though it's not terribly featureful)

TWiki

[mnordstr]

http://twiki.org/

A few other Wiki solutions

Re:TWiki

[DamienMcKenna]

I would have to whole-heartedly agree with this recommendation. TWiki is a bit tricky to configure correctly and tailor to your needs, but once you do it's really quite nifty! I've used it for the past year on both my personal web site and at work where I use it to document what I do.

php and mysql

[foniksonik]

With a little massaging you can have a nice web based file browser and html editor in no time using many off the shelf open source application suites... look on scripts.com or similar sites for those two topics and check the reviews.

Without more info concerning your specific needs (do you need user authentication, page validation, templating, etc.) I couldn't recommend a specific set of scripts to you.

I use geeklog for maintaining a corporate intranet that provides user auth, static page, dynamic page, image uploads, file attachments(with a little hacking) and a nice editor. It is primarily a news portal suite so it also has events management and a site/per user calendar as well as a comments system similar to /. minus all the moderation goodies (don't need them anyways).

It works well for me but you may have different needs.

Zope

[smoon]

Zope is an excellent web-based system, and there are many add-ons for extra features like calendars, discussion lists, etc.

Can run 'behind' apache, but it also includes it's own webserver.

Re:Zope

[jhawk94]

I would tend to agree that zope would provide many of the required features. However, there may be circumstances (like using a hosting service such as hostrocket) where zope is not practical. Zope needs to be run under a separate process and port. What then? Is there another product as easy to use which provides the same ease of access control and features but based on perl or php in conjunction with mysql?

Re:Zope

[beme]

Check out Plone, too. (runs under zope)

http://www.plone.org

Perfect for the task in the topic. Check out the Hawaii govt. movie linked at the plone site...

Re:Zope

[munner]

We once did something with Zope, but used it only as a backend to serve up pages. I coded a PHP/HTML-generating front-end which would pull (& parse to some extent) content from the Zope server.

Users could easily edit the right files from one location, with fine-tuned authentication & permissions. The PHP front-end allowed much better web-page control, and also could connect to a mysql server for other stuffs.

The reason for this was that we could separate the content (Zope) from the form (PHP). I guess where this really should go from here is to an XML backend with the parsing front-end. Herm.

Re:Zope

[JJGreenaway]

Zope's excellent. It's really very simple - a web server, app server and database all rolled into one. Everything can be managed via the browser.

As the above poster says, there are loads of free products that plug into it do do whatever you want. In your case it sounds as if Zwiki would be ideal. If you wanted to go further then Zope also has a complete content management product you can use, called the CMF.

We've used Zwiki for an intranet and it's been extremely useful. Lets you have a set of searchable web pages can be easily edited without users having to know HTML.

WebDAV

[Perdo]

Apache/1.3.26
Debian GNU/Linux
PHP/4.2.1
mod_ssl/2.8.9
OpenSSL/0.9.6d
WebDAV/1.0.3 (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning)

Works great, except absolutely anyone can edit any page... But it seems like that's what you are looking for.

Re:WebDAV

[Anonymous Coward]

WebDAV is FTP done right, and the rest are just libraries. They're not software for website management. Mod parent down please - this isn't an acceptable answer by any means

Re:WebDAV

[Perdo]

WebDAV plus those libraries might be exactly what he is looking for. They are stable together, and completely open. Why put him through the hassle of figuring out everything he needs to make his project successful? Everything he needs is listed.

Mod me down -1 helpfull when you would rather see +1 RTFM? Those days are over pal. Time to realize that you can use Linux but do not own it. The classic RTFM or more recently "Use Google" response is not the response of someone who wants Linux free and open. Hoarding knowlege and giving F-off answers is neither free, open or productive. Especially on a website centered around Linux advocacy.

Re:WebDAV

[rdieter]

OK, I've *tried* using WebDAV, and have never been able to do much with it. First, I could only find one webdav client (in java), and all it seemed able to do, was to file uploads. Big Whoop. Am I missing something?

Re:WebDAV

[slappy]

Indeed, webdav is an excellent way to go, especially for the users on windows boxen. Just add the dav site as a web folder, and off you go. For permissions management, check out mod_auth_mysql for apache. This makes it really to add and remove users for an auth realm.

Bleh@Web-Based

[Chexsum]

CVS does everything locally, are you sure CVS isnt what you want to use? =)

92 Projects Found on Freshmeat

[Alethes]

Lots o' stuff here.

CMS ?

[denisb]

It seems your question is a bit badly researched before "Ask Slashdot", but anyhow..

I have personal experience with the following :

- eZ Publish (PHP, *nix, MySQL/PgSQL based)
- Slashcode (Perl, *nix, MySQL based)
- PHP Nuke (PHP, MySQL based)

I wouldnt recommend PHP Nuke, but have little experience with the forks off it.. (Check Freshmeat.net as someone suggested).

eZ Publish is the closest I have seen a complete GPL CMS (Content Management Solution), and integrating some of the addons or buying the desktop edition makes it very easy to use!Highly recommended, and now comes in an easy to install Debian package too ! :) (As of woody, apt-cache search ezpublish and then apt-get install the package ..)

Slashcode is possibly one of the better weblogs, although you should possibly check these too, if that is the kind of website you need :

- Scoop
- Drupal

For non "LAMP", based on Tcl and the AOLServer webserver, check out OpenACS, which is reportedly very feature rich.

I do not have personal experience with either Scoop, Drupal or OpenACS, but several sites use them and produce great sites with them.

Good luck !

Off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a bit off topic, since it isn't open or free, but "The Man" I work for has software that does just what you are looking for. It may seem in the presentation mostly for process industries, but that's who our main clients are. It is as flexible as needed. The only kicker is its Windows based. It should be fine for internal, external is much riskier.

WebGUI

[JimMcCusker]

I'd try WebGUI, by PlainBlack Software. They release it under open source, and sell services around it. Seems to be pretty good, I'm going to be playing with it soon.

Whoah

[Apreche]

We had a team website for our Software Engineering class in the spring. We didn't have any web interface. All we had was a shared account with a public_html directory. We also had backups of the team account in case anything happened. It was quite easy.

Re:CMS & web publishing

[Zurk]

these guys typically need a version control system or equivalent to do the job. with more than a dozen ppl chucking everything into a single directory makes a huge mess.
i've actually been writing my own CMS with version control/web based GUI editor etc etc and it looks pretty good. if anyone is interested email me for a license. its still beta but it should do the job.

Lots of good but imperfect options.

[cornice]

I've been using PostNuke for a while now and am mostly pleased with it. It's well supported, mature, actively developed, themeable and there are lots of add-on modules. It's easy to set up, easy to operate and more secure than some others.

Some useful modules include:
CalZone (calendar)
Gallery (photo gallery)
EZ CMS (content management)
PhpWiki

Use the EZ CMS for publishing and use the Wiki for collaboration.

On the other hand, I am starting to favor Python over PHP for various reasons. As a result I've been looking at Zope and wondering if I can get more of what I want. Here's what I have found so far:

PostNuke seems much easier to understand and to get up and running right away. The website is easier to understand and the documentation is geared to making it work rather than the design and theory behind the project. Zope, however does look quite interesting for it's object model and number of products available. It appears as if it would take much longer to get a complex site built but once one has experience with Zope it seems it would be trivial to extend the available products. Also the Zope team had put serious emphesis on the Content Management Framework (CMF). If you're looking for just content management and workflow, this deserves a serious look.

Finally, is it just me or is the zope.org site really hard to understand? There are few examples, virtually no screenshots and links to everything but real answers. Every Zope site seems the same too. There's always a sidebar with a useless, simple calendar and a link back to every other zope site, but little real answers. I must be missing something. Maybe once I wrap my head around everything Zope I'll make a site devoted to showcasing what Zope and Zope products can do with real screenshots, real demos and real example code.

Zope & Wiki

[Whatchamacallit]

Zope is very capable of this, you can even add a Zope Wiki Product. Wiki it away to start with then build some custom Products for just about anything you can imagine.

Zope runs on Solaris, Mac OS X, Linux, and even Windows. It is quite the system.

Plone

[dheltzel]

I'd recommend you look at Plone (http://plone.org/). This uses Zope and CMF (Content Management Framework). It is easy to install and very flexible. Parts of it could be better documented.

try php nuke..

[floydman]

u should try phpnuke