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

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

[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...

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 !

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.