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Closed 10 years ago.
We're looking for a CMS that we can use as the basis for a new product we're rolling out.
As it's principally a content based thing, we need to base everything on a CMS, but there's a few things we need:
As we're supporting tens - hundreds of users, we ideally need a multi-tenant CMS (single shared code base), that can support different designs per site
As we're selling in functionality, we need something that will let us deploy a new 'module' and switch it on/off on a per site basis
We prefer stuff that is open source (PHP or Rails, that sort of thing)
Before I consider building something, is there anything out there that's any good?
Now I am biased, but dotCMS 1.9 is a flexible open source solution (java) that was designed to make running tens or hundreds of sites within a single instance easy. You can create site "templates" and use them again and again as needed them. Sites can share content, assets and templates, or not share anything depending on how you set them up. Users can have access to manage one site or many sites - their views into the management tool are limited by their permissions (as you'd expect). Again, I obviously am biased as I work for the company, but this is exactly the problem that dotCMS 1.9 was designed to solve.
Plone sounds like it'd do what you want.
It's written in Python, on top of Zope, and supports multiple distinct sites (with distinct and/or shared users, groups, styling). Extra functionality is added through 'products'; there are a number of Free extensions and it's quite easy to write your own too.
We use http://www.alfresco.com/ ...seems to fit your definition . Different designs per site can be achieved with what they call "web scripts" . It supports deployment and branching infrastructure that you can leverage to for your different clients
As we're supporting tens - hundreds of users, we ideally need a multi-tenant CMS (single shared code base), that can support different designs per site
My first thought when I read that was WordpressMU (perhaps with Buddypress if you need groups, etc?), but it might not be "CMS" enough for your needs... you don't elaborate on which features of a CMS you are looking for (media management, workflows, etc), so it's a bit hard to recommend one.
DotNetNuke supports multi-tenant operation, and has a fairly active marketplace for add on modules, skins etc. It has pretty well defined module development interfaces as well.
Yanel is a Java/XML/XSLT based CMS (Apache 2.0 license) designed for multi-tenancy and one can run arbitrary many sites inside the same Yanel instance, whereas see in particular the documentation on 'realms'.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I know node.js can build web apps that run super fast, but I just can't find enough info about how it would perform in a magazine or news style website. I know some CMS's like Joomla or Drupal (or even wordpress) are very good at it, but as the number of users grow, I'm seeing some performance issues. Naturally, the web server count but as I want to host it in the cloud, I guess working with node and just create a simple CMS based on it would suit the needs for a better user experience once many users can log in and do their social stuff parallel to the main side of the site that is just a news and reviews site. Does any node.js coder knows about it?
Agree that this is rather subjective, but that said having some experience with node I don't know that there is any particular advantage to using it in this instance. I think frameworks like Django (Python) and Rails (Ruby) are more or less built to accomodate this type of use-case and assuming you have PHP experience but not a lot of node experience, would likely be easier for you to build and deploy a working CMS with very quickly.
Based on what you've described I don't know that any of the advantages of using node will be particularly relevant, and it's unlikely that using node instead of any other modern framework and web server will have a huge impact on your site's performance.
I think this question is quite subjective, as the performance of any application written using modern and maintained languages will depend mostly on the skills of the developer(s), and if your website reaches a certain scale it will not depend only on the language but also on the architecture of your distributed system.
Some of the usual strengths of node are that it is event driven, single language for front-end, back-end thus developer integration should be easier. It's event-driven model gives it a nice and easy(subjective!) way to write and understand (for new devs) applications that make heavy use of concurrent operations such as data-intensive operation across distributed systems.
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Closed 12 years ago.
I'm building a web app and starting to feel the pain developing slick UI features -- I tried iPhone/Android programming and it's so damn simple. Why is it that everyone still settles for the hacked-together tools that comprise web programming, instead of gravitating towards RIAs?
I want to program the app with an RIA but...the most popular websites are suspiciously not using them.
Thanks!
There's a couple of drawbacks to RIA... I'm mostly speaking to Flash/Silverlight and the like, as Ajax RIA is a bit different. The drawbacks:
Vendor lockin... once you develop a platform using RIA you are locked into whichever vendor supports the RIA. You are at the mercy of their support, upgrade paths, etc. Using standard web technologies you won't fall into this.
Search engine indexing... Search indexing of RIA is relatively new, so there might be issues getting your content known.
Performance/interoperability issues... Everyone knows about Apple's rejection of Flash. Writing your web application adhering to the standards guarantees your application is accessible to any standards compliant browser. A company like Apple can't just pull the plug on you.
Accessibility issues... It might not be as easy to program for 508 compliance using Flash/Silverlight as it would be with plain-old HTML. 508 compliance is a must for any big website.
You mentioned phones... (Android/iOS) Obviously people don't target mobile phones using Flash/Silverlight for the aforementioned reasons. For phones, generally it makes more sense to create a mobile application as you get more native features then you would if you were creating a mobile website. However, creating a mobile website requires you to write your application once whereas you would need to write your application for each phone you wish to target if you went the mobile application route.
Flex feels slow and non-native.
RIAs running on the desktop generally have to feel native on at least two very different operating systems. You then have to deal with issues on the users machine and the whole nightmare of versioning and upgrades. Web apps only have to work on your server configuration.
RIAs running in the browser feel even slower because all that slickness has to be transferred to the client. They also break the way people expect websites to work.
They are useful for some applications, but normal HTML/JS/AJAX serves most web applications better.
Phones are a different environment entirely and make more sense for the RIA model in many ways.
I have a client who has been using WebOffice (from WebEx) for a variety of tasks within their small organization. The problem is that they only really need a small subset of the features WebOffice provides (Contact list, Database, and Document Storage).
They've asked me to develop a website focused on these three features with the rationalization that this should be more cost-effective, since they currently aren't using many of the features of WebOffice they pay for.
What are some open-source alternatives that I could implement for them? Sharepoint sounds like it would be too bloated and Google Apps may not be as collaborative as they would like.
We looked at sharepoint and went like "meh". Anything interesting you want to do with it requires prohibitive licensing, and if you expose any piece of it to the internet then the cost just blows any budget away.
We are piloting a deployment of Alfresco, with KnowledgeTree also being a very decent option, IMO. As for the main site, something like OpenAtrium looks like a pretty decent and flexible fit without much configuration needed. OpenAtrium is based on Drupal.
SharePoint sounds like a good match? Did whoever told you it was bloated also mention why?
You might only need WSS which is free (if you have Windows Server).
My company hosts LumiPortal (www.lumiportal.com) which is similar to WebOffice but with drive letters for storage. If you have inhouse technical expertise, then on the open source side we see Joomla and Drupal, which could be thought of as classic content management systems. If you have in-house technical expertise, you might look at Drupal and their document management component first.
Call WebOffice customer service and tell them. They will probably adjust your payment options to suit your needs.
There's a good roundup of online collaboration/office suites here although it is a bit dated now.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_office_2007_year_in_review.php
Webex WebOffice hasn't been updated in 5 years and has been sunset by Webex with no migration path (confirmed in their forums) so I would get off it ASAP.
With the addition of Wave to Google Apps it would seem to be a much more cost effective and modern replacement.
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Closed 10 years ago.
Our group is currently reviewing our toolset and looking for new defect/issue tracking software in additional to source control, and project management software.
For issue tracking, we've looked at bugzilla, fogbugz, bugtracker.net, sourcegear fortres, and bugnet.
I'm not satisfied with the list we've come up with, so I'm curios to know what others are using.
We're looking for Active directory integration for security, although we'd settle for a windows app, a web interface may be preferential, visual studio integration is also a bonus. We need to prioritize defects, mark the version the defect was found in, mark the version the defect was fixed in, and hopefully be able to maintain a discussion around each issue/defect. We'd also like to categorize items as defect, enhancement request, etc. and document workarounds for defects.
Very similar question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/101774/what-is-your-bug-task-tracking-tool
Try Unfuddle. If you use their version control hosting (SVN and Git options) with their issue tracker, you get some good integration stuff going on. For example, you can enter a note in your commit message such as "fixes #384: Too much foo in the bar"*, and you not only get that turned into a hyperlink to the issue, but it also marks the ticket as fixed with a link back to the changeset. All good stuff. This is a web-based solution that is hosted by Unfuddle themselves, in a SaaS-type fashion.
Other than that, +1 for Trac which I've used in the past and like very much. It's quite an immature project feature-wise, although it's got a very healthy community around it that has developed plug-ins to do a lot of extra stuff (like the AD authentication you wanted). It also has similar integration with a number of source control systems, but it's much less feature-rich than the Unfuddle stuff. That is to say, you get to use an extended wiki syntax in your commit messages which is parsed by Trac when it's display to create links. It doesn't do any of the two-way stuff that Unfuddle does. Trac is available to host in-house; alternatively, if you want it hosted, there's a list of places that will do so on Trac's wiki.
*I can't remember the exact format off the top of my head.
On our current project, we've amazingly used 6 different tracking tools (2 versions of PVCS), mostly commercial. Here's my opinion on the ones that we've used. I've listed them in order of my most favored to least.
Serena Teamtrack - We use a web client. The interface is intuitive. Performance will vary across installations, but comparing with our same data in each tool, this works the fastest. It also works in Firefox.
HP Quality Center - This is also web based, but it is IE only. On the upside, it's well organized, easy to use, and full-featured. It has reasonable performance for us as well.
It has an odd feature where there isn't a save button. It saves automatically for you. To force a save, you have to navigate to another ticket. Also when you first use it, it has to install so many DLLs that it is practically a thick client. That being the case, IE sometimes gets locked up (usually when trying to reinitialize a session after session expiration). Once locked up, you occasionally have to kill IE to regain control.
Bugzilla - I didn't use this as thoroughly as the other tools, so this isn't a fair comparison. We used it briefly for some internal tickets. I suppose the big upside is the (lack of) cost. IMO, I just didn't find the interface as nice and easy to use as the other tools. Its been awhile so I apologize for lack of specifics for why I'm relegating it below the others.
Siebel - There wasn't much to like about their defect tracking tool apart from that it is better than PVCS. The interface seems hokey. It's as if the Siebel interface has a set of user interface controls and it tries to force all square pegs into its round holes. Another downside is that it uses lengthy generated IDs so its hard to reference them or search by them. Along with that, the ticket IDs aren't sequenced.
Merant PVCS - We had separate databases and used both the web client and thick client. Its been awhile now, so the details are fading. I recall there were bugs in the tool and they weren't getting fixed, for instance reports couldn't display certain fields. Performance was bad. It took a long time to load. It was slow to navigate through tickets.
Issue tracking for support is a different problem from tracking issues during development.
Trac http://trac.edgewall.org/ is a very capable tool which supports a number of large open source projects. You can find Trac hosting at places like http://www.wush.net
If you need more workflow and custom security, you'll want to look at JIRA which is from Atlassian http://www.atlassian.com. Atlassian has a number of products which you might also find useful.
For Issue tracking in a support setting, try RT http://bestpractical.com/rt. RT is deceptively simple, but I've seen it used in the largest environments and it does a good job making sure you are accountable to every you make a support commitment to.
An off-site (www) hosted solution with all the features you mentioned is NetResults Tracker
We use bugzilla, it suits us perfectly. We haven't investigated too many others because honestly it does everything we need and then some.
We don't use Visual Studio so I can't speak for integration compatibility.
Try out HappyFox ( http://www.happyfox.com), an issue and bug tracking software. The clean interface and automation features help you track and resolve bugs smoothly. HappyFox is free for a 2 member and priced economically for larger teams.
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It would seem to me that many large enterprises already have robust directory services such as Active Directory and it would be silly to constantly duplicate users in an application-specific store.
Even if you require duplicating the user store, you can provide a mechanism to authenticate against Active Directory. Alternatively, you could support a standards-based SSO mechanism that leverages SAML.
Support for the XACML protocol. Duplicating information on roles and entitlements is equally insidious.
Support for the SPML protocol. Many enterprise leverage identity management toolkits and would at least like out of the box integration in terms of centralized management and provisioning.
So, why aren't open source projects considering this type of functionality as a default to getting on the radar within an enterprise context?
Lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is that there's less convergence on what the right or best methods really are than you seem to believe.
Active Directory, for example, is kind of notorious for presenting implementation difficulties to non-Microsoft developers.
There are probably a half dozen competing single-sign-on "standards".
It's very difficult to reconcile different roles/privileges models -- hell, Sun has trouble reconciling the models of Solaris Trusted Extensions with the Java model.
Solving those problems isn't a lot of "fun" and so FOSS developers are attracted to other issues.
I think that Charlie nailed it:
solving security problems is hard and generally not a whole lot of fun
OSS developers tend to be all about enjoying what they are working on. I work on a number of "enterprise class" efforts as part of my professional life and I will agree that they are not a whole lot of fun. However, this is one of my never ending griefs with OSS components... we have trouble using them in our solutions because they do not meet our customers needs.
I think that the general reasons are:
universities tend to ignore this aspect of "enterprise development"
too many standards to choose from
no clear market leader
the different security providers are difficult to configure and test
the entire application security paradigm requires a lot of expertise before you can even start trying to integrate
Personally, I blame the first one. Most engineers do not even consider how an application can be used in a larger context. They are interested in solving the problem at hand and not at all interested in providing a usable solution. Most FOSS solutions are very much an interesting solution to an interesting problem. A corporate entity normally comes along and provides the commercial packaging that makes the FOSS solution actually usable in a real environment. Of course, this packaging comes with a price tag attached.
Open ID is a start towards providing an "authentication" solution. (To the best of my knowledge, it has no "provisioning" mechanism, though. You have to trust the external authority to identify an account, then add your site's / app's version of that account using your own devices)
If anybody knows of some kind of open "authorization" solution to centralize the management of roles, that would be interesting as well. That sounds like the sort of thing you would do in-house, though, with roles that have a defined meaning in your organization. I'm sure IBM or Oracle would be happy to take a big chunk of change and make something for you, though :-)
You may not want to have your active directory / LDAP contains the role of all your users for all your applications. If you have a lot of movement in your structure, you may have a lot of daily modification going on.
Also, the information in the user store may be quite specific, and may not have its place in a global repository.
Least, the notion of role can be quite variable. We have three application that possess the notion of "mananger", each one having a slightly different definition of what is a manager and who he/she is managing.
regards,
Guillaume