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CMS Made Simple – 1st impressions
By Dale Reagan | November 7, 2008
Made Simple? Let’s see how long it takes before the PSH (problem solving hat) is required. See minor steps (bottom of page) taken BEFORE starting the install… I am using the 13 step installation guide from the CMSMS web site.
- check requirements – web server, DB server, ftp or ssh server access
- download – many options (file version choices – should be a one-click for ‘latest version’)
- install – just untar the files in an appropriate folder
- check file permissions (hmmm again – see my post about WordPress file permissions… You should NEVER have to use 777.)
- create your database – using an external tool, i.e. MyPhpAdmin – a SUPER tool; no command-line information provided
- point your browser to the appropriate URL and the ‘startup wizard’ should begin
I reach step # 6 and, Bingo I get a request for language selection. I accept the default ant click ‘submit’ which brings me to a summary page noting success/failure for required as well as optional settings. I intentionally skipped the step requiring the creation of ‘config.php’ and of course I get an error since the file is missing.
- I create /usr/share/cmsms/config.php with permissions of 644 and ownership by ‘apache’ and click ‘Try again’ – SUCCESS!
I still have a number of warnings about file size limitations and other settings but I select ‘Continue’…
- I run the ‘File Creation Mask Test’ using default setting of ‘022’ (which is acceptable) – and it ‘passes’
- I create a default user
- I supply the database information and a ‘bad password’ – I get an error message indicating that I should verify my database information. I update the password and try again – SUCCESS!
At this point my impression is quite favourable – let’s see if this solution really rocks ‘out of the box’.
Now I can ‘install additional modules’ or connect to my new site – I ‘connect’ and I am rewarded with a default site which provides links for learning how to use CMS Made Simple.
I run the ‘database’ upgrade check and then complete the install by removing the install folder (per the install document) and setting the permission on the ‘config.php’ file to 444 (read only.)
Ok – I’m quite impressed with the install process for this Open Source solution – it simply works (and guides you to a solution if there is a simple problem.)
Next I open a new tab in my browser and surf to http://localhost/cmsms/admin and login with the user/password I entered during the setup process – what a clean, simple easy to GROK interface!
I see a red warning about an incomplete email setup so I venture forth, review the options and send a test message to my local user account – it works; I then accept the settings and return to the ‘CMS’ menu (the red warning is gone.)
Since my goal is to find a CMS-type solution that can import both existing HTML/text files as well as image/JPEG files I explore the Image Manager and File Manager content tools – I upload one of each type of file and note that File Manager supports both ZIP and tgz (compressed tar file) archives which may contain multiple files.
Ok, now I ‘hunt’ for the imported image and html file; hmm, no luck, errrrr wait – they show up under File Manage–> File View; I can open each file in a new window but I don’t yet see a means to ‘import’ the file. Hmmm. If I click on the file (image or html) a new window opens and I can view the image or web page – nice, but how do I add this page/image to the external site?)
Next I decide to check out the ‘pretty URL’ feature and I enable use of ‘.htaccess’ – the maintenance interface functions normally, however, the main web is now broken (most likely an Apache setup issue) so I un-do the change and continue exploring. [[note that you must change the permissions on the ‘config.php’ to 644 to edit the file…]]
Summary
- Wonderful, simple interface (IMO)
- Many, Many features (yet to explore)
- Sadly, No direct import (i.e. add a file to the ‘public’ portion of the site without multiple steps OR ‘migrate’ from multiple HTML pages to CMSMS – more reading/research required on my part; it would be nice if the import process included enough direction as to next steps…)
- Nice WYSWIG editor for content creation
- Management options/procedures provide EXCELLENT feedback (i.e. success/failure when you make a change)
Overall – CMS Made Simple warrants further exploration…
My pre-install steps
- using phpMyAdmin I created a database with an appropriate user/password
- created folder /usr/share/cmsms; set owner (user& group) to ‘apache’ and later change the permissions to 775 (they were 755 which is why I had to manually create the ‘config.php’ file.)
- chmod -R apache:apache /usr/share/cmsms (change ownership of all files under the mcsms folder to ‘apache’ user/group)
- created cmsms.conf and placed in /etc/httpd/conf.d (creates a server wide shortcut to CMS Made Simple – see below)
- restart Apache web server (service httpd restart)
### CMS made Simple – file: /etc/httpd/conf.d/cmsms.conf
Alias /cmsms /usr/share/cmsms
<Directory /usr/share/cmsms>
AllowOverride Options
</Directory>
Topics: Computer Technology, Problem Solving, Unix-Linux-Os, Web Problem Solving, Web Site Conversions | Comments Off on CMS Made Simple – 1st impressions
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