Mambo Questions

Sirs,
I'm trying to figure exactly what Mambo is and does. CMS really doesn't
say much about it.

After digging around a bit, it appears that it's installed on the server,
and then used to build the site and manage it's content; using the web
browser.

I use dreamweaver, and so I can't understand why I might need mambo. I
can't seem to comprehend it's advantage, except that I wont need to keep the
site files in two places; and maybe that anyone on the network can build and
manage via their browser instead of dreamweaver. Duh??

Help? What is Mambo>?

geo

Gate wrote:

I'm trying to figure exactly what Mambo is and does. CMS really doesn't
say much about it.

After digging around a bit, it appears that it's installed on the server,
and then used to build the site and manage it's content; using the web
browser.

I use dreamweaver, and so I can't understand why I might need mambo. I
can't seem to comprehend it's advantage, except that I wont need to keep the
site files in two places; and maybe that anyone on the network can build and
manage via their browser instead of dreamweaver. Duh??

Help? What is Mambo>?

A content management system, such as Mambo, allows you to better manage
your site by separating content from presentation. It is similar in
concept to the "separation of concerns" principle that you find with
Java programming, etc., where the processing and storage of information
(business rules, back-end database, etc.) are kept separate from how the
information is finally presented to the user. It makes maintenance and
testing easier, and allows people with differing skill sets to
collaborate on a given project.

With a CMS such as Mambo, you first think about how you wish to organize
your site's content, classifying it into sections and categories. You
then begin to develop the content, either by entering it (via editor) or
by uploading it into the various categories you have set up. Of course,
as you continue building your site, you'll likely move content between
sections and categories, create new categories, delete old ones that you
don't need anymore, etc. It's all a very dynamic and creative process.

The content is typically stored in a database, such as MySQL, and the
sections and categories that you develop will likely mirror (somewhat)
the menu options that you'll eventually offer your site's users, but you
don't necessarily need to be concerned about this while developing the
content -- you can mostly defer it until later. I say "mostly" because
you do need to have, at least in the back of your mind, SOME idea or
goal of what you wish to accomplish with your site. Eventually you (or
someone else) will need to "map" the categorized content into menus and
decide where and when it will appear on the pages of your site.

The final presentation is controlled by templates, style sheets,
components, and modules. You can use a stock template as-is, modify one
to your liking, or even develop your own from scratch. You can have a
series of templates, either fixed or variable-width, and switch them
with a click, giving your site an entirely new appearance without
touching the content or any underlying code. Things like menus are
independent plug-in modules, so you can easily modify the properties
affecting screen positioning, etc., again without touching any code.

Think of a newspaper or TV station, where you may have 25 reporters
contributing articles, photos, etc. With a CMS, each reporter can have a
separate logon, where he or she can enter or upload content over the Web
(perhaps with a wireless device), without knowing or even caring about
HTML or how that content will appear on the web site. It simply gets
categorized and stored into a database, where editors can then review
and approve it, manage it, put it up for display on a certain page for a
certain time period, and finally archive it when it's no longer needed.

You can easily use a CMS for smaller sites, as well. There's tons more
that you can do -- RSS feeds, advertising banners, polls, blogs, etc. Of
course, you can still tweak the underlying HTML if you WANT, but you'll
find you don't need or care to do it quite so often :-)

HTH, Mike


--
(for email address, change 'XX' to 'bb')

Problem is that I don't have admin rights on my host's server, so I cannot
instal mambo myself, they'd have to, but don't support this stuff.
phil