CMS for chronologically tagged files
March 12, 2009 11:14 AM Subscribe
I am looking for a CMS that will allow me to display a variety of file types in chronological order. I have hundreds of files, so I'd like something that's no too cumbersome from a user interface perspective.
I have a variety of data files (gif, text, jpeg, firefox docs, etc.) related to a particular event. These files are chronologically tagged in the file name. I would like to make them accessible to and browsable by colleagues in that order.
Obvi, I'd like the ability to post multiple events, each with their own timeline of data files. It would also be nice if the data files could be organized by file type or name as well (i.e., many of the files are labeled, for example, IR satellite image - I'd love to be able to pull all those up)
Also, I have no technical savvy or experience. But I have access to people who do and can help with installation, set up, etc.
I have a variety of data files (gif, text, jpeg, firefox docs, etc.) related to a particular event. These files are chronologically tagged in the file name. I would like to make them accessible to and browsable by colleagues in that order.
Obvi, I'd like the ability to post multiple events, each with their own timeline of data files. It would also be nice if the data files could be organized by file type or name as well (i.e., many of the files are labeled, for example, IR satellite image - I'd love to be able to pull all those up)
Also, I have no technical savvy or experience. But I have access to people who do and can help with installation, set up, etc.
CMS seems like overkill. FTP server sounds a little clunky.
How about a PHP File Browser, like Snif, or FileNice
posted by Good Brain at 11:56 AM on March 12, 2009
How about a PHP File Browser, like Snif, or FileNice
posted by Good Brain at 11:56 AM on March 12, 2009
I've heard Dokuwiki is pretty good for this kind of thing.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:22 PM on March 12, 2009
posted by Happy Dave at 12:22 PM on March 12, 2009
From the looks of what you're saying this would best be handled not with a CMS or other full server-side web application at all but with two small and simple scripts: a server-side one (in PHP or whatever your web server provides and your tech guy knows) that reads the list of files out of the server hard drive folder and dumps it into a web page as a JSON array, and a second client-side script in javascript that feeds it into the Exhibit browser database application.
Take a look at this example to see the sort of display Exhibit can make with a little tweaking. Note how you can switch between the thumbnails / details / timeline views and change the sort and grouping order. There are other examples on the Exhibit web site.
The above process is almost certainly going to be far less work than setting up a CMS. And I say that as someone who installs and configures CMS systems professionally. (That's assuming you really just want to display a bunch of files on a web site and you don't need all of the other functionality related to generally building a web site that a CMS would provide.)
posted by XMLicious at 12:38 PM on March 12, 2009
Take a look at this example to see the sort of display Exhibit can make with a little tweaking. Note how you can switch between the thumbnails / details / timeline views and change the sort and grouping order. There are other examples on the Exhibit web site.
The above process is almost certainly going to be far less work than setting up a CMS. And I say that as someone who installs and configures CMS systems professionally. (That's assuming you really just want to display a bunch of files on a web site and you don't need all of the other functionality related to generally building a web site that a CMS would provide.)
posted by XMLicious at 12:38 PM on March 12, 2009
I'd just write a single kissy perl script to read the directory and display it all pretty on a web page. Why is a CMS or such fanciness necessary at all?
It won't scale well to millions of documents, but for hundreds or a few thousand it would be fine.
posted by rokusan at 12:41 PM on March 12, 2009
It won't scale well to millions of documents, but for hundreds or a few thousand it would be fine.
posted by rokusan at 12:41 PM on March 12, 2009
rokusan - how simple generating HTML is depends upon how much HTML you know; one of the reasons I suggested the JSON-and-Exhibit solution is because all you have to do is pass around the data, which IMO is even simpler than writing code to generate HTML (and debugging it, if one is not already familiar with the various intricacies of debugging HTML layout problems or the way that browsers react to incomplete or broken tags.)
But also, even if you do already understand HTML, things like Exhibit or the YUI DataTable are extremely simple to use and add quite a lot of functionality (like sorting, which taliaferro asked for and which may not be very straightforward to cleanly code yourself even if you know how, depending on what you're trying to do.)
posted by XMLicious at 9:39 PM on March 12, 2009
But also, even if you do already understand HTML, things like Exhibit or the YUI DataTable are extremely simple to use and add quite a lot of functionality (like sorting, which taliaferro asked for and which may not be very straightforward to cleanly code yourself even if you know how, depending on what you're trying to do.)
posted by XMLicious at 9:39 PM on March 12, 2009
Something like Lussumo FileBrowser? Doesn't do tagging (show me all images tagged as "satellite"), but is basically just a souped up way to display a folder full of images/files, sorted how you like and with thumbnails.
posted by misterbrandt at 10:12 PM on March 12, 2009
posted by misterbrandt at 10:12 PM on March 12, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jenkinsEar at 11:33 AM on March 12, 2009