[horde] introduction

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Michael Hoennig <michael at hoennig.de>:

> Hi Horde users and developers!

Welcome!

> What I actually need for my websites, is a mixture of Zope
> (http://www.zope.org) and Midgard (http://www.midgard-project.org), but
> more based on CVS rather than on a database. Thus I need a Web-CMS and
> application server.

I think this would be a great piece to have in Horde: sort of the overarching
framework into which you can plug Horde apps, other content, etc.

> In detail, I'd like to have my websites manged by CVS, where scripts,
> layout and content are separated. Content can be either (X)HTML, XML,
> BLOBs (i.e. PNG or JPEG) or plain text. Layout consists of templates and
> stylesheets (i.e. CSS). Scripts consists of PHP, for the most part. 

I think having a cvs CMS backend solves a lot of problems, and is a good idea.
I'd also like to see a workflow model, but that's another goal and can be
added...

> There should be two ways of working on contents: Online with a
> web-frontend, Offline with explicit useage of CVS checkout, commit etc.
> To me it is very important that the website can be tested before
> commiting a new version, even offline on a notebook computer. But less
> experienced contributors should have an easy-to-use web-frontend. For
> layouts and scripts the direct use of CVS is ok, I think. It should be
> possible to create static pages (using PHP to merge layout and content)
> for most pages of a website. 

I think the option to edit anything either way would be _great_.

> Other things I need, are a todo management system, a community calendar
> and a web-forum system. Where a database is ok for a todo management
> system and a community calendar, I don't see much reasons for having a
> forum based on a database. The vast majority of users do work pretty
> straight forward with a forum - at least in my acse. Additionally I'd
> like to have a system which I can use for a community service which
> should not consume too much CPU power. With other words: I'd like to
> have a forum which creates static (X)HTML pages when articles are
> written, so the forum can be browsed without further calls to scripts. 

The calendar and todo systems currently fall under Kronolith, and the forum
under Babel. Generating static pages is an interesting idea - what would you
think of a hybrid system where static pages are used unless an update had
occurred since the page was last generated, in which case the page would be
generated and saved at the same time (using php4's output buffer). Putting the
re-generation logic into the front end saves you some trouble in terms of
conflicts, I think...

> I have much more ideas of how everything could work together,
> community-user-registration, attached mailing lists etc. But one after
> the other ;-)

=)

> Don't you think, Horde is a good basis for my ideas? How does my vision
> fit your vision for Horde?

It sounds compatible to me. I look forward to more ideas and code!

-chuck

--
Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck at horde.org>
Many states consider gambling so immoral that they not only prohibit private
gambling organizations, they thoughtfully provide their own.