[week 50] Is Mambo loosing the feature battle?

[boesh]

If there is a battle (i don't think there is) more focus must be on developing the right prioritys. I support the list Oxytocin made.

Originally Posted by oxytocin

my top three would be:
- Access levels
- Multi-language support
- Switch from Section-Category-Article to nested categories, allowing far more flexible management of content (and finally making the typed content obsolete).

It is a content management system, so the main purpose is to manage content. How do i mange content.... with what do i manage content...
You even don't have to study on that, just copy excisting features of some of the market leaders.

[alterego]

Since I've actually used several CMS products over a period of years, and Mambo for nearly a year on several clients' sites, I'd have to say that my number one killer-feature in Mambo is that I STILL love it, indeed, love it even more, a year later. I can't say that about any other CMS I've ever used or am still using. In every case, the initial impression was very good, (obviously, or else we wouldn't have gone to the trouble to implement it for a client) but as we became more familiar with product and dealt with more of the intricacies that come up as a site matures and is maintained, we'd inevitably find ourselves looking around for something better.

At this time, with each new client, we basically take the approach that Mambo will probably be the best choice, but we'll examine it from several different angles to see if we can talk ourselves into something else. If we can't, then Mambo is probably the best choice for that client. In all but couple of cases in the past 6 months, Mambo has been the clear winner.

Our experience with CMS products includes server licenses for some excellent commercial products as well as a bevy of open source products. Not being a coder myself, I've gotten to know quite a few 'consultants' over the years who help us with custom projects. Whenever I ask them to check out Mambo they come back with very favorable impressions, mainly because they feel they could master the product quickly and easily which means faster coding and better profitability on their parts. Scalability has always been a primary concern whenever we look at something: does it start up quickly and easily and yet scale easily when the site demands it. This is something not readily found in most CMS products. There are products designed with 100,000 pageviews in mind and scores of editors, and there are products with a dozen pageviews in mind and an editor or two. To find one that can handle both extremes easily is difficult and I think Mambo is on track to be the best choice among the open source crowd to fit that kind of scalability.

There will be products like Typo3 and Plone that scale well but are focused on providing every possible trick in the book; and there is a place for that kind of service. But I think in the general population and growth among the many hosting companies I've come across, there is a huge need for a very powerful but simple approach and, at this time, the Mambo Way seems to be the closest to satisfying that need.

[keliix06]

Originally Posted by stingrey

-Better Media/File Management

I would be more than happy to help out here. I have implemented the media manager for ArtistDirectory and gotten it to use several media extensions. However it's almost all the same code as the core component.

[DevServe]

Originally Posted by eyezberg

DevServe, thanks for the link to Xaraya!
Some display problems (WinXP/IE6/SP2), but looks good, exhaustive documentation, downloads, everything right there, I def. will test this!
But then: full download: 12+ MB..? wow!

Yes, big, but consider Mambo and EVERY component & module over at MamboPortal.com packaged together and then you get an idea. ie, the full package contains moduls that you can later NOT install.

One thing about Xaraya. Read their manifesto concerning version 1.0. In many ways, that article reminds me of what the Mambo team is going through. Overall, it gives me an impression that the core team of Xaraya are good and professional.

Originally Posted by eyezberg

Didn't like the Netautor site at all, so didn't bother any further..

Yeah, the site isn't laid out very well. But if you actually try the demo, it is VERY slick IMHO. Remember, Netautor is the "engine" and the CMS is Digital Darkroom.

Cheers,

Carlos

[Admin]

First of all: Many thanks for your many and valueable answers!

Also let me apologize, if my description of the topic seemed a little bit agressive or contra Mambo. Please keep in mind, that I am one of the greater supporters of Mambo. I choosed Mambo for a website with nearly 2.000 articles, 3 million downloads and more than 70,000 registered users and 50,000 visitors daily on the whole network! I did not do this because I think that typo3 is better.

The discussion was a very active one. The conclusion? Most users are more than satisfied with the actual state of development, but also are looking forward to the two most badly missing features: Multilanguage support and Userrights management. Mambo's biggest advantage against other CMS is it's simplicity! This advantage is so significant, that many choosed Mambo and not other like typo3, Zope/Plone, etc. Finally the development team did everything right so far, but should concentrate to implement the two above features now into the next major release!

And now let us talk about the next, hot TOTW...