[Hidden-tech] mambo?

[Jonathan Dill]

Juliet Jacobson wrote:
> I'm redesigning a site for a very non-technical, no-webmaster, 
> non-profit type organization that wants to edit and maintain their 
> site on an ongoing basis. I was thinking of using Contribute 
> (step-child of DreamWeaver) and setting up the site to be as 
> idiot-proof as possible (putting all navigation into includes, 
> controlling all styling with css.) Now I'm thinking maybe I'm 
> reinventing the wheel and I should use Mambo instead. Would Mambo be a 
> good solution for this scenario? Is it difficult for a 
> marginally-technical person such as myself to set up and use Mambo?
Speaking as a fairly technical person, I have played with Mambo and it 
is powerful and flexible, but that seems to go hand in hand with being a 
bit complicated as is often the case.  There is a certain "logic" to it 
that is probably quite different from how you normally do things.  It's 
probably not a terrible learning curve, but there will definitely be a 
learning curve.  For a marginally-technical person, I think you would 
have to try to simplify the interface, turn off or hide things that are 
not needed that could be confusing.

You can try Mambo here, already basic set up, make any changes you want 
it gets "reset" I think once an hour:

http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=159

You should also take a look at Joomla, which is pretty much the 
continuation of Mambo, without getting into the complicated details:

http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2097&Itemid=159

You might take a look at CivicSpace, which is an easier to install and 
more user-friendly derivative of Drupal.  The main downside that I see 
of CivicSpace is the "look and feel" choices are not as sleek as Mambo / 
Joomla, and not as easy to customize unless you are familiar with CSS.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=510&Itemid=159

If it is a fairly simple website without a lot of features, you might 
even take a look at WordPress--it is more rudimentary blogware but easy 
to learn, and there are some very nice looking skins / themes that are 
available for it.  I highly recommend turning off the comment mechanism 
and trackbacks for a site that is not really a "blog" site or you will 
probably wind up spending a lot of time trying to block and manage 
"Texas Holdem Poker" type blog spam, which is the downside of 
WordPress--there are plugins to do this, but even with the plugins I 
found I was spending a lot more time than I wanted going in to deny or 
approve stuff, setting up filters etc.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2143&Itemid=159

Jonathan