Is ezPublisher a good fit for this project?

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Author	Message
Jack Toering	Monday 04 October 2010 4:11:06 pm My Skills - I'm a talented web developer and do all my sites by hand in CSS - In a previous life I was a DBA, wrote two ERP packages for tier-1 automotive suppliers, and CTO - I set up my own UNIX web servers located on the backbone, which handle intense traffic. - I know basically zero about CMS. About all I've done installed WordPress twice for a couple hosting hitchhikers on my servers. Requirements: - It's for the legal profession - It will have a general information area about what the site is all about, FAQs etc. - The main areas where information is stored will be broken down by country/state/county/case. Inside of these I would envision seeing a place where users can create folders that would contain police reports, recordings of trials (huge), affidavits, etc. - From time to time the administrator will receive validated requests to view the information, at which point he would allow that person to view that area. - The DB can be about anything required from MySQL to MSSQL. I have a couple Windows servers as well in the same pod connected via gigabit on a private network. - It doesn't need to be the simplest CMS for me, the developer, but it does need to be very easy for the user to submit information. This information will sometimes be text, but also sometimes images, large PDFs,which may contain all images or a mix of images and text, etc. The reason I came here first was people complaining about how capable it was, but takes time to learn. Photoshop takes more time to learn too, but there are reasons why 90% of the professional photographers and web designers use it. Wishes: - CSS Layout - Search engine friendly Thanks for reading this, and I would appreciate any direction you might be able to give me.
Sandra Parente	Tuesday 05 October 2010 12:45:54 am Hi Jack, I think I can give you some advices about eZ Publish in a state/government enviroment. I have build a few web portals with eZ Publish for counties and towns and users were very satisfied by this CSM. The user editing toolbar now makes it more easy to publish, and they need just a couple of hours of training to use it quickly. The big work is in the back. First you have to provide the right structure, linux apache php and mysql is the best low cost solution, just follow the requirements. Then you have to build specific object classes for police reports, recordings of trials, etc. which is not so difficult if you learn how to adapt the existing classes. Workflows will manage the collaborative editing with messages and alerts. Finally you have to learn how to setup roles and policies, since every office has his group and often sub-group with specific editing policies. Ez Find is a good search engine, but you must know how to speed it up, just read a couple of tutorials. The basic of eZ Publish can be learnt quickly by reading this book , but generally this CMS is very well documented. Sandra Parente www.netbliss.it
Jack Toering	Tuesday 05 October 2010 7:48:08 am Thank you so much for your reply. - In this situation, web users and attorneys would be contributing the content rather than employees, so I do not have the opportunity to train them. - They would file information under /United States/Michigan/Circuit Court/District 20/Case Number 11560. I would have everything down to Circuit Court/District 20/. They would create "Case Number 11560". The creator of the Case Number would also control who gets access. Perhaps when they create the Case Number, it could create sub-directories such as Police Reports, Affidavits, etc. The information they create is theirs to maintain, and control the level of access to whomever they chose. Is ezPublisher designed to handle this type of scenario? Thanks!
Sandra Parente	Friday 08 October 2010 6:55:33 am In my experience the publishing with eZ Publish from website toolbar is really intuitive, people can learn it easily just reading a simple manual with screenshots and description of the activity. On the contrary the control of the access levels is more complex and needs the use of admin interface on an advanced level. I suggest you to install eZ Teamroom extension and test it because I think it can be adapted very well to this scenario: http://doc.ez.no/Extensions/eZ-Teamroom Cheers. Sandra Parente www.netbliss.it