Help on CMS

vectorian798

I am going to be making a CMS (content management system) and have a few questions that need answering 😛

First, how should I organize the code. Right now I am thinking everything will load from only a few different pages - perhaps a front page index.php which will basically show a default module (section) of the website, and a modules.php page that will load different pages depending on what module's name is passed in (_GET) the url. So would this work out or no? I am trying to decipher how PHPNuke is organizing itself and I think I understand a 'big picture' but nothing of the little details that could be important.

Secondly, I am as I said above, going to make it modular. So, how should I handle modules. Should the admin page have a 'Check for modules' section that will scan the 'modules' directory for new additions? And then appropriately update the database? If so, then I would need to include in such a scan for modules, appropriate code to parse filenames and directory names, right?

Thirdly, I want the admin to be able to have as many groups for users as he/she wants. What I mean is, the admin should be able to arbitrarily assign permissions to view or modify for each module. So let's say I have a permissions table that will have a module name, a user group name, and booleans for read (view), edit, and submit/delete, when a new module is found, this table would have to have additional rows of data to accomodate the module correct? Or is there a better way?

Fourthly, does anyone know of an easy way to integrate a full-fledged forum into my own site design? I know PHPNuke has a port of PHPBB and I am looking for a very similar solution...but I honestly don't know where to start. I was thinking maybe I should just use one of those 'one page of code' tiny forums and worry about it later. Bleh.

Thanks for your help, and if you have any other info on this topic that might help me out or useful links, please post away 😃

ZibingsCoder

You REALLY need to search the forums. I didn't search them, but I know for a fact that one I just had a discussion with someone in dealt with how to handle modules.

http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10280136

Read that, and then search the forums for CMS. You should find a few posts.

MiiJay

Personally I find it quite saddening that so many people out there are making CMS's and Portal systems. Why reinvent the wheel ?

I know I'm working on a Portal / CMS system myself, so what I said above does seem daft. However, I am making something totally different, which is 100% different from all the *Nuke like crap out there.

Anyway, seeing as I'm replying, I might as well be helpful

Look at hierarchal ACL's (Access Control Lists). They offer the best way to set permissions. PHP GACL is a good example.

Arg, people makeing *Nuke type systems where you have long URls. that sucks. Not to mention anyone designing a true CMS will not concern them selves with these petie little details as they are not important in the early stages. As for modules, you would make it so when you go in the admin page, it could auto acan for new modules and automatcally mark them up for installation in the DB read for when the system admin wants to install them. Personally I hate the "Modules" concept most portals use. My project uses an OO based storage system that saves data into the database in a tree, making it much like a real file system. (It's a very complex concept how it's done)

As for forums, Umm, I wouldn't ever integrate any other forum into a project of mine. It's easier to write one than hack someelses code, especially as most PHP programmers are crap programmers imo. The main issue at hand is that your user system must remain compatiable with the forum's user system (likewise you might as well use the same group system). However as I said, because most PHP programmers are crap coders, you'll have a job doing this as a lot of forum code is not very reuseable.

When making something like a CMS, spend time looking at ALL of the existing projects out there that are good, and look for all their weak points before researching into ways you can improve them. If yo are going to do this properly, you'll find you can spend a good 3 months researching other projects. (Well I did anyway).