CMS For Golf Royalty
With the development of Golf Royalty Silverado move ever progressing, I decided to have a look at a number of content management systems this week. I feel I require one to produce a site capable of controlling the large amount of information the site will be hosting. Content management systems will enable me to embed a number of dynamic features to boost the sites functionality as well as adding some quirky features to try and promote repeat visitors.
Some of the key features of Golf NI will be:
- Easy creation of new web pages and articles by administrative users
- Ability to edit pages as results come in
- Manage dynamic content such as RSS Feeds
- Publish articles on courses, competitions and results in a well organised fashion
Golf Royalty will need to host a multitude of different media. I feel that using a content management system will allow any user to upload these as they are produced from any location without the need for special software. With golf being such a vast sport both in Ireland and worldwide, I want users to be able to submit image media, audio compilations, video and web content with ease. If this process becomes too complex or time consuming, they will simply move elsewhere.
There are a number of elements I will also need to allow for:
- Setting access rights to content to allow fellow administrators to have different roles
- Creating a set layout so that any submitted content will automatically follow pre designated outlines
I have decided to have a mini review of some appropriate Open Source systems available to me and I hope to decide on an appropriate system to select and begin design, development and implementation.
buy neurontin
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King download
Mambo
Simply managed content sites would be easily created with Mambo and would act as a great base to create Golf Royalty. One of the main advantages that I can see is that very little training will be required to configure the system to my needs.
I have discovered some good sites that have been built using Mambo and they look promising, although I am concerned that they have that “template” style appearance and the freedom to style the site may not be high enough to meet my needs.
- Porshe Brazil: I like this sites clean and easy navigation. The design is kept very simple with allows the imagry, Porsche’s main selling point on the site, to stand out clearly.
- Tourism Victoira
: This is what I mean when I talk about the template appearance. This site is full of blocks and lines and for me it doesn’t hold any great design features of note.
A great feature that is readily available is the “out of the box” PDF printing. This would be a nice touch to have as it would mean that all articles I or other administrators write will be downloadable in a print ready PDF format.
There are however a number of problems I can see with Mambo. The definition of user roles lacks the freedom of change that I think I will require for Golf Royalty setup. Versioning is something I hadn’t really considered but is a problem a number of people have found. Being able to return to an earlier version is chronic or irreversible if changes are made. The interface for administrators is also very complex and I think this could pose problems in the future if relatively inexperienced users want to become part of the Golf Royalty setup.
Something outlined in the two example sites above is the template like appearance and it seems difficult to alter this without a strong understanding of PHP. This doesn’t daunt me; however it may pose early problems if there are elements that I do not understand.
Joomla!
I have had a bit of experience with Joomla! in the summer of 2008 when I completed a few demo sites for a Garden Centre. I like how the CMS works and the back end isn’t overly complex. There is freedom to include external elements from AJAX
and mootools which has obvious benefits, like adding simple and clean animation. This is a major plus as it could make the normally limited CMS appearance stand out from the crowd.
There is also great scope to implement my good knowledge of CSS to “make the site my own.” There are freely available tutorials out there that take you through the CSS methods used in Joomla! and, knowing the benefits of CSS, this is a major plus.
The freedom to edit, position and style all the elements of a Joomla! site is appealing but the some of the everyday tasks like adding an article are overly complex in the back end administration side. To counteract this, there are a number of extentions available for download that allow users to edit content directly from their desktop, rather than through a web browser. This is another obvious plus.
One of the key aspects of my site will be the creation of an easy to use and glitch free forum, where golfers from around the country can meet to discuss the hot topics. There is a great add on for Joomla! called Simplest Forum which should allow me to seamlessly embed the forum on my site. This is also fully customisable with CSS.
A couple of Joomla! examples I have came across are:
- Senso Interiors: A very clean and sophisticated site with minimal design elements. I think it works well and promotes the unique furniture sold by the company.
- LA Weekly Shrink psp : Although there is far too much content available on the main index page, this goes to show what is capable for a news based site built in Joomla!. I like the content side of this site although the design is lacking in comparison.
WordPress
Wordpress is the most popular open source content management systems available. Originally set up as a blogging tool, it has expanded year on year to become a very powerful management solution and has an extremely deep content site supporting it. Having used WordPress before, I know there are masses of articles, tips and tutorials online with numerous extensions and add-ons. With current users like Playstation and eBay, the quality and content available using Wordpress is unquestionable.
An obvious but important advantage of Wordpress is that it conforms to all of the W3C standards, namely CSS and XHTML. This should make things less complex when preparing the site to be viewed across numerous browsers, from Firefox to Google Chrome.
RSS feeds are readily available, allowing the site readers to get regular updates directly to their RSS readers. Upon successful installation of Wordpress, standard configurations for aggregators (feed readers) are automatically readied.
Pingback (sometimes called Trackback) is a cool feature I came across during research for my Future and Emerging Technologies (COM522J1) module as part of my degree in Interactive Multimedia Design. A Pingback lets you know when another website has used your site/blog as a reference and also lets others know when you use them. This is not only a great way of boosting site traffic, but it can help prevent against plagiarism. Pingback is built into the Wordpress package.
I have came across some good Wordpress examples during my research:
- Matt Brett: A Canadian self employed web designer who uses Wordpress very effectivly.
- Kineda
: An American based fashion and lifestyle site that implements superb design as well as intuitive add-ons and extensions. Very well executed site and one I now find myself subscribing to their RSS feeds.
Other CMS’s
Dive Bomber movie
I evaluated the pros and cons of a number of other Content Management Systems but was able to rule them out quite early in the selection process for various reasons. They were:
- DrupalLess used than those mentioned above, I had reservations over the communtity side where support could be found.
- Silver Stripe: Although quite commonly used, I had read of numerous extension failures and limited funcionality with regards add-ons. With the features I want to include in Golf Royalty, I was concerned that some wouldn’t be possible with Silver Stripe.
- Light CMS – Speak Light: I felt that this was too oriantated to designers rather than those with their own CSS knowledge. Speak Light promote users to design a site and submit it to them to then code up the CSS. A great idea for those with little experience. Although they do let you code your own XHTML and CSS, I would prefer a CMS that favour this method rather than offer it as an alternative.
Evaluation
After careful consideration and evaluation, I was initially torn between Joomla! And Wordpress to act as the underlying CMS for Golf Royalty. Both have obvious advantages and disadvantages. Joomla! appears in a more template orientated environment with less scope for personalisation but the actual content management side is second to none.
Wordpress on the other hand allows for great freedom of expression with many freely available add-ons and features to enhance the site. The behind the scenes CMS doesn’t seem as advanced as Joomla! 1.5 but I am not sure that this will matter too much for the task in hand.
In conclusion, I feel WordPress is the most suitable application for my brief.
I hope this has been a help to others who are in a similar Content Management dilema.
/leeBasket Case film
One Response to “CMS For Golf Royalty”
Leave a Reply