[Seattle-editorial] comparison of various codebases - dadaimc, sfactive, mir.....

[Sheri Herndon]

hey editorial collective,

pursuant to the general meeting discussion about code bases and which 
one to choose for the seattle imc, i followed up with the dadaimc 
folks (who i had been talking to earlier about their code base some 
months back).  here's what they had to say.

i'm sure i'll be hearing from evan as well.  i will also be following 
up on mir code so we can have some solid comparisons.

if someone could forward on to the seattle tech list, that would be great.

sheri

>Delivered-To: sheri at speakeasy.org
>Delivered-To: sheri at indymedia.org
>Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 00:17:11 -0400
>Subject: Re: comparison of various codebases - dadaimc, sfactive, mir.....
>Cc: Evan <evan at protest.net>, Sascha Meinrath <meinrath at uiuc.edu>
>To: Sheri Herndon <sheri at indymedia.org>
>From: dadaIMC support <support at dadaimc.org>
>
>Well, I've never used SF Active, so I can't do a direct comparison, 
>but I'll run through the features of dadaIMC a bit, and leave it to 
>the reader to make the comparisons. Many of the features, frankly, 
>are similar, so the whole difference is in the interface and 
>implementation, so it's difficult to describe that in text rather 
>than experience...
>
>1) Fully object-oriented PHP/MySQL based.
>
>2) Built from the ground up, with enormous thought put into the 
>database structure, and no legacy Active structures to contend with.
>
>3) Separation of code logic and display pages...while not a template 
>system (like MIR appears to be), the display pages are rudimentary 
>PHP for inserting object properties and looping through arrays. It's 
>real PHP, but better than learning new weird syntax for template 
>systems.
>
>4) Fully internationalized interface. Every text string, every 
>button, every link of the dadaIMC interface can be localized. 
>Localization for Norwegian and Swedish is complete, Japanese, Greek, 
>and Turkish are in progress.
>
>5) Multiple stylesheet-based themes with full CSS support. Virtually 
>every block of display code is tagged for use in CSS, so you have 
>detailed control over the look of your site. And there's a built-in 
>stylesheet editor (which allows stylesheets to be imported), so you 
>can make modifications from the Administrative section of the site.
>
>6) User accounts, with the ability to edit your own articles, set 
>default language/theme/category/section settings, and edit your own 
>posts.
>
>7) Article ratings, which can be restricted to Editors or open to 
>all. Also detailed "voting" system for getting Features approved by 
>the Editorial Collective before being displayed.
>
>8) Clean, easy-to-use Editorial and Administrative interfaces, for 
>controlling virtually every aspect of the site from web-based forms.
>
>9) Multiple timezone support. Co-located on a server outside your 
>time zone? You can still have the site display all dates and times 
>in your local zone.
>
>10) Automatic image reduction and thumbnail generation with 
>ImageMagick or the GD Library. Your choice. And you can specify the 
>default thumbnail and page-size image sizes.
>
>11) Integration with the Radicalendar for calendar events through XML/RPC.
>
>12) Full RSS feed support for syndication, and auto-updating of the 
>cities.inc list nightly from the master database on stallman.
>
>13) Built-in cron job management. Set up a single cron job on your 
>server, then use the dadaIMC system for executing scripts at various 
>intervals (every 10 minutes, hourly, weekly, etc). Includes scripts 
>to regenerate cities.inc, clean out the cache files, backup MySQL, 
>monitor the status of a remote server, etc.
>
>14) Support for remote content distribution, a la paranode.  Smart, 
>too! Local copies of files can be deleted after verifying their 
>upload, or they can be preserved. If the remote server goes down, 
>the files are automatically served from the local machine if 
>available. If not, a default "media unavailable" image is displayed.
>
>15) Support for multiple categorization of articles. Sure, 
>categories were cool, but more than one category is even cooler. 
>Especially good for sites that want to break down their news by 
>geographical regions.
>
>16) Dedicated Media Gallery, for people who only want to upload 
>pictures, or an audio file. No need to wrap them in an otherwise 
>empty "article".
>
>17) Fully modular, so new features can be created and plugged in 
>with little effort.
>
>18) Built-in SQL editor, allowing you to execute raw SQL commands to 
>the database.
>
>19) Built in customized logging and debugging features.
>
>20) One-click disabling of newswire or media gallery uploads...for 
>maintenance or repeated newswire spam attacks. Leave the rest of the 
>site up, but temporarily prevent posting until you've rectified the 
>situaiton.
>
>21) Archiving? No such thing. Every article is always available at 
>the same URL it always was.
>
>22) Full, integrated searching. Search by medium, author, entire 
>article, by date, etc. It works, and it's pretty damn fast.
>
>23) Built-in HELP system, allowing you to add little popup help 
>displays wherever you need them.
>
>24) Built-in links pages, which automatically verify that the links 
>are still valid and up.
>
>Errrr...I'm sure there's more, but it must get boring to read through...
>
>Examples of dadaIMC sites (various versions...new .97 was just released):
>
>http://baltimore.indymedia.org/
>http://arkansas.indymedia.org/
>http://madison.indymedia.org/
>http://www.ucimc.org/
>http://www.michiganimc.org/
>http://vermont.indymedia.org/
>http://dadaimc.atdt.nu/ (temporary site for Sweden)
>http://sf.indymedia.no/index.php (temp. site for Norway)
>http://twincities.bandwidthcoop.org/ (temp. for Minneapolis/St. Paul)
>
>More information:
>http://www.dadaimc.org/
>support(at)dadaimc.org
>
>Cheers,
>spud.
>
>On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 10:18  PM, Sheri Herndon wrote:
>
>>hey :))
>>i know we talked about this a whiles back, but now it seems the 
>>seattle imc techies are getting closer to wanting to switch and 
>>they are looking at sf active.  i don't think they've done a 
>>comparison really and i want them to.  can you do a short hand of 
>>what the differences are and why we'd want to use dadimc?
>>evan, feel free to chime in :))
>>sascha, what codebase do you all use?
>>
>>thanks spud.  looks like great work!
>>
>>xoxo
>>--
>>You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>>To change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing 
>>model obsolete.
>>
>>Buckminster Fuller
>>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>a.h.s. boy
>spud(at)nothingness.org            "as yes is to if,love is to yes"
>http://www.nothingness.org/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. 
To change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller