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. page 2 e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected] 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. page 3 e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected] 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. page 4 e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected] 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 page 5 e-Business: [email protected] open source CMS [email protected] 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