Suitability of Typolight for a project

[tomchadwin]

Hello all

We are looking at a large number of CMSs, and I want to know the opinion of TL users and developers as to whether they believe TL would fit the requirements of our project.

The project is the migration of a family of websites to a new CMS (currently using OpenText LiveLink). Current versions of the sites in question are:

www.cyclethedales.org.uk
www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk
www.diamondsinthelandscape.org.uk
www.enpaa.org.uk (part of www.nationalparks.gov.uk)
www.exmoor-nationalparks.gov.uk
www.fixthefells.org.uk
www.lakedistrict.gov.uk
www.mtbthedales.org.uk
www.nationalparks.gov.uk
www.newforestnpa.gov.uk
www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk
www.nuleader.eu
www.peakdistrict.gov.uk
www.yorkshiredales.org.uk

The requirements list we have is as follows:

GENERAL
*** Essential
** Highly desirable
* Desirable
X Undesirable

Licensing (this section not relevant for open-source products)
*** Low purchase cost (< £30,000)
*** Low annual support cost (<£10,000)
** Host multiple domains without additional costs
X Concurrent user licensing

Support
*** Support available for admins and editors
*** Usable help files / support site / support team
*** New developments and functionality regularly added to core product
** More than one company available to offer development work and support

Technical set-up
*** Friendly, search engine URLs (eg not page.asp?content=231 but /contactus.htm)
*** Compatible with SQL 2000 or SQL 2005 database
*** Multilingual on 100% of text elements (both editable and system level text)
** Add extra mime types for new file types (eg MP4)
** Staging and live DB and site setup, rather than editing directly to live
** Three levels of authoring: admin | super-editor | editor, or customisable roles and access
** Able to re-use content throughout site so no duplication required
* Link to Active Directory to set user permissions
* Able to host multiple urls for microsites within one database
* Integrate with MS Sharepoint

Author editing environment (browser-based area for non-technical editors)
*** Simple interface and high level of usability for non-technical staff
*** Authors not able to output content that is inaccessible / out of style
*** Edit draft versions without going live
*** Timed content and versions
*** Email reminders to users to update / approve content
*** Delete content / versions and restore easily
*** Authors able to create web forms that email replies
** Easy search for authors to re-use images and text
** Spell checker
** Tree structure to set navigation of site, easily edited by editors
** Easy to see which areas and content users have rights to edit
** Paste in from Word and retain formatting (without Word html code)
X Requires extra plug-ins or applets to work

Admin environment (area for technical admins to configure settings, edit, develop customised functionality and styles)
*** Must have complete control over all html and css for accessibility and design
*** Able to create custom page layouts and designs for sections and individual pages
*** Customisable metadata and other <header> content and non-visible html (eg Google Analytics code)
** Standard development language, eg .Net or PHP

Functionality
*** Integrate data from external sources (Databases, XML, RSS, html)
*** Secure https pages
*** Decrypt and encrypt data to/from external sources (eg SagePay)
*** Automatically list news
*** Automatically list other groups of content based on custom settings (eg pages, photos, documents)
*** Internal searching by users of groups of customised content -Photos, documents, pages, text (eg photolibraries, craftsmen register, committee papers)
*** Events system that can generate individual and collective events
*** Integration with Ultraseek search results
*** RSS feeds for groups of content (eg news, jobs, events)
*** Password protected areas
** Photogalleries with customisable layout
** Blog posts and comments
** Forums
** ePostcards
** eShops (with same editing environment as main CMS)
** Polls and results
** eNewsletters with auto subscribe / unsubscribe options
** Public comments on any content as required
* Personalisation for public users
* Tagging pages / content for tag cloud lists and searching
* Browser-based admin area

I can have a go at answering a lot of these as positive, but a few of them I am unsure about. Can anyone give any feedback on this?

Thanks

Tom

[tomchadwin]

Narrowing this down to the elements I am uncertain about, can anyone give feedback on TL's support of the following features [my questions and clarifications are in brackets]:

1. New developments and functionality regularly added to core product [As a TLnewcomer, I do not know how actively developed the core TL product is.]

2. Compatible with SQL 2000 or SQL 2005 database [In other words, are we tied to MySQL?]

3. Multilingual on 100% of text elements (both editable and system level text) [I know there is a plug-in for multilingual sites - how does it work? Also, has anyone done any back-end translations other than German and English - is it a moderately easy job to carry out ourselves?]

4. Add extra mime types for new file types (eg MP4) [In other words, will the file manager handle any file type correctly, allowing it to be used correctly in the site?]

5. Staging and live DB and site setup, rather than editing directly to live

6. Link to Active Directory to set user permissions

7. Integrate with MS Sharepoint

8. Authors not able to output content that is inaccessible/out of style [How bullet-proof is TinyMCE at always producing standards-compliant code, even when taking a paste from Word?]

9. Email reminders to users to update/approve content

10. Spell checker [Can this use different languages?]

11. Paste in from Word and retain formatting (without Word html code) [How well does copy and paste from Word work?]

12. Automatically list other groups of content based on custom settings (eg pages, photos, documents) [Can anything other than pages/articles be searched - images/documents via metadata or document content, for example?]

13. Internal searching by users of groups of customised content Photos, documents, pages, text (eg photolibraries, craftsmen register, committee papers) [Can we set up areas of arbitrary data structures, and have these searchable?]

14. Events system that can generate individual and collective events [Specifically, is it possible to do an aggregated events search of multiple TL sites?]

15. Blog posts and comments [Have I read that the News module will easily do blogs?]

16. Forums [Anything available in TL to do forums?]

17. ePostcards

18. eShops (with same editing environment as main CMS) [How well do these work with the various available modules, given that we have an existing online payment facility, and it's not WorldPay, but SagePay?]

19. Polls and results

Any help is gratefully received.

Thanks

Tom

[FloB]

Some answers:

1. See http://dev.typolight.org for development history. This blog post might also be interesting: http://www.typolight.org/blog-reader/it ... -2010.html
What do you consider "new functionality"?

2. The framework can be used with various databases (MySQL(i), MSSQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase), however it is not guaranteed that extensions and the install tool work correctly. MySQL is recommended.

3. Internationalization can be achieved by different site roots. There are also some extensions that implement helping functionality or different input methods (dunno much about those, you should try them out).

4. MIME-Types are no problem at all. There might only be a problem with displaying a corresponding icon along with the file as this is hardcoded into the class (but you don't have to use that one, plus this will change in 2.9).

5. I know about one extension that implements a workflow feature (workflow manager). Dunno what the current dev status is. Also possible to implement via a custom extension.

6. Should be possible to implement with some custom coding and the checkCredentials- / importUser-Hook.

7. see 6 (?)

8. Mostly no because you can't really controll everything properly. Mostly a TinyMCE issue, could be solved with some plugins or a clean-up function that is executed on saving into the database (onsave_callback in DCA).

9. see 5

10. TinyMCE related. Does have multilang spellchecker (AFAIK)

11. TinyMCE says it can handle it, but with mixed results. Try it out.

12. There is a getSearchablePages-hook thus as long as you implement a listing method everything can be searched.

13. Needs a custom extension.

14. Events are stored into different archives. Cross-indexing might be possible (depending on what exactly you want to do). Cross-installation-indexing (i. e. indexing of events of different sites that are not managed via the same installation) should be done by an external service (e. g. google custom search).

15. Yes, news module = blog module. With comments.

16. Depending on what you want to have, you can use the helpdesk/forum extension, a forum bridge, or code one by yourself.

17. Newsletters? Yes. Something else?

18. There are several shop extensions.

19. Survey_ce or quickpoll.

Just some quick answers …

[Medianomaly]

Regarding 9 & 11 -- I've had excellent results with the new version of TinyMCE so far (which came with 2.8+). When users paste from Word, all the junk is now immediately and successfully stripped, but basic structure (bold, italics, lists, paragraphs, etc.) is retained.

Additionally, it's very easy to limit what features users have access to -- so you can customize the toolbar (there's even a new extension that allows you set this per user group).

Regarding 16 -- I've used the HelpDesk extension on a project and it is excellent. The advantage over a bridge of course is its fully integrated with the member system.

Regarding 18 -- Maybe worth pointing out that the one many are waiting for (Isotope e-Commerce) is in beta, and looks be killer.

[FloB]

I've used the HelpDesk extension on a project and it is excellent.

Well, that depends on what you want to have. I'd say the HD is not that good to understand and use for using it as a forum. You can do it, but sometimes it's a pain to accomplish certain things.

[tomchadwin]

Thank you so much to both of you for such a useful and comprehensive reply. I shall look through your answers, and try to work out what would be required to get TL to work for this project.

Thanks again

Tom