Electronic Business in the Global Economy:
Content Management Systems for the Personalization of Web Applications Open source CMS
Term paper
University of Fribourg Department of informatics Information Systems group Prof. Dr. Petra Schubert (from FHBB)
June 2005:
David Bächler Jeff Dicken Juchstr. 31 Rue François d’Alt 5 1712 Tafers 1700 Fribourg [email protected] [email protected] e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected]
Table of contents Management Summary ______2 1 Introduction______3 2 What is a CMS?______4 2.1 CMS in general______4 2.2 Separation Content – Design ______5 2.3 Personalization ______5 2.4 Authorization ______5 2.5 Multi – Channel ______6 2.6 Maintenance ______6 2.7 Simple Use______6 2.8 Must/Should/Nice to have ______6 2.8.1 Must have______6 2.8.2 Should have ______8 2.8.3 Nice to have ______8 3 Open source vs. closed source______9 3.1 Costs ______9 3.2 Development ______9 3.3 Performance/Stability ______9 3.4 Security ______9 3.5 Support/Maintenance______9 4 Personalization ______10 4.1 Personalization of the software ______10 4.2 Personalization of the website ______10 4.3 Personalization without a CMS______11 5 Existing open source CMS ______12 5.1 Overview ______12 5.2 Comparison______13 5.2.1 Typo3 ______13 5.2.2 eZ Publish ______14 5.2.3 Midgard CMS______14 5.2.4 Mambo ______15 5.2.5 OpenCms ______15 5.2.6 Plone ______16 5.2.7 Metadot ______16 5.3 Use of open source CMS ______17 6 Conclusion______18 References______19 Appendix 1: Comparison table ______20 Appendix 2: Screenshots (Mambo) ______21
page 1 e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected]
Management Summary
The first part is the introduction where the use of content management systems (CMS) is explained as well as the precise meaning of open source.
Part 2 „What is a CMS?“ provides detailed information about a CMS and its important points like separation of content and design, personalization, authorization, multi- channel, maintenance, simple use.
In the next part, a comparison between open and closed source CMS is done, focusing on costs, development, performance/stability, security, personalization, support/maintenance.
Different aspects of personalization on the software and user side will be discussed in part 4.
In part 5 a comparison of 7 different open source CMS is presented: Typo3, eZ Publish, Midgard CMS, Mambo, OpenCms, Plone and Metadot.
The last part will be a conclusion about the information provided in the paper.
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1 Introduction
The standard websites are no longer of interest to the companies. The webmaster used to be the person who uploaded the new files and updated the older ones. Members of the different parts of the company sent files to the webmaster who had to combine them. This was not easy to manage and now with Content Management Systems (CMS), this problem is solved. Everybody can manage his own part which improves the work on the website. The user does not need to have any knowledge about programming languages to use a CMS. More details will be provided in part 2 „What is a CMS? “.
The three main points of open source are: - the user does not have to pay for the software - the source code is provided totally - he can modify parts of the source code and use it under the same license
But is the use really free? The standard software product can be downloaded without costs but the personal adaptation has to be done by a person with appropriate knowledge. Often the user does not have the right knowledge to do everything by himself. After this part, installation and server costs appear. There are also software updates which have to be done from time to time.
Do professional open source content management systems really exist? And are there a lot of companies that use them? The (open source) CMS market is very fragmented. In the last part several CMS that claim to be professional will be tested and compared.
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2 What is a CMS?
2.1 CMS in general
Definition A content management system (CMS) is a software for the administration of contents of a website or from other information offers.
Idea By a content management system one understands a system for the administration of contents regarding the web content lifecycle (create, control and publish). The main feature is the separation of design and content. Additionally, CMS can serve as document management systems.
Distinction CMS are often confounded with portal systems or web content management systems, which do the interaction between the user and the Website. Pure CMS must not have necessarily something to do with webpublishing. Due to the common mechanisms, web content management systems (WCMS) and CMS are often regarded as the same. With a WCMS however, contrary to a pure CMS, the emphasis is on the webpublishing.
If one speaks today of a CMS, then a web content management system is usually meant. Already hundreds of different WCMS/web portals exist. There are more than 100 under the open source license.
Requirements Content management systems control the separation of content, layout and function and make different navigation structures possible. The user should be able to serve the system also without programming knowledge. He should be able to use the system without any knowledge of HTML and/or XML. Depending on the application an user and user right management should be implemented.
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2.2 Separation Content – Design
1
Figure 1: Separation Content-Design 1
The main point of a CMS is the separation between content and design. The data is usually stored in a database (XML databases are often used and become more and more popular). The big advantage is that different groups can work on the website. The programmers can change some functions and reorganize data and the designers can create different design templates. The two parts do not need to scroll through the other persons’ source code and can implement their part without knowing the rest. (See also Appendix 2: Figure 3 and 8)
2.3 Personalization
See part 4.2
2.4 Authorization
A login to the frontend of a CMS requires a login and password. It is possible to create some user categories with specific rights for each one; e.g. the webmaster has access to the entire site or the secretary of the finance department only sees texts from that department. So it is possible to personalize the access rights for every user. (See also Appendix 2: Figure 7)
1 Prof. Dr. Petra Schubert © 2004 FHBB/DWI
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2.5 Multi – Channel
The multi-channel part of the CMS includes many services like sending SMS from the page and generating outputs (prints, PDF, XML). All different forms of output are generated from the same data in the database.
2.6 Maintenance
The maintenance on several levels is important for content management systems. First frequent software updates need do be done (by the technical person) in order to guarantee functionality and security. But the different users also have to be managed, fix users problems, change access rights of some persons, etc. (See also Appendix 2: Figure 6)
2.7 Simple Use
An advantage is that the end-users do not need to know any programming language like html or UML. Everything is generated automatically and the persons have buttons and a text field similar to advanced editors like Microsoft Word. (See also Appendix 2: Figure 5)
2.8 Must/Should/Nice to have
2.8.1 Must have The features described below are needed by every good CMS. These parts are elementary for the good functionality and use of a CMS.
Access rights With a login and password it is possible to access to the page. Depending on the user, other options are visible and have a more or less personalized page. The administrator can distribute these rights to the users.
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) This feature is very important for the end-users of the CMS. F.ex. a secretary can write documents and with the current buttons change the design and after submitting the document, it has exactly the same look on the website or on the printed paper.
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Caching Caching increases the performance enormously. Depending on the CMS whole pages or only some database results are stored in a temporary memory called cache. The access to the cache is much faster.
Database To store and access the collected data, a database is absolutely necessary. Import and export data is widely used and very practically. The html pages contain all the data and do not access to an external database. This is a huge disadvantage because a connection to the database makes it possible to modify, verify, change …content so fast.
Separation Design-Content As described in part 2, the separation between content and design is one of the main points of a CMS and absolutely necessary.
Browser control Everything must be possible with a simple browser as f.ex. Internet Explorer, Mozilla … The administrator can login to change f.ex. access rights of a person or the secretary can type an article in a text filed viewed with a browser. Nowadays every internet user needs a browser and so no further installation is necessary.
Security The security of a CMS is also an important point. Big companies must guarantee a secure CMS because it is of vital importance for them that nobody can hack the site and get important data. Some CMS offer the possibility to encrypt the data during the transfer f.ex. with SSL.
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2.8.2 Should have
These parts are important but not absolutely necessary.
Link management Link management is useful to connect several web pages to the CMS
Community The support of a community is important for a CMS. They give feedback in message boards and/or mailing lists and exchange experiences. This helps the developers to improve their software and eliminate errors, security issues and improve some parts.
XML Nowadays XML databases are more and more used. They make the data import and export much easier and are used for document storage. f.ex. with Microsoft Word you can generate an XML document and import it to the database.
Multilanguage Multilanguage support is important for companies which have parts of their branches all over the world. So everybody can access the page and choose a language he understands. So it is also easier to get potential clients from most of the countries.
2.8.3 Nice to have It is good if a CMS has the following functionality but it is not necessary.
Application Server This is a server where defined software is running because that sort of server makes it easier and the clients can use this application.
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3 Open source vs. closed source
3.1 Costs
As described before, the open source software is free but there are server and installation costs. The commercial CMS will be more expensive because of the license costs.
3.2 Development
The commercial CMS are developed by specific groups with a strong project management. The whole project is analyzed and the different phases of the development are controlled. On the open source side there is not this strong planification. The result is that the software is not always well structured. Errors in the database structure are nearly impossible to fix.
3.3 Performance/Stability
As already described in the development part, the free software is not developed with a strong project management and this may result in a loss of performance. An advantage is that a big community tests the different products and gives feedback which is often done via message boards. This is helpful at fixing errors. The installation is usually much more different systems.
3.4 Security
The open source software is often more secured than the closed source. In the community forums there are discussions about the whole product and so always about the security issues that are found by the community. The free tests can help the developer to fix the problems.
3.5 Support/Maintenance
Support is sometimes a problem for free CMS. Unfortunately there are not always a forum or mailing list for the exchange of knowledge. If there is, the client can find many solutions to a wide part of problems. He has to do the maintenance himself or find a person with the appropriate knowledge. Many new modules are available and so the decision is often difficult because of the compatibility as described above. The support for commercial CMS is much better. A help line with personal support is provided and this helps to faster resolve problems. Only software upgrades can be installed by the client and for every further modification, the software company has to do the work because of the closed source code.
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4 Personalization
4.1 Personalization of the software
The software companies can personalize a standard CMS for an organization and add some specify parts for their needs. So the client can get an individual adaptation. The problem is that he has to ask and probably pay the company to modify parts if he needs some changes. The open source CMS can be modified by the user himself. There are many modules that can be included to personalize the software. The problem is that these do not always fit perfectly with the rest. This is sometimes the problem of a missing strong project management. An advantage is that a person that understands the source code can modify parts, install modules and on this way personalize the software.
4.2 Personalization of the website
A personal user interface for the different users is possible. The users can often change their preferences and so add a different background and hide or show some parts of the interface (e.g add a picture or remove information they do not use). The content can appear in different forms and with several layouts. There are two interfaces: the frontend and backend. The frontend is the part where all the users normally log in. The backend is reserved to the site administrator to modify and maintain the system. Often also the backend can be adapted to the needs of the administrator.
2 Figure 2: Personalization of a website 2
(See also Appendix 2: Figure 4 and 7)
2 Prof. Dr. Petra Schubert © 2004 FHBB/DWI
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4.3 Personalization without a CMS Some kind of personalization is possible without having a complete CMS. One can build a dynamic website with e.g. PHP alone or CGI scripts. But without having the complete separation of content and layout, personalization can only be done in a rudimentary way (in general only for a group of users). You need a database to store information about the user and his habits in order to serve him the right information. The database is also necessary for the content if you want to show it in different ways.
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5 Existing open source CMS
There are more than 100 open source CMS3. It is not easy to get an overview over the actual market situation. The following list in the overview tries to mention the most important and most used CMS. These are all CMS that are used on business websites. The seven most used (or most interesting) CMS will be further compared more in detail.
5.1 Overview
(ordered by technology) PHP: Typo3 (very complete os CMS; complicated) eZ publish (leading professional os business CMS) Midgard CMS (based on professional os framework Midgard) PHP-Nuke (a lot of spin-off-projects) Mambo (ease of use; fastest growing)
Java: OpenCMS (mature CMS; XML; fits well into J2EE environment) Apache Lenya (formerly Wyona (NZZ); XML: cross-media publishing) Magnolia (first with JSR170 support (Java content repository))
Python: Plone (professional and “easy” system; based on ZOPE Application Server) ZMS (easy publishing (especially for science); based on ZOPE)
Perl: Metadot (leading os portal server on the English market) WebGUI (popular CMS and application framework)
.NET: Rainbow (popular and professional, based on Portal starter kit (formerly IBuySpy) DotNetNuke (framework that extends the Portal starter kit)
3 see http://www.opensourcecms.com
page 12 5.2 Comparison
For the comparison all systems have been tested on the site Open source CMS4. The authors also rely on data from the CMS Matrix5. The choice is a little bit arbitrary. But all of the systems claim to be professional (except maybe Mambo). The comparison should show the good and the bad points for every system and give a help for deciding which systems should be used for which purpose. More details can be found in the comparison table of Appendix 1. For every CMS there is a link to a case study and two References of companies (or organizations) that use this system.
5.2.1 Typo3 www.typo3.com
TYPO3 can be seen as a milestone of open source content management systems. It is the first professional open source CMS. It is widely used, also by big and well-known companies. Typo3 has a world-wide developer community and is available in approx. 40 languages. Typo3 is frequently used on small to middle size web systems, whose emphasis is on text and picture. There are a lot of external components available. One of the big disadvantages is its complexity. The installation and especially the template engine is very complicated. But the system has a logarithmic learning curve and when you learned how to use it, it is very powerful. For end-users the system is easy to manage, even if there exist more intuitive systems. You also need at lot of space for the installation and a fast server.
References: MAN, ThyssenKrupp Automotive AG Case study: Dassault Systèmes6
4 http://www.opensourcecms.com
5 http://www.cmsmatrix.org
6 Hinderink Daniel: Dassault Systèmes PLM Website; Typo3 case study; http://typo3.com/Dassault_Systemes.1386.0.html e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected]
5.2.2 eZ Publish www.ez.no eZ Publish is a very complete and flexible content management system. eZ says that it is the leading open source CMS with over one million of downloads. With a set of standard CMS components the use is substantially facilitated. The installation is easy. It is a product to use just out-of-the-box. The standard installation can be adapted with several modules. It is the only open source CMS with a built-in webshop. The system can be used for both simple homepages and complex enterprise sites. There is no need for an extra application server.
References: Norwegian Telecom LTD, Austrian National Tourist Office Case study: Centre for Design, Paris7
5.2.3 Midgard CMS www.midgard-project.org
Midgard CMS is a management interface for the Midgard framework. Midgard is an open source platform, which is developed and maintained by an international network of companies and individuals (especially from Scandinavia). It provides a powerful component architecture for PHP development, as well as object oriented database abstraction. Besides PHP also SOAP and Java (JSR-170) programming interfaces are provided. With Midgard CMS, web applications of diverse size have been realized, from e- Government-platforms up to large portals. The application offers a durable and very flexible platform. There are also other management interfaces (CMS) like Aegir for the Midgard framework.
References: Nemein Solutions, Centre for Open Source Software (Finland) Case study: OSCOM site8
7 Bauer Martin: Centre For Design, eZ Publish Case Study; http://www.martinbauer.com/articles/centre_for_design_ez_publish_case_study
8 Bergius Henri; Nemein Oy: Case study: Building the OSCOM site; Midgard case study; http://www.oscom.org/projects/documentation/midgard/case-oscom.html
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5.2.4 Mambo www.mamboserver.com
Mambo is an open source web content management. Mambo is a very efficient and easily usable WCMS. It is able to manage very large websites. It is the open source CMS with the fastest growing community. Mambo is still under development. At the moment there are some features missing for business use. Especially the user management is not very mature. Also SSL, XML, and a database abstraction layer will be implemented in the future versions. End of 2005, with the stable release 5.0, Mambo will become a serious alternative to other professional CMS. Mambo has been developed by Miro which are (again) supporting it.
References: University of Ottawa School of Managements, Airline Pilot Central Case study: Porsche Brazil9
5.2.5 OpenCms www.opencms.org
OpenCms is a comprehensive open source CMS for enterprises realized in Java and XML. OpenCms offers high performance and functions which are suitable in particular for internet and intranet applications of middle and large enterprises. It fits very well into an existing J2EE environment. The CMS does not have as many built-in modules and functionalities as other CMS but offers high performance and good integration. The Java standards are respected so adaptations and extensions can be easily done. Custom JSPs can be used for the personalization of the website. It is a very mature application. Approximately 50 international software consulting enterprises offer today professional support to their customers as official "OpenCms Solution Provider". The OpenCms project is developed officially by Alkacon software. In addition Alkacon software offers support and training courses for OpenCms.
References: Renault, HypoVereinsbank Case study: LGT Bank in Liechtenstein10
9 Hastie David: The fastest Mambo web site in the world?; Mambo case study; http://www.miro.com.au/index.php?option=Articles&task=viewarticle&artid=5
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5.2.6 Plone www.plone.org
Plone is an enterprise content management system written in the programming language Python. It can be used for intranet and extranet applications, as well as a document publishing system and as a groupware tool. The CMS is based on the open source application server Zope and the associated content management Framework. The system is very flexible and designed with the end-user in mind. One person of the developing team is responsible for the usability. Plone is powerful but at the same time easy to use. The only weak point is maybe the programming language Python. Python is not as spread as Java or PHP.
References: Lufthansa, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Mars Rover) Case study: Statistisches Amt des Kantons Basel-Stadt11
5.2.7 Metadot www.metadot.com
Particularly for small enterprises or departments of companies Metadot was developed as an open source tool for portals. The solution can be used as supplementing technology to professional products of Plumtree software or Vignette. Many enterprises and government authorities use professional CMS software for their web pages. For the department portals however they look for an easy-weight, more economical solution. Metadot is very flexible and personalization can be easily done. But it is only available in English. It is developed by the company with the same name. Metadot is written in Perl and therefore not as easy to extend as PHP or Java products.
References: World Health Organization, MIT Civil & Environmental Engineering Case study: Benson Arizona energy services cooperation12
10 Kandzior Alexander: A non-technical, businessintroduction to OpenCms 6; http://www.alkacon.com/export/download/alkacon/Slides_OpenCms_5_Overview_Alkacon.pdf
11 Scheidegger Nicole, Sieber Pascal, Taaks Gerrit: Einsatz einer Open-Source-Lösung beim Statistischen Amt des Kantons Basel-Stadt; eXperience Database; Plone case study; http://experience- en.fhbb.ch/cases/experience.nsf/volltext/ps_kanton_bs_statistisches_amt
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5.3 Use of open source CMS Open source content management systems are widely used by enterprises. For big companies it’s often just an alternative for a department website or an intranet. But especially for small and medium companies, an open source CMS is a real alternative to build and maintain their main website. But the choice of the right system is not easy on the very fragmented open source CMS market. Even the commercial market is very big. A company has to carefully evaluate its needs and then choice the appropriate system. In general an external service provider takes care of that. Because you can try out and implement everything for “free” there is a risk to be too motivated by learning and adapting the system. The administrator should always have in mind that the users have to learn how to use all the new gadgets. And in order not to loose the key points and to have a system that is never finished, a good project management is very important.
12 Gasperson Tina: Benson coop never Metadot it didn’t like; Metadot case study; http://programming.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1840227&tid=48&tid=74
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6 Conclusion
The CMS will be used more and more in the future. They provide functionalities which are useful and are not possible with standard html or php sites. The separation between content and design is very important because it gives the designers and programmers the possibility to work independently on the same project. The easy way to use the interface is in our opinion one of the great advantages. The users have their personalized view and can focus on their work without seeing many details, they do not use. This makes the work much easier and more efficient. With the additive multi – channel, they have an all in one interface and can even send SMS through it or generate PDF documents.
There are always discussions between supporters of the open source and closed source software. As we saw in the classroom, the discussions are endless and it is impossible to say that the one or other party is right. Both concepts have advantages and disadvantages and it depends on what the user really needs. The open source is often better for private use because it is not that expensive and has enough features for normal users. As there are open source products which are very complex and comparable to commercial software. If a big company uses closed source, everything is ready when they get the software and it is adapted to their needs but usually expensive. But if there already exists a computer science research laboratory in the company, it can be less expensive to use open source and adapt it. But as we saw in part 3 „open source vs. closed source“, there are many factors which influence the decision. All in all you can save costs on the product license and use the money for adaptations to your needs. But a firm project management is needed in order not to loose the initial goals by discovering and learning the new system and all of its functionalities.
A CMS with the separation of content and design and the user management is the base for personalization of a website. But the personalization is not with every system easy to manage. Open source CMS are today widely used (also by very big companies). There are a lot of products on the market but only a few of them are really usable in a professional way.
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References
Web links CMS in general • http://www.opensourcecms.com/ (try out open source CMS) (6. 2005) • http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ (comparison of CMS) (6. 2005) • http://www.contentmanager.de/ (all about CMS) (6. 2005) • Schubert Petra: “Mitarbeiter als Webpublisher: BACSY – ein Content Management System auf der Basis von Lotus Domino”; http://e-business.fhbb.ch/eb/afe.nsf/0/b9a0584e6ca36f84c1256ec900376fe7?OpenDocument (6. 2005)
Case studies • Bauer Martin: “Centre For Design, eZ Publish Case Study”; http://www.martinbauer.com/articles/centre_for_design_ez_publish_case_study (6. 2005) • Hastie David: “The fastest Mambo web site in the world?”; http://www.miro.com.au/index.php?option=Articles&task=viewarticle&artid=5 (6. 2005) • Gasperson Tina: “Benson coop never Metadot it didn’t like”; http://programming.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1840227&tid=48&tid=74 (6. 2005) • Bergius Henri; Nemein Oy: “Case study: Building the OSCOM site”; http://www.oscom.org/projects/documentation/midgard/case-oscom.html (6. 2005) • Kandzior Alexander: “A non-technical, business introduction to OpenCms 6”; http://www.alkacon.com/export/download/alkacon/Slides_OpenCms_5_Overview_Alkacon.p df (6. 2005) • Scheidegger Nicole, Sieber Pascal, Taaks Gerrit: “Einsatz einer Open-Source-Lösung beim Statistischen Amt des Kantons Basel-Stadt; eXperience Database”; http://experience-en.fhbb.ch/cases/experience.nsf/volltext/ps_kanton_bs_statistisches_amt (6. 2005) • Hinderink Daniel: “Dassault Systèmes PLM Website”; http://typo3.com/Dassault_Systemes.1386.0.html (6. 2005)
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Appendix 1: Comparison table (more details available on www.cmsmatrix.org)
Typo3 eZ Publish Midgard Mambo OpenCms Plone Metadot CMS Version 3.7 3.6 1.6.1 4.5.2 6.0 2.0.5 6.4 License GNU GPL GNU GPL GNU LGPL GNU GPL GNU LGPL GNU GPL GNU GPL Business license no yes no no no no yes
Technology PHP4 PHP4 / XML PHP4, C, PHP4 Java 1.3+ / Python Perl 5 JavaScript XML Application PHP 4.1.2+ None Midgard PHP 4.1.2+ J2EE Zope mod_perl Server Framework, Application PHP4 Server Database MySQL MySQL, MySQL MySQL MySQL, Zope MySQL, PostGreSQL, Oracle, Oracle Oracle, MSSQL MSSQL Commercial yes yes limited no yes yes no manuals Commercial yes yes yes yes yes yes yes support SSL yes yes yes no yes yes no Sandbox yes yes yes no yes yes yes Versioning free addon yes yes limited yes yes no Multi-lingual yes yes yes free addon yes yes no LDAP free addon yes yes free addon free addon free addon yes My Page free addon limited limited no no limited yes Personalization very good, professional good with little limited user flexible user good user the portal is especially user additional management; management; management known for its with addons management; programming but addons create your and add ons personalization available own JSPs ! available features e-Shop free addon yes yes free addon no free addon no DB replication addon yes yes no addon addon no Supported by TYPO3 eZ systems Midgard Team Miro / Mambo Alkacon Plone Team Metadot (apart from Association core team Corporation community) complexity very complex a lot of easy to use very harder to designed with known for its at beginning, feautres, but with a very comprehensive install than end-user in ease of use, but very still good to flexible and intuitive; PHP products; mind; but extensions complete manage; framework easy to extend but you can for extensions have to be everything on use Java and you need programmed board out-of- related J2EE Python know- in Perl the-box standards how Comment the milestone the leading the CMS is the most a professional a very good the leading of open open source based on the intuitive and Java CMS; fits and flexible portal server source CMS; CMS, use it very flexible comfortable very well into content on the English very complex just out-of-the- and powerful one; it will be existing J2EE management market; but very box; over 1 Midgard an alternative environments; framework written in Perl powerful million of framework for business mature os written in downloads. purpose with CMS Python version 5.0
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Appendix 2: Screenshots (Mambo)
Figure 3: Frontend with content from different modules13
The page is composed of different modules. The CMS puts all these elements together.
13 http://mambo.mamboforge.net/demo (8.6.05)
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Figure 4: Frontend after login14
On this site there is a special menu and special buttons that appear after the login.
14 http://mambo.mamboforge.net/demo (8.6.05) with username demo and password demo
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Figure 5: Edit content with WYSIWYG editor15
The content can directly be edited in the browser window of the frontend. There is also the possibility to edit the content in the backend (with the same WYSIWYG editor).
15 http://mambo.mamboforge.net/demo (8.6.05)
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Figure 6: Backend (Main page)16
The icons lead to different sections of the CMS system. All sections can also be reached with the menu. A user can see if he got a message from another user. All users that are currently logged in are listed.
16 http://mambo.mamboforge.net/demoo/administrator/ (8.6.05) with username demo and password demo
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Figure 7: User manager17
Different users can have different user rights; e.g. see special hidden articles, write new articles or publish new articles on the website.
17 http://demo.opensourcecms.com/mambo/administrator/ (8.6.05) with username admin and password demo
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Figure 8: Content manager18
Each article belongs to a special category and section. They can be published on the website or not. When a user is working on an article, it is locked for other users. The author and the date of the articles are also listed.
18 http://mambo.mamboforge.net/demo/administrator/ (8.6.05)
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