Gaa websites

randombar

Lads my local GAA team want me to do up their site (which is non existent at the moment)

So am thinking along the lines of a wordpress theme as that is pretty easy to manage and so on. They can update it themselves and it's easy to add guestbooks and all of that.

The thing is they are looking at something along the lines of:

http://www.kilmacudcrokes-hurling.com/

which looks to me more like joomla or something?

What are your suggestions? Are there wordpress templates that look similar to that one? Can you set joomla up to be very user vriendly and updateable?

Thanks
Gary

ianhobo

If you look at the page source, it has a hidden VIEWSTATE variable (in the massive giant form). They are both features of ASP.NET, rather than PHP (again, I don't know much PHP, so it could have similar, someone will point it out though )

If its not a "hand made" site, it probably uses something like dot net nukem' . its similar to joomla, but for dot net as oppssed to php

randombar

Ah ya thanks for that I'm basically looking for a starting point. I could do a hand made site and all that but I think a web based app could be the way forward.

Easier to set up

Easier to hand over

Easier to manage

etc

DJB

I used www.expressionengine.com to build www.trimgaa.com and they have full control to update the site.

randombar

That's a very nice looking site.

Would you mind if I took some ideas off that?

[EDIT]

You have to pay for the expression engine, would hope to keep the costs low for the club and all of that!

daymobrew

GaryCocs wrote: »

You have to pay for the expression engine, would hope to keep the costs low for the club and all of that!

CMS Made Simple is quite simple to work with.
You can demo it, and other CMS, at OpenSourceCMS.

Sully

DJB wrote: »

I used www.expressionengine.com to build www.trimgaa.com and they have full control to update the site.

Out of curiosity, why not build your own CMS for the site?

A lot of people use pre-built CMS, just curious as to why more people don't build there own..

Axwell

Sully wrote: »

A lot of people use pre-built CMS, just curious as to why more people don't build there own..

I guess its a case of why re-invent the wheel when it alread exists and will do what you want. I would be more inclined to build a CMS if there was a specific need to because whats out there couldnt handle what i needed. For the time and effort it would take to build the CMS you could easily use an exisiting one and have the job done.

randombar

Axwell wrote: »

I guess its a case of why re-invent the wheel when it alread exists and will do what you want. I would be more inclined to build a CMS if there was a specific need to because whats out there couldnt handle what i needed. For the time and effort it would take to build the CMS you could easily use an exisiting one and have the job done.

Three main reasons for me.

Simplistic content management that the rest of the club can use.

Easy add ons

If/When I hand the site over, it's a generic one that other designers would have an idea about


Anyways it's a toss of a coin between wordpress and CMS

Wordpress, easy theme add ons
Easy CMS, more difficult to change the theme but more suitable add ons!

Sully

GaryCocs wrote: »

Three main reasons for me.

Simplistic content management that the rest of the club can use.

Depends how complicated you want to make it. Normally, it should be straight forward for anyone to use.

Easy add ons

If/When I hand the site over, it's a generic one that other designers would have an idea about

A coder should be able to add stuff to the CMS once its well structred with comments along the way. Shouldnt be an issue, but I suppose the pre-built ones already ahve the mods with it etc.

Bob the Builder

If I was you, tbh, I would go for Joomla!. Joomla! has plenty of useless features which you'll never need, but it has all the features you will need for this project. It supports multiple users with different positions/roles, i'm sure it will be easy to obtain scoreboards and other systems. Joomla! would be the one I would pick in that situation.

Axwell wrote: »

I guess its a case of why re-invent the wheel when it alread exists and will do what you want. I would be more inclined to build a CMS if there was a specific need to because whats out there couldnt handle what i needed. For the time and effort it would take to build the CMS you could easily use an exisiting one and have the job done.

There's something about it thats hard to explain. I suppose web designers don't like building CMS' for clients because unless they work for the client and have plenty of time, a good budget, and specific requirements, you don't need to build one. By specific requirements, I mean that Cars would still be using wooden wheels, but they had to be redesigned in metal because wooden ones would collapse.

Also, unless you are the IT Admin for the company, how will the client edit it, or fix problems. There are no tutorials that can be found, unless you go to even extra effort to make tutorials.

Also, Joomla! and other CMS are designed to escape security flaws and bugs through years of experience, whereas to fully protect a website(although it's pointless in many cases to have a bulletproof website for just a simple GAA club), one would have to put in much effort to test the script and fix the little problems.

It's just easier to use a ready made one really...

DJB

Sully wrote: »

Out of curiosity, why not build your own CMS for the site?

A lot of people use pre-built CMS, just curious as to why more people don't build there own..

I have got my own CMS's written for particular types of websites. However, I worked it out that it was more cost effective to use a ready made CMS on that project. The overhead of running, updating and managing your own CMS can be quite a lot in the long run. Off the shelf is better for some sites, your own CMS for others... it really depends on the budget.

Sully

DJB wrote: »

I have got my own CMS's written for particular types of websites. However, I worked it out that it was more cost effective to use a ready made CMS on that project. The overhead of running, updating and managing your own CMS can be quite a lot in the long run. Off the shelf is better for some sites, your own CMS for others... it really depends on the budget.

Fair enough. To date this is what we do - custom built CMS. They normally only require the very basic: Login with the ability to change pages with ease. Once they can do that, that's all they ever need.

I see the point others made though about security, and by getting the off-the-shelf packs its securer (sometimes) etc.

DJB

Sully wrote: »

Fair enough. To date this is what we do - custom built CMS. They normally only require the very basic: Login with the ability to change pages with ease. Once they can do that, that's all they ever need.

I see the point others made though about security, and by getting the off-the-shelf packs its securer (sometimes) etc.

You have to make each job profitable as I'm sure you know. When the budget allows, custom CMS's can be built but when there is a system out there that can handle everything you want, why reinvent the wheel?

I've been meaning to build a CMS that can cater for the majority of customers with a few changes within the admin system, e.g. build your CMS from scratch. I love writing the frontend by hand as every site is different but if there was a nice CMS that just allowed you to connect to the database and managed the content, it would be great. I don't need a CMS to do the frontend stuff but if it could just handle how the client interacted with the database, that be great. Haven't found a really good one as yet but it has been awhile since I looked. Might build it one of these days if I actually get some time to do it!

nickides

Go for Joomla! I'm using it since years to build websites, and all are stable.
There are plenty of free templates around but you will always need a little bit of adapting to get everything right to your needs, you know, the club colours, header, etc... Updating will take no real effort if you don't use any bridges to other scripts like phpbb. There are 4-6 patches per year and for club site probably not all are necessary to apply, depends on where your site could be spotted from. The difficulty are the extensions which you have to look for, as not all extensions around are written that well like the core itself.

by the way ... with open source you will always find someone who could help you! so check it out!

randombar

ya i've had a good look through joomla and spotted a nice template so I reckon that's the way to go, just have to wait for them to sort out the hosting (no real point testing it on my server)

any good extensions you could suggest?

I'm thinking of:

community builder (teams and so on)
events calendar and
sigsui so far!

already

tigerforest

why sigsui?

mneylon

The one thing to be aware of with joomla (and most of the other php/mysql cms) is the security updates... If you don't keep your site up to date you can end up in a world of pain

randombar

Seems like the best member manager out there (Pictures etc)

does anyone know how complcated this is? would I be losing the idea of the easy content management?

regarding the security updates? Does this have much impact on the exensions, i.e. is a world of pain coming either way!

nickides

sigsiu is amazing, I hacked the component to have more styles available for the css... realy cool thing... CB, I don't like it, I'm using it but somehow it's not that what I want. Perhaps its because of their communication on joomlapolis. Events calender is cool as well, but there will be a new version around soon. The problem with the calender at the moment is that if you are using SEO it breaks everything.

nickides

@blacknight...

ture. but only if you site could be spotted from everywhere and you got high traffic. On only to a small range of people available site you could even run a Mambo 4.5 and no one will ever hack it, because no one knows who will be able to hack it.

tigerforest

I use joomla for gaa websites and there can be a problem with the latest versions and integrating with other components and sometimes the only way to fix them is to go back a version of joomla as there is quite often known bugs which exist in the stable versions but which havent been fixed yet.

nickides

tigerforest wrote: »

a problem with the latest versions and integrating with other components and sometimes the only way to fix them is to go back a version of joomla as there is quite often known bugs which exist in the stable versions but which haven't been fixed yet.

Most of the time you go back when you are using bridges or different login components like the one from CB. The biggest trouble I had was from 1.0.12 to 1.0.13 when they they changed the hash algorithm and introduced salt and the CB team was not notified by Joomla! core team of the release and we had to wait for weeks to get it from Joomlapolis.

I never apply any major updates if it will break the components. This will only cause trouble and 2 times the work. It is better to have the information before applying patches and most of the time the major components follow in a very timely manner.

randombar

tigerforest wrote: »

I use joomla for gaa websites and there can be a problem with the latest versions and integrating with other components and sometimes the only way to fix them is to go back a version of joomla as there is quite often known bugs which exist in the stable versions but which havent been fixed yet.

Since you've a gaa site yourself with joomla, can you recommend any extensions that might be handy for me?

tigerforest

hmm theres not too many decent ones. Leagues are okish i use joomleague but theres no knockout facility available yet, have considered creating one but dont really have the time for it. google maps is good for showing the location of your club which can be handy for visiting teams. and of course smf forum. If you know any yourself let me know as im always on the look out for newer and better modules and components.

randombar

I'll have a good look over the next couple of days when they finally get it registered!