I have a client that is interested in implementing their first Intranet. They want something simple to use, which usually means something powerful behind the scenes. Also, of course, the client wants something free that can be extended by ColdFusion.
I have posted in the past about CMS options. There are many choices but but the choices narrow once you introduce CF as a requirement. I have decided to give FarCry 5.0 a shot. The last time I installed FarCry was probably 2003 so I’m willing to give it a fair shake once more.
So far, I’m impressed overall. For one thing, the 5.0 installer just works and simplifies the whole process. So many CF programs (including many of mine) require editing of text files and placing of scripts manually but FarCry seems more mature and is evidenced by the installer. I’m very impressed with this.
The look and feel of the administration back end or web top as FarCry refers to it is really nice. There was a bit of a learning curve for me at least regarding how to actually use the tool to build the structure of a website and I will go into that in a later post. That said, I was up and running pretty quickly once I got it.
The documentation seems a bit fragmented on the deamon site. I know there is a wiki for each version but it’s incomplete. I spent hours looking for answers to my questions in the form of documentation. In the end, I did happen to come across their 125 page training guide for version 4.0 which was a help. There are also eSeminars posted on deamon’s blog such as this one for version 5.0.
5.0 is still in beta, however I hit the ground running with it before I knew this since the 5.0 version is placed prominently on deamon’s home page without the warning that it is beta. Well, at least as recently as today 
This means that things such as site-wide search and other components aren’t working yet as I came to find out while I was developing a mockup for a client. I’ve decided to take a small risk and continue to use the 5.0 version because I’d hate to go backwards and Geoff Bowers’ recent posting eluded to the fact that this feature would be implemented in the coming weeks.
Once the software was installed, and once I had a handle on how to create top-level links with related pages with them, I was able to quickly create all the core Intranet pages in the hierarchy needed within a couple of hours. I’m now working on creating users with permissions to edit only certain sections such as Department heads editing their own departments and not others’. From what I understand, this is straight forward to do.
The challenges ahead are many such as how to embed custom CF pages and how to use the built-in functions such as RSS feeds, News, FAQs, Events and how to embed built in features like these into a FarCry page. I’m hoping it’s covered in the 4.0 manual because as I have said, the wiki is incomplete or if it is not, it seems at least hard for me to navigate. I’m also going to have to figure out how to modify the look and feel and find out how navigation works once you get 4 levels deep. Also, how the ‘create link’ function works in the webtop.
FarCry seems deep and can feel a bit daunting at times for me when I just can’t figure out how to do something I want. However, my gut here is that Deamon really has a winner on their hands and if I can figure out how to master it, I may become a bit of an evangelist for the tool because there just isn’t another software package out there written in CF that is open source and does what this one does. Well, that last statement is based on my knowledge. If you know of something else, please let me know.
Also, I would really like to hear from some of you with first-hand experience/knowledge of FarCry. It would be nice to know how others are using it and how successful you have been handing over the day to day management of a site to end users with no programming knowledge. Have you come across a tutorial you can hand end users with simple instructions on day to day maintenance, adding a page, approving a page, adding users, etc. Did you have to create something yourselves?
I’m really looking forward to hearing your comments!
Vince Collins
July 15, 2008 at 11:17 am
Did you install on a dedicated/stand-alone server or was this installed in a shared-hosting environment? I’m curious because they (FarCry) claim to be ready for shared-hosting environments and I haven’t heard any first-hand experiences from anyone going this route.
July 15, 2008 at 11:17 am
We use Farcry for the majority of our clients websites. With a little bit of training, they are all more than happy adding and editing content with little to no intervention by us once we get past the initial setup phase.
The clients range from relatively experienced to complete techno-phobes.
We ended up writing a brief walkthrough of the most important bits for one of our clients but it was too specific to the site itself to share with the rest of the world.
Documentation is probably the area that requires the most work when dealing with clients, but how much more do you expect from OS software - Farcry already gives you so much for free, it’s hard to complain about having to write a bit of documentation.
Aside from that, persevere with the framework - once you workout how it hangs together, it can be quite rewarding platform to work on.
July 15, 2008 at 11:41 am
@Steve, this is a dedicated server and not shared hosting. Although I didn’t have to create a farcry/ virtual directory in CF like in the past. The installer offers the ability to deploy your site(s) in subdirectories so to me this means that I can have more than one site in subdirectories. That said, I haven’t done this yet. Keep an eye on this posting, others may jump in yet
@Craig thanks for replying. As I’ve said, I’m impressed with FarCry overall and it is slicker than most Open Source tools including my own. How did you begin using FarCry? Were you taught side by side by someone who already knew FarCry or did you teach yourself like I’ve been doing for the last 5 days?
July 15, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I’ve been using Farcry since v3 days (is that 2004? - too long!) but not daily lately - I’ve only just jumped back into it fairly recently and installed v4. I haven’t played with v5 much yet, but it looks like a very nice update so it’d be nice to dive into it a bit more.
I pretty much taught myself Farcry by digging into the core code and bouncing ideas off a few other guys who were using it at the same time. The mailinglist at the time was very helpful (I believe it’s on google groups now - an invaluable resource).
The wiki that is around now is an invaluable resource. I wish that was around in the v3 days!
August 10, 2008 at 6:52 am
There is another open source CF solution: http://www.gosava.com. I just found this solution, and I would love to use it, but there are too many restricted tags being used, as I am using a shared hosting environment.
It may be worth comparing Sava and Farcry before diving straight into FarCry.