Re: [RULE] Re: Restricted requirements for RULE website

[C David Rigby]

Oops - thought I had sent it to the list.

I think staying with MySQL is doable & desirable.  One of the nice 
features of this particular package is that it does not assume a 
monstrously powerful server.  When a page is first requested, it is 
cached in a directory named, not surprisingly, CACHE.  The trade off is 
thus between disk space on the one hand and CPU cycles on the other hand 
and response time on the, um, third hand.  The administrator chooses a 
delay time.  If the cached copy is younger than this, it is used.  If 
older, the page is regenerated.  The other nice feature is that if MySQL 
is unavailable, the cached copy is always used.

A site map function is essentially built in due to the hierarchical 
architecture, and there is also a backup function that can probably be 
"hijacked" to give us easy mirroring capability.  Syndication is also 
built in, as is a search engine.  Further, the package is designed to 
use some special characters, such as "{" and "}," in specific ways to 
indicate desired formatting.  So it should not be too tough to prepare a 
text file with formatting that can be uploaded (even by simply pasting 
it into the editor field of the website's article creation function) 
that will then have template-controlled html functionality once it is 
published.  Finally, there is a "private area" of the site to which the 
administrator grants access to others to be writers, editors, etc.

Anyway, that's a quick overview.  I am working on converting some of the 
existing website content to work with it, and once I have a small demo 
ready, I'll advise people to come and take a look!

CDR

M. Fioretti wrote:
> (CCing Rodolfo and the list so everybody is up to date)
>
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 17:49:48 PM +0100, C David Rigby
> (address@hidden) wrote:
>
>
> > I have been continuing to explore the CMS called SPIP that I
> > mentioned previously.  I am preparing a more detailed report with
> > respect to our requirements (both the original ones and the revised
> > set below) that I hope to present within a day or two.  I think that
> > it goes a long way to meeting our needs, but we will have to do at
> > least some customizing for our purposes.  That is always the case.
> >
> > Also, since we have experienced some intermittent difficulties with
> > our mailing list, I may not have successfully gotten the word out
> > that I set up a testbed server that members of this list can use if
> > they would like to experiment with web site design or other
> > precedures. Send me an email if you would like an account.
> > Currently all access is via SSH or http.
>
>
> OK, great, thanks a thousand. Just remember that map and mirror can be
> easily ported to the new system, no need to do them again. Also, what
> about keeping the MySQL database approach (see what I wrote about
> scalability)? Do you think it would be possible?
>
> As for the account, yes, do send it offlist as soon as you think it's
> time to start testing.
>
> Ciao,
>         Marco Fioretti