Portals Pointers @ TECFA
"Portals" is used in a wide sense here. We focus specifically on
collaborative information portals, but sometimes have pointers
to any sort of portal software, e.g. enterprise application integration
(EAI software), "smart" Forums and News Pages, Enterprise Information Portals, even a little bit of CSCW or Groupware systems.
On the Internet we can see the emergence of what I call C3MS systems:
Community, Collaboration and Content Management Systems.
You can find more variety in
this older
page. We specifically do NOT target educational platforms here.
We just mention a few free and/or non-behavioristic platforms.
Portals @ TECFA
Tecfa doesn't have a central portal, but we might use some portal technology to re-implement our
own little Virtual Campus.
Inside our traditional large website we do run some portals (PostNuke, phpWebSite and PhpWebLog, phpWiki, Swiki and more) and we may add a portal add-on to our homepage (in summer 2002) if we have time...
Documentation:
Documentation
Some community related theory and concepts
Knowledge Management
Portals, learning and education
WebLog Toolkits and thoughts about weblogs
Business speak
(too little, just a few so you can learn some vocabulary)
Information architectures and large CMS
FAQs
Software
Open/Free News & small CMS Portal software
Our interests are focused on collaborative media applications,
(things that are between or include CMS, BBS and weblog)
- thatWare, Slashdot-like engine. It is based on Apache/PHP3/MySQL
- SiG is a set of PHP Classes to facilitate the creation and maintenance of an Information Portal. It currently includes: Site Management, Content Management, Rich Content support, Security features, and more.
- Geeklog. Like phpWebLog, but with a sophisticated & secure user system. [tested @ TECFA, works]
- Jetspeed Open Source implementation of an Enterprise Information Portal using Java and XML, Jakarta Project
Based on Turbine (servlet
based framework for secure web applications)
- Greymatter Free Weblog system
- mycomponents.com produces free OpenJoda, an instant Java servlet 2.3 based portal starter kit, looks promising and it is Geneva-based :)
- Open ACS, based on ACS from ArsDigita(above), runs under AOLServer and Postgres
- phpNuke PHP-Nuke is a news portal system, very popular and increasing number of features/modules (thatWare spinoff I think) Nuketest.com. Sponsored by Mandrake, but see also myPhPNuke and Postnuke (the latter is probably the best "Nuke").
- phpWebLog Portal software, weblog-oriented and much less features than nukes, template based. See also romarin.org (phpweblog addons) [tested & used @ TECFA, works]
- phpWebSite (=phpWS) (phpNuke spinoff). Probably THE hot portal in early summer 2001. See also
PhPWebSite PluginForge and
phpwsthemes.
[tested @ TECFA, works]
- Scoop, the engine behind Kuro5hin.org
- SlashCode. Technology behind Slashdot.
- HPE (Headline Portal Engine) information portal with special news grabbing features
- Squishdot, Zope-based publishing and discussion product (plugin for the Zope application server)
- ACS from Ars Digita, Java/Oracle based collaborative C3MS, well done portal in Java, core is free.
- http://www.aspslash.com/ (commercial)
- Attila French publication kit for personal pages. GPL'd engine that does the basics (addition: private zones).
- Drupal content management/discussion engine suitable to setup a news-driven community or portal site, GPL based on slashcode and scoop. Modular well designed [tested @ TECFA, works ]
- GoupITEngine. Modular knowledge management / Information Portal (free for personal use, academic and commercial prices)
- Glasscode, Java servlets (no commercial download may be hard to find)
- Mambo. An other php/Mysql Portal. Supposed to be easy to administer and having cooler looks. [tested @ TECFA, works]
- MyPhpNuke, an other PhPNuke spin-off [tested @ TECFA, works]
- phpSlash. Templated Slash-like system
- Plugin Factory, Plugins for phpWebsite, php-nuke and myphpnuke
- PostNuke, an other PhPNuke spin-off (started 5/01, high-quality alpha in 10/01). -
Source Forge Site for PostNuke.
See also: Ground Zero (postnuke sites index), and mods.postnuke,
and themes.postnuke,
and NukeAddON.com,
and Boomtchak (french site)
and Trollix (french site)
and Theme Gallery @ VW Web Design
and Nuke Themes Gallery @ Pixelmayhem
and Designs4nuke
and Kilroy (Swiss nuke site!)
[ PN 0.7x has been tested & is used @ TECFA. We recommend it for larger sites and more complex scenarios. For simpler things we deployed PhpWebLog so far. PhpWebSite is in between and quite faster than Postnuke. ]
- Document Jugler. There is also a Postnuke 0.64 plug
- PSlash Slash-dot like Webportal system
- SiteManager is an Open Source Web Application Framework written in PHP (Needs programming experience)
- CommPort - A "Community Portal" generator that can be tailored for any location, Open Source, Perl + MysQL
- daCode. French portal used on LinuxFR, has news, comments, votes, calendar, etc. [tested @ TECFA, works]
- Personal Weblog . A Weblog and just a weblog. Made for easy integration into an existing homepage.
- Twig Web Information Gateway (mail, contact, scheduling, news, todo, links)
- SPIPSystème de publication pour Internet (nice french CMS)
- Xoops Nuke inspired/clone with more modularity (not tested here)
- Publish Jr., Simple CMS (using Perl/Php scripts ?)
- PHPSiteAdmin Portal content management system
- SPIP Système de Publication pour l'Internet Partagé - CMS
- PHPortal (alpha in 07/2002), s a 100% PHP TTW (Through-the-Web) application builder.
- Software 4 Open Communities, provides Web community
portal software in the scope of the Semantic Web initiative, making
possible distributed context-sensitive online publishing and
retrieval in self-organised groups of interest (interesting, not tested yet, 7/2002)
Coll. Hypertexts / Wikis
If you don't know what a wiki is, check for example
http://wikipedia.com/.
- Swiki/CoWeb, collaborative hypertext environment (wiki-lik, see below), download is here [tested @ TECFA, works]. Voir aussi:
developement français
- WikiWiki. Collaborative web site tool.
- phpWiki [tested @ TECFA, works].
See also: phpWiki for WebLog, also phpWiki for Postnuke 0.7 [tested @ TECFA, works].
- Twiki. A wiki with a good revision system (like phpwiki) and a plugin architecture. Also allows for a more portal oriented design of pages.
- MoinMoin Wiki. Python-based, multi-lingual
- InterWiki, inter Wiki links (InterMap)
- LDP WikiText, The Linux Documentation Project's Wiki (stores in XML ? or has a least a Filter)
- Wiki Type Framework (version 0.20 on 7/2002, no tested)
Open/Free News & CMS Portal software comparisons
Weblog hosting sites and programs
Commercial or free. (am not familiar with these, and there must be many more).
- Free Conversant is a
WebLog system with other CMS functionalities for small sites). Free hosting ! Commercial if you want more options / members
- Manila, a component of Userland Frontier content management system (900$/year - 300$/year academics). There is
also Radio Userland, a $40 package/year software + hosting (Probably THE most easy solution for weblogging)
- Weblogger.com. There is an API for into this from other programs/clients. (If I am not wrong, others implement this API too)
- Blogger
- LiveJournal.com
Other Hosting
I am not familiar with these.
- NvpHost (french , hébergeur Nuke et Xoops)
Application servers
See also Information & News Portals, increasingly they serve just anything, including applications.
Note: Commercial stuff like BEA Weblogic, IBM WebSphere, IPlanet, Domino
Caucus Systems
etc. are not mentionned here. Same goes for complex databases such as Oracle.
For more free stuff, see other places, e.g. Web Environments on Source forge
- Infozone,
Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) open source project, built on
top of Ozone, an object-oriented XML DB. Has several other components, e.g. Prowler, a CMS engine and framework
- [quiper] Web Toolkit toolkit for creating very fast dynamic Web applications (not tested)
- uPortal ree, sharable portal under development by institutions of higher-education. (sponsored by JASIG
- DigiOnline sells WebWeaver, e.g. used for Educa and/or , the Swiss school server.
- Campus Pipeline, like uPortal but commercial, closed source
- Endhydra.org Open Source
Java/XML application server (not tested, one of the more popular ones)
- JANX The
Java and XML Application Environment
- Zope, Python-based application/groupware server See this good overview article: Zope - a Swiss Army Knife for the Web? by Paul Browning.
- Eridu Opensource Web-Based Groupware. Outlook like they claim
- PHProjekt PHProjekt is a modular application for the coordination of
group activities and to share informations and document via
intranet and internet. Needs php4 and MySQL
- phpGroupware.org Very promising project, beta status (3/2001)
- Mozilla is a platform with groupware potential. Check modzdev once in a while
XML-based Webapp, Content & Document Management Systems
(well: mostly XML-based, some traditional commercial CMS also)
- COCOON is the way to go and it's our preferred XML publication
framework, see our Cocoon
Pointers ! ... but it's NOT a CMS or DMS
- The Rich
Men's Document Management System Also called
rm -d
ms
:), in alalphapha 5/00 (not tested)
- Conglomerate
Conglomerate is a project to create a complete structured
information authoring, management, archival, revision control and
transformation system (not tested, found here)
- AxKitAn XML
Delivery ToolKit (suite of tools for the Apache httpd server
running mod_perl), not tested, but looks good
- SIM Structured Information
Manager, commercial product, can inndex and manage large volumes of
structured text (i.e., it is an XML native database). Not
tested
- Tamino
Commercial XML database
- Prism
(DB Sevlet Engine). Includes DB Prism/Cocoon Content Management
System based on Oracle CMS.
- Author-it Authoring,
management, and publishing of on-line and printed documents from a
single source. (1/2001 - XML output soon)
- Exist EXist is a
repository and retrieval engine for XML documents (built on top of
mysql)
- XyEnterprise -
commercial CMS
- SIM The Structured
Information Manager, Commercial CMS/ XML database system
- Three Faces of XML
in Zope - Services, Documents, Datastores (good ideas
included!)
- SemanticWeb.org has
some very good pointers on more general related issues (e.g. Ontologies)
- eZ Publish
- PHP Content Management System. German development.
- Infocetera web-based information management system (payware)
- Slide is a Apache/Jakarta Project for low-level CMS, implements WebDAV
- XMLcmNEW, free (and simple?) XML-based CMS (needs Java 1.3, not tested). Webreference has an article on this.
- Reptile Peer-to-peer, "reputation-enhanced personal and distributed portal". Interesting concept, not tested.
- Documentum Commercial CMS
- Live Linx, Commercial CMS (single-source publishing to many formats)
- ComTech, CMS consulting
- instant portal manager based upon XML technology. open source written with ASP
Other groupware
- BSCW Basic Support for
Cooperative Work. Not a portal, but good upload/download, forums, group
management and more.
- PHPProjekt Free PHP Groupware, includes project management (some site info in German but supports 17 languages)
- Digital Document Discourse Environment. Free toolkit for document-centric discussion from Openuniversity
- Bookmark4U, bookmarking environment (not tested)
- The current state of File Sharing. Overview Article at infoAnarchy
- f2wHelpdes Project. (needs Zope and PostGres)
Educational platforms
This section is BY NO MEANS complete. There are other pages for this,
e.g. the Comparison of Web Based Course Environments @ edutech.ch or Bruce Landon's
Online educational delivery applications.
None of these systems are deployed at TECFA. The only educational platform
we run (so that our students gain some experience in the area) is WebCT.
However, I know persons who sucessfully run Ganesha. I also played with
Claroline which seems to do fine.
- Open Learning Management System, University of Utah's tool (allows to tie into knowledge from Merlot, Harvey, etc.), Java-based
- Manhattan Virtual Classroom (GPLed platform). See also http://sourceforge.net/projects/manhattan
- Ganesha, Popular french open source platform.
- ClassWeb, form UCLA (not tested yet)
- Free Style Learning German Platform. (not tested, but seems to work fine)
- OpenUSS. Open Source Software for Universities and Faculties is a component-based platform for communities and elearning. See also the article Learning Java Programming Language with Open Source Products and Technologies
- Claroline, Open GPLd Platfrom, nice platform from Belgium
- Open Knowledge Initiative
and MIT Open Course ware. " .... MIT to make nearly all course materials available free on the World Wide Web "
- CFF- Collaborative Computing Frameworks from Emory Univ. (broken link ?)
- LearnLoop. Web based GroupWare for collaborative learning. Also on Source Forge (free, don't know if it is a live project)
- DUCK. A php-based practice test system. Not tested.
- The UCL Networked Multimedia Research Group has some streaming/video/etc technologies for real-time teaching
- Knowledge Forum a 2nd generation CSILE product. Advanced knowledge forums. commercial
- LINC is a virtual environment (MOO-based I think), no software available, but mentionned here because I don't think that groupware and portals have the answer for everything :)
- ETH
World. Federal institute of Technology portal Zurich. EPFL in Lausanne
has a similar initiative (E-pfl)
- Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL) ".. is a full online courseware
system with all the tools needed to follow a
constructivist approach to online learning" ...", programmed in ASP
- AUC - authenticated User community, free intranet system designed for use in a K-12 setting. Cgi script in C/MySQL
- DDT Studio PHP-Based education portal. See details
- OpenLCMS, should become a SCORM compliant system (planning stage on 3/2002)
- angel, Authenticated Networked Guided Environment for Learnin, interesting because it wants to be both a libraries and learning environments. (not availably yet in spring 2002, commercial later ?)
- OpenGrade, is software for teachers to keep track of grades. (Perl/TK on Linux, MacOSX)
- Educational Content Management System
- Interactive Learning Environment free, open source environment for building web-based learning environments that support arbitrary (instructor-defined) interaction (7/2002 - not tested)
Other / Various
- SpinLizard 2Doo. To Do List / Task Manager - free single user Windows (not a portal/groupware).
- MonAlbum. PhP/MySQL based photo album
- BINS, Photo Album for Unix, needs ImageMagik, has also a Linux GUI client to generate/configure (not tested)
- Castor from ExoLab.
Quote "the shortest path between Java[tm] objects, XML documents,
SQL tables and LDAP directories. It provides Java to XML binding,
Java to SQL/LDAP persistence, and then some more" (not tested). Not
at publication framework, but can come handy it seems.
- SurveyMaker a commercial? PHP application designed to generate and handle surveys, polls, sets of questions, or MCQ (multiple-choice question). [not tested]
- CRM, This tool is to be used in a trusted commercial environment for logging and tracing customer requirements, questions, complaints etcetera. Runs on apache/php/mysql and needs a CSS compliant browser - (not tested)
- Beesie the Annihilator, is a web-based grading program (beta in 7/2002)
Examples of Portals
(info, community, weblog, commerce, combined, ...)
In Education
(Of course there are portals for education/educators etc. These are not all mentionned here.)
Other
(only simple ones)
Links
Technical
See also general Webmaster's indexes or more specialized things like
serverpages.com, in particular for do-it your own with PHP, JSP, whatever.
Concepts
Mostly centered around community building for now
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Last modified: Mon Jul 15 17:35:18 MEST 2002
D.K.S.