CMS Made Simple Forums

I've been using Mambo for my club's website, but I'm looking for a better alternative. CMS is looking like it might fit the bill, so I'm testing it out for the features I need.

One feature is having a member's only area. Basically, a set of pages that only members can see - they would only show up on the menu when the member is logged in. The members all use one username/password combo (I know, not all that secure, but it's just not feasible to have these members each have their own username/password... believe me). In this members area, some of the pages would have files available for download.

Questions:
1) Which modules would be best for this particular case? I have installed the PunBB/ProtectedPages module, and also the FrontendUsers/CustomContent/etc. group of modules. I think the latter would work for making the pages available to users, but how do I make the menu show those pages only when a member is logged in? In Mambo, I have a separate menu that is shown only to registered users.
2) File management... Is there a way to have the files stored outside the html directory? I currently use DocMan in Mambo to do this, but unfortunately, DocMan is more convoluted than what we need. I'd like for a non-programmer admin to be able to upload files that would be made available to members only, and these files would be stored outside the html directory so they cannot be accessed directly. Can the built-in file manager do that? It certainly looks easy to use.

So far, I'm really liking CMS. I haven't played much with the templates and tags and such yet, but I have a basic understanding of how they work. This is definitely alot more "simple" than Mambo!

boscopup wrote: I've been using Mambo for my club's website, but I'm looking for a better alternative. CMS is looking like it might fit the bill, so I'm testing it out for the features I need.

I did a few web-sites in Mambo commercialy. I am so happy I found cmsmadesimple I convinced my boss to stop working with Mambo and he luckely agreed.

boscopup wrote: 1) Which modules would be best for this particular case? I have installed the PunBB/ProtectedPages module, and also the FrontendUsers/CustomContent/etc. group of modules. I think the latter would work for making the pages available to users, but how do I make the menu show those pages only when a member is logged in? In Mambo, I have a separate menu that is shown only to registered users.

You can do the same here.
Make a new template and menustructure, place all your hidden pages in there. Put a bulletmenu on the new template with your new menu.
Use customcontent on you 'regular' site so that when the user is logged in, he or she will be forwarded to your new template (with all the secret stuff on it)

boscopup wrote: So far, I'm really liking CMS. I haven't played much with the templates and tags and such yet, but I have a basic understanding of how they work. This is definitely alot more "simple" than Mambo!

(and better might I add)
Even the people are friendlier over here

Cool..... Thanks! I now have a members only page that shows up only after login. Now to go tweak the login form a bit (I don't want the password reminder on there).

Check out the Selfregistration module, in combinatin with Frontendusers and custom content it allows you to have a full front end user system.    SelfRegistration takes the pain out of adding each of your users manually

Oh, when I meant that it's not feasible to have multiple usernames/passwords, I was talking about the computer knowledge level of the members of the club. Many of them barely know how to use e-mail, let alone keep up with their own username/password. It'd also be a pain for me, because I'd have to make sure each person is a member before allowing their account to be created, and I don't always have a current membership list.

Anyway, I've been playing with CMS some more, and I've got the members area working beautifully, and also found the answer to my question #2 about file management - the Uploads module is working great, and I was able to have the upload directory be outside the web directory. 

The person that uploads our monthly newsletter will LOVE the ease of use in this system. I had to give her hefty directions for doing it in Mambo (with DocMan), and then Mambo would sometimes decide to have an error when looking at files (then later it's fine?). That's why I got fed up and decided to look at other CMSs again. I'm *really* liking CMS... everything is so easily configurable with the template system, yet it's still very simple for non-programmers to maintain the site. My goal of using a CMS is to not have to do much in maintaining the site myself - I want to farm off duties to other people, and only step in when programming is needed. With Mambo, I found myself still having to do everything.

Any idea how I can manage selfreg users from the admin interface?  The selfreg module works with its own db tables, which puts part of the users in one place, and other in another.  I hate to change the code to put them all in the FrontEndUsers tables...

SelfReg keeps temporary uses till they're completely registered with FEUsers, and then deletes the entries from its own tables, they're designed to work together this way.

katon wrote: Any idea how I can manage selfreg users from the admin interface? The selfreg module works with its own db tables, which puts part of the users in one place, and other in another. I hate to change the code to put them all in the FrontEndUsers tables...

Thanks, I should have read the help page more attentively!

In the SelfRegistration module admin page, Preferences tab, I uncheck checkboxes, but after submit they become checked again.  The changes to templates and email address are displayed ok.
I thought it only shows status incorrectly, but after I register a user from FE, it still says:
Thank you olesya for registering with ... An email has been sent to ... with instructions on how to continue the registration process.

A fix to the preferences module has been checked in to svn, so if you're using SVN feel free to update.  I'll cut a new release in a bit here.

One more thing.  If I don't specify the order of the properties, the add user form shows them in a weird order.  I think if they haven't been ordered, they should show in the order they appear in the Properties tab.

Thanks in advance and thanks for all the help, Robert!

I'll see about making sure that the order of the properties is specified before you can continue. but it's low priority, I'm working on the xml and news stuff right now.

katon wrote: One more thing. If I don't specify the order of the properties, the add user form shows them in a weird order. I think if they haven't been ordered, they should show in the order they appear in the Properties tab.

Thanks in advance and thanks for all the help, Robert!

Using the svn version of the SelfRegistration module.  I have unchecked "Require the user to confirm registration via email:", it remembers the changes ok.  However, I'm still said that "An email has been sent with instructions on how to continue the registration process".

Also, in the FrontEndUsers module, svn version, I enablee "Use SMTP to validate email addresses?", and when trying to register a user with the SelfRegistration module, I got
"Fatal error: Call to undefined function: lang() in /home/katon/software/cmsmadesimple/svn/frontendusers/FrontEndUsers.api.php on line 585"
on a pefectly white screen.

Robert, is this a good place to post my bitching?  Or should I move to the developers forum or to the respective module's forum?

I have also started to develop a module that will display the list of registered frontend users.  I expect it to be useful for corporate intranets.

I'll check in to your bugs, you can either post it here, or even better, would be to add a bug to the tracker for the respective module.  that way there's a permanent record of it.  I haven't started using the forums for each module yet, the traffic isn't high enough for that.

Hmm, you're working on a module that just outputs a list of the registered frontend users?  is that going to go on the front end, or be an admin thing? sounds like an interesting idea.

This will be a FrontEnd listing.  I am going to use it in a corporate website for all company staff to see details for other people (e.g. email, internal IP address, IM id, etc).  The current version of the website has people listings for different teams/departments in plain htmls.  I want to give users the ability to update their info without contacting the administrator.