As I have recently mentioned, I have decided that early next year, when I switch web hosts, I’ll also be switching from the comfy confines of WordPress to a site made with Django. For those of you who want to follow along on this little journey, subscribe to this feed.
Since there are so many Django apps running wild on the Internet, I have decided that I will probably not actually write any myself for this project, to focus on practicing putting sites containing multiple apps together. This will change however if none of the candidates I have found for a category suit my purpose. Speaking of which, I’m beginning to notice that many of the apps available online have absolutely no documentation, which is a little frustrating. Perhaps I’ll pick a few pet projects in the future for a little documentation love.
Anyways, the features I am looking for are basic CMS functionality, blogging, photo gallery, bookmarking and site search. In hunting for some suitable apps online, I obtained more questions then answers, so I’m looking for advice. If you have a preferred app for any of these categories, please tell me about it in the comments below, along with why you like it.
Without further delay, here is my list:
CMS
Without hesitation, the winner in this category is Django CMS. It looks fully featured, easy to use, and it is from Switzerland. What could be better?
Blogging
There is no clear winner that I have decided upon yet, though I am leaning towards Socialblog. I could not find a great amount of info about any of the blogging apps available, so I’m leaning towards Socialblog simply because it is something that broke off of the Pinax project, which is one Django project that I happen to be quite impressed by. What I need for blogging isn’t all that advanced. So here are the list of contenders in the blogging category:
Photo Gallery
In this category so far I have two main contenders, though I’m leaning more towards the first one on the list below. What I want in a photo gallery, besides basic “galleries,” is the ability for visitors to comment on individual photos, and tagging for both photos and entire galleries. Geo-location support would be nice too.
- Photologue
- Fleshin
- note: I find this to be a rather odd name for a photo gallery app.
Bookmarks
I only found one app in this category, with the unique name of “bookmarks.” The project page gives absolutely no information on this app. If you know anything about this one, or know of any others, please leave a comment. I’m looking for something basic, with which I can create entries with titles, descriptions, URLs (duh!), and support for tagging.
Site Search
I want visitors to be able to search all of the content of my site, including CMS content, bookmarks, photo gallery content, and bookmarks. The ability to couple search queries with tags would be a great plus, but isn’t necessary. I’ve considered just using Google site search, but it takes time for new site content to make it into their indexes.
So now you have seen my grand plan for world domination… er… a new website. To top it off, check out the fancy mind map below. Again, I’ll appreciate any advice you may have.
Tags: crashsystems-2.0, django, programming, Technology, web development
Interesting! I’ll be watching to see where you go with this! You are a jedi-master!