Mambo CMS
Posted by Peter | Filed under Software
Having been racking my brains for ages about how best to build a new site for my church, such that the Pastors (and others) can add/edit stuff themselves, I finally settled on using the Mambo CMS (Content Management System). It’s free, it’s open source, and incredibly groovy…
At first, I passed over Mambo, because it looked fairly hideously complicated. I was in fact somewhat bemused at their slogan “Power in simplicity”! However, after having no luck in finding another decent CMS, I decided to give it another go… and instead of using their “sample data” which they recommend for new users, I tried a totally empty site first, to see what I could do.
Maybe other people think it’s easy as pie, but I certainly took a while to get used to it! With trial, error, patience, more errors, and eventual success, I managed to get my head round the admin side of Mambo, and setup a half-decent site. It’s not complete yet, as I’m still learning all the subtleties of how to setup menus, use certain modules, and so on, but I’m nearly done… and I’m very pleased with the results.
Like I said, the main thing I was looking for was something that would allow others (who are not nearly so computer literate) to add/edit stuff quickly and easily. With some care attention, Mambo allows that, without forcing somebody to use the admin back-end at all. This is where the Mambo sample data actually did come in handy, because one of their pre-made menus (I think it was called “othermenu”) had a couple of examples of how to add a “write new article” button. You need to hard-code a URL for it, but it works.
Using what I’ve learned, I’m looking at helping some other folks setup Mambo for a Christian community site… and (assuming I ever get round to it) will almost definitely use Mambo to setup “Avid Insight” properly, which will contain general articles and tutorials about programming and other stuff.
So there ya go… another awesome bit of free open source software. It’s been around for nearly 8 years now, going strong, and it’s pretty cool once you get to grips with it. Do check it out if you need a solid CMS!
2 Responses to “Mambo CMS”
February 21st, 2008 at 12:11 am
Surprised you went with Mambo over Joomla! but each to their own. Any particular reason?
February 21st, 2008 at 12:30 am
I actually didn’t know about Joomla at the time (I had heard of it, but saw no difference between it and Mambo). My church’s site is done now, so I’ll stick with it for that, but for future work, I will definitely go with Joomla!