content-management-system interview questions
Top content-management-system frequently asked interview questions
We are a small company and would like to have a Content & Doc management features (such as version control, custom lists, workflow, alerts, feeds, blogs, wikis, forums, good integrated search) which are most commonly found in SharePoint. But we cannot use SharePoint due to its cost, complexity, and high maintenance.
Search feature which supports most common doc formats (e.g. pdf, MS Office & Open Office file formats) is crucial since we have a lot of legacy stuff in these formats & we need to give ourselves one place from where we can organize & search all our content.
Please suggest alternatives to SharePoint.
Source: (StackOverflow)
For those who might vote to close this question due to "not constructive - As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format." - Would be great if you would suggest where should I post this question (http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ ? or any CMS-focused forum?)
Similar questions have been asked before:
All of them are a few years old, so I am wondering if there are new recommendations / discussions around this.
Some background: We are a Java shop, we create / maintain websites for our clients, our tech stack are Java, Spring, SQL, JSP, HTML5, JQuery, Tomcat, JBoss, Maven, etc ... the usual stuff. So far in terms of "content" we either put it in some properties file read in by the JSP for copies (eg. description of product X) or back-end service that provide dynamic content (eg. what's the current value of product X).
Now we are rethinking our approach to managing content because we are managing more and more properties for the client with the same content (eg. a website, mobile website, mobile app, etc), so we definitely want to avoid having multiple copies of the same content spread around.
A few things I am particularly looking for:
Java-based (because we are Java shop: 1) more expertise in handling Java-based stuff and 2) avoid introducing another tech to the stack)
Extensibility / customization. Need to be able to customize the CMS (which is why we want to stick within our Java expertise) so that it can be extended to connect with other web services to consume content, etc.
Focus on content - we need clear separation between content vs UI-render, going back to what we are looking for where we will need to deliver the content into separate properties.
RESTful service / API to access the content - same as above. We need the content to be accessible directly as a JSON / JSON-P /. XML feed.
Need to have a decent UI to work with and the more intuitive the better for business user because some of our client that might be moved to the platform will likely want to be manage their own content
Multilingual support
Open source / low cost
So far, several options that I have are:
Adobe CQ - Looks to be the most ideal solution, but unfortunately it's cost prohibitive
Hippo CMS - Looks to fit what we are looking for, I am unsure of how well it's documented, tutorial / how-tos seems to be quite sparse, their market share seems to be bigger in Europe than in North America.
Liferay - More focused as "portal" as opposed to CMS providing content
Alfresco - More focused on "documents"
dotCMS - Like Hippo CMS, seems like this one might fit our needs.
Magnolia CMS - Looks around the same alley as dotCMS and Hippo as well. From the comments I've seen seems like they are more focused on a single website and not clean separation between content vs UI.
I personally don't have much direct experience working with CMS before.
Your thoughts / comments on each of the options above, or if you have other solutions in mind not mentioned here, would be greatly appreciated! One of my challenge is that we need to make a really sound decision because whichever path we decide to go down with, we would likely be stuck with it, decision is not something that can easily be discarded and start over.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Can anyone recommend a simple, lightweight CMS gem or plugin for Rails 3 that can easily be embedded into an existing app?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Is it possible to deploy any CMS (Content Management System) using Google App Engine? Wikipedia lists 4 Python CMSes and one of them is Django based.
Do you know any way to make any of them to work on App Engine?
My votes:
Python
- GuteCMS (revision 11 10/28/2009) Too simple. Barely usable.
- cpedialog (596 revisions last Dec 10, 2010) Too simple. Has blog engine.
- GaeDjangocms (1.1) Too simple.
- App Engine Site Creator (1.1.1) Simple, but professional. Lacks blog engine.
- Nuages photoblog (revision 18) Too simple. Barely usable.
- Niubi (revision 71) Promising, but couldn't make it work since it requires app engine helper for django
- rocket-seat needs mako, I couldn't make it work
- stoutsd not as customizable as I need.
Java
- vosaocms (0.2) Sounds promising, but I couldn't run it as I am not familiarized with Java App Engine.
- richercms 356 revisions, last one jan 24, 2011
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'm creating a PHP CMS, one that I hope will be used by the public. Security is a major concern and I'd like to learn from some of the popular PHP CMS's like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. What are some security flaws or vulnerabilities that they have they had in the past that I can avoid in my application and what strategies can I use to avoid them? What are other issues that I need to be concerned with that they perhaps didn't face as a vulnerability because they handled it correctly from the start? What additional security features or measures would you include, anything from minute details to system level security approaches? Please be as specific as possible. I'm generally aware of most of the usual attack vectors, but I want to make sure that all the bases are covered, so don't be afraid to mention the obvious as well. Assume PHP 5.2+.
Edit: I'm changing this to a community wiki. Even though Arkh's excellent answer is accepted, I'm still interested in further examples if you have them.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Looking for some feedback on those of you who have evaluated umbraco lately.
I've been on a quest for the 'best' cms that balances ease of use/extendability/customization etc. to use as a base for a new vertical product I am in the planning stages on, so for the past month or so I have been downloading, installing, reading source code and creating test sites in every asp.net cms I can get my hands on - and so far I have pulled down GraffitCMS, MojoPortal, Oxite, Orchard, Kuboo and maybe a couple of others that I am not remembering of the top of my head.
For each of those, except Umbraco, I have been up and running in less than a couple of hours, including adding pages, customizing templates, and in some cases (especially Graffiti), writing drop in widgets in C# in a matter of just a few hours....
But with Umbraco, after wrestling it for almost 2 days just getting it to run, and now another morning watching videos, and then building pages etc, I am still unable to even get even a simple site operational, and even the pages I have gotten working crash routinely (not to mention being a dog)...
So, the question is: Am I doing it wrong? or is it really that hard to work with? and more importantly, if I continue to push forward, will it be worth it? or do I cut my losses and move on?
Edit: asp.net with SQL Server support are requirements of anything I pick.
UPDATE ONE YEAR LATER (Feb/2011):
My initial impressions are still accurate, Umbraco is different than most of the other CMS's that I have used in the past, and for me took a bit longer than usual to 'get it', but now that I have, I have to say I have a much better appreciation of the product, what it does, and how it does it - and to top it all of, it really performs really well - especially with the latest release of 4.6.1. So call me a convert - I am glad I stuck it out and then took another look. I only update this post now, over one year later so as not to leave my initial negative 'review' here for posterity.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'm developing a small business website and want to give some control over content to the client but also allow myself control over the outputted code. Indeed allow the user to fill in the content gaps while not creating havoc.
I'm leaning towards WordPress rather than reinventing the wheel in asp.net, which would be my code of choice, or possibly just html.
Any recommendations either way? An alternative CMS maybe or some robust but productive framework? (interested in mention of python frameworks)
Source: (StackOverflow)
I need to be grabbing the URL of the current page in a Drupal site. It doesn't matter what content type it is - can be any type of node.
I am NOT looking for the path to theme, or the base url, or Drupal's get_destination. I'm looking for a function or variable that will give me the following in full:
http://example.com/node/number
Either with or without (more likely) the http://.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I currently have an AngularJS application with routing built in.
It works and everything is ok.
My app.js file looks like this:
angular.module('myapp', ['myapp.filters', 'myapp.services', 'myapp.directives']).
config(['$routeProvider', function ($routeProvider) {
$routeProvider.when('/', { templateUrl: '/pages/home.html', controller: HomeController });
$routeProvider.when('/about', { templateUrl: '/pages/about.html', controller: AboutController });
$routeProvider.when('/privacy', { templateUrl: '/pages/privacy.html', controller: AboutController });
$routeProvider.when('/terms', { templateUrl: '/pages/terms.html', controller: AboutController });
$routeProvider.otherwise({ redirectTo: '/' });
}]);
My app has a CMS built in where you can copy and add new html files within the /pages directory.
I would like to still go through the routing provider though even for the new dynamically added files.
In an ideal world the routing pattern would be:
$routeProvider.when('/pagename', { templateUrl: '/pages/pagename.html', controller: CMSController });
So if my new page name was "contact.html" I would like angular to pick up "/contact" and redirect to "/pages/contact.html".
Is this even possible?! and if so how?!
Update
I now have this in my routing config:
$routeProvider.when('/page/:name', { templateUrl: '/pages/home.html', controller: CMSController })
and in my CMSController:
function CMSController($scope, $route, $routeParams) {
$route.current.templateUrl = '/pages/' + $routeParams.name + ".html";
alert($route.current.templateUrl);
}
CMSController.$inject = ['$scope', '$route', '$routeParams'];
This sets the current templateUrl to the right value.
However I would now like to change the ng-view with the new templateUrl value. How is this accomplished?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I want to develop a CMS and I need a good routing system for Node.js.
I don't have any predecisions and I'm open any advice.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I am using Hotaru CMS with the Image Upload plugin, I get this error if I try to attach an image to a post, otherwise there is no error.
The offending code (error points to line with **):
/**
* Retrieve submission step data
*
* @param $key - empty when setting
* @return bool
*/
public function loadSubmitData($h, $key = '')
{
// delete everything in this table older than 30 minutes:
$this->deleteTempData($h->db);
if (!$key) { return false; }
$cleanKey = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]+/','',$key);
if (strcmp($key,$cleanKey) != 0) {
return false;
} else {
$sql = "SELECT tempdata_value FROM " . TABLE_TEMPDATA . " WHERE tempdata_key = %s ORDER BY tempdata_updatedts DESC LIMIT 1";
$submitted_data = $h->db->get_var($h->db->prepare($sql, $key));
**if ($submitted_data) { return unserialize($submitted_data); } else { return false; }**
}
}
Data from the table, notice the end bit has the image info, I am not an expert in PHP so I was wondering what you guys/gals might think?
tempdata_value:
a:10:{s:16:"submit_editorial";b:0;s:15:"submit_orig_url";s:13:"www.bbc.co.uk";s:12:"submit_title";s:14:"No title found";s:14:"submit_content";s:12:"dnfsdkfjdfdf";s:15:"submit_category";i:2;s:11:"submit_tags";s:3:"bbc";s:9:"submit_id";b:0;s:16:"submit_subscribe";i:0;s:15:"submit_comments";s:4:"open";s:5:"image";s:19:"C:fakepath100.jpg";}
Edit: I think I've found the serialize bit...
/**
* Save submission step data
*
* @return bool
*/
public function saveSubmitData($h)
{
// delete everything in this table older than 30 minutes:
$this->deleteTempData($h->db);
$sid = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]+/i', '', session_id());
$key = md5(microtime() . $sid . rand());
$sql = "INSERT INTO " . TABLE_TEMPDATA . " (tempdata_key, tempdata_value, tempdata_updateby) VALUES (%s,%s, %d)";
$h->db->query($h->db->prepare($sql, $key, serialize($h->vars['submitted_data']), $h->currentUser->id));
return $key;
}
Source: (StackOverflow)
I was wondering how teams that develop sites using Drupal (or any other CMS) integrate version control, subversion, git or similar, into their workflow. You'd obviously want your custom code and theme files under version control but when you use a CMS such as Drupal a lot of the work consists of configuring modules and settings all of which is stored in the database.
So when you are a team of developers, how do you collaborate on a project like this? Dumping the database into a file and putting that file under version control might work I guess, but when the site is live the client is constantly adding content which makes syncing a bit problematic.
I'd love to know how others are doing this.
Source: (StackOverflow)
Drupal is very much a "Do Everything" CMS. There are modules that allow you to add almost any functionality, which is great. However, it feels like a lot of the features (v5 and v6) seem scattered around and unintuitive for the user. As a developer, I'm left with the feeling of having patched a site together using bubble gum and string.
For example, to add text to the default search box (that disappears when clicked), you have to either add some jQuery code OR override the theme. I've also found the menu system more complicated than it should be.
Am I the only one with this opinion? What things (if any) would you change about Drupal's core?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'm curious to know if any basic CMS code has been written for ASP.NET MVC.
The reason I ask is, I'm making a data-driven website for a client, and I've already spent a significant amount of time building it from the ground-up in MVC, but now the client wants content management facilities.
Basically they want to be able to add/edit/remove articles and have revision control.
It would be great if I could somehow 'bolt on' the content management without having to start again from scratch, developing it under an existing CMS.
Should I build the article management and revision control myself, or should I re-use some existing package?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have a website developed on Drupal. I use a module called collapsiblock (it is basicly a JQuery plugin) to achieve accordion like effect. It is working fine with me (although it is in Beta). But I want to modify it so that when the user clicks on one item of the accordion the other items will collapsed.
In its current stats, it is working in a way that when the user click on one item, it will check if the item is already collapsed or expanded and it will make the item the opposite. That means if the user clicks on one item it will expand and if he/she clicks on another item it will also expand, but it will not collapse the previously clicked item.
You can see the code below. I know where should I add the code to collapse and how to collapse and expand. My question is: How do I select all the items that have the class '.collapsiblock' except the one that the user has clicked??
Note: the item that has the class '.collapsiblockCollapsed' get collapsed and if this class is removed from the item it get expanded.
// $Id: collapsiblock.js,v 1.6 2010/08/18 19:17:37 gagarine Exp $
Drupal.Collapsiblock = Drupal.Collapsiblock || {};
Drupal.behaviors.collapsiblock = function (context) {
var cookieData = Drupal.Collapsiblock.getCookieData();
var slidetype = Drupal.settings.collapsiblock.slide_type;
var defaultState = Drupal.settings.collapsiblock.default_state;
var slidespeed = parseInt(Drupal.settings.collapsiblock.slide_speed);
$('div.block:not(.collapsiblock-processed)', context).addClass('collapsiblock-processed').each(function () {
var id = this.id;
var titleElt = $(':header:first', this).not($('.content :header',this));
if (titleElt.size()) {
titleElt = titleElt[0];
// Status values: 1 = not collapsible, 2 = collapsible and expanded, 3 = collapsible and collapsed, 4 = always collapsed
var stat = Drupal.settings.collapsiblock.blocks[this.id] ? Drupal.settings.collapsiblock.blocks[this.id] : defaultState;
if (stat == 1) {
return;
}
titleElt.target = $(this).find('div.content');
$(titleElt)
.addClass('collapsiblock')
.click(function () {
var st = Drupal.Collapsiblock.getCookieData();
if ($(this).is('.collapsiblockCollapsed')) {
$(this).removeClass('collapsiblockCollapsed');
if (slidetype == 1) {
$(this.target).slideDown(slidespeed);
}
else {
$(this.target).animate({height:'show', opacity:'show'}, slidespeed);
}
// Don't save cookie data if the block is always collapsed.
if (stat != 4) {
st[id] = 1;
}
}
else {
$(this).addClass('collapsiblockCollapsed');
if (slidetype == 1) {
$(this.target).slideUp(slidespeed);
}
else {
$(this.target).animate({height:'hide', opacity:'hide'}, slidespeed);
}
// Don't save cookie data if the block is always collapsed.
if (stat != 4) {
st[id] = 0;
}
}
// Stringify the object in JSON format for saving in the cookie.
var cookieString = '{ ';
var cookieParts = [];
$.each(st, function (id, setting) {
cookieParts[cookieParts.length] = ' "' + id + '": ' + setting;
});
cookieString += cookieParts.join(', ') + ' }';
$.cookie('collapsiblock', cookieString, {path: Drupal.settings.basePath});
});
// Leave active blocks uncollapsed. If the block is expanded, do nothing.
if (stat == 4 || (cookieData[id] == 0 || (stat == 3 && cookieData[id] == undefined)) && !$(this).find('a.active').size()) {
$(titleElt).addClass('collapsiblockCollapsed');
$(titleElt.target).hide();
}
}
});
};
Drupal.Collapsiblock.getCookieData = function () {
var cookieString = $.cookie('collapsiblock');
return cookieString ? Drupal.parseJson(cookieString) : {};
};
UPDATE:
Problem has been solved by adding the following code:
$('.collapsiblock').not(this).each(function(){
$(this).addClass('collapsiblockCollapsed');
$(this.target).animate({height:'hide', opacity:'hide'}, slidespeed);
});
just above the following line:
$(this).removeClass('collapsiblockCollapsed');
Source: (StackOverflow)