FarCry CMS 5.0 Install and Configuration - My Firsthand Experience

July 15, 2008 — Vincent Collins

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!

Posted in CMS, ColdFusion, Open Source. 5 Comments »

ColdFusion Community - What Gives?

May 19, 2008 — Vincent Collins

Last week I wrote an article asking the CF community for a list of open source applications they wished existed.  The resulting comments were much different than I thought they would be.

I expected a small laundry list of applications similar to what is found in the PHP world as well as suggestions to make various applications work well together.  I did get a few so far but what I didn’t expect were the discussions about the problems with the fragmentation of CF frameworks, and the overwhelming PHP and .NET installed user bases and how CF is stuck between a rock and a hard place because of this.  There is also the statement that the open source applications for CF are generally all “one man shows” and not a community of developers on a single project.

If you haven’t had a chance to jump in on the conversation, I’d love to hear your list of applications as well as your take on the various other conversations going on here.

Posted in ColdFusion, Open Source. No Comments »

What Open Source ColdFusion Application is Sorely Missing?

May 15, 2008 — Vincent Collins

This is a simple call to the ColdFusion community.  Thanks to the wonderful efforts by Ray, Ben Rob and others (let me know who else) we have RIAForge.  I have a simple question I’d like to pose.

We are all well aware of the many open source applications written for other languages.  What is on your much wished for short list of open source tools not yet available for ColdFusion? Or, if a tool exists but you would like another option, name it!

This is your chance to not only tell the CF community what you want, but also a chance to maybe jump in and help develop a much needed application.

Posted in ColdFusion, Open Source. 21 Comments »

StellentForums.com - Galleon Forums Rocks Once Again

March 21, 2008 — Vincent Collins

StellentForumsSite

Just a quick public shout out to Ray Camden for making the open source tool Galleon ColdFusion Forums available to all.

Version 2.011 installed without a hitch yesterday and StellentForums.com was up and running with a brand new forum in less than 20 minutes.

I can’t say enough about how cool it is to now have so many choices for ColdFusion software, free or pay.  It’s good to be a CF Developer.

Once again, thanks Ray!

Posted in ColdFusion, Open Source. 3 Comments »

New Project - Youth Sports Association Management Tool (any interest?)

March 7, 2008 — Vincent Collins

I recently joined the board of our small town youth sports association and I have set the site up using WordPress, which allows multiple users to contribute with control over permission level. Everyone is happy.

However, when it comes to actually managing the sports, teams, coaches, players and registration as well as sending emails to all or a sub-set of players, I have not found any tool that seems to do it well. I have to be honest however, I usually search for ten minutes and grow frustrated if nothing stands out quickly and just decide to build it myself. I did find a few sites offering this service for a monthly fee and some with a per user fee but we are on a shoe-string budget and I want a tool I can install on my server and manage/modify from there. Preferably it should be written in ColdFusion :)

Thus, I quickly put together the following CF + SQL Server application in a couple of days:

Users Table (board members and delegates)
User Role (read only, read/write, admin)
Player Table (all players of all sports, their address, DOB, Parents/Guardians, phone number(s), email(s) etc.)
Log Table (logs all actions such as updates, emails sent etc)

Currently the tool allows you to manage users, players, as well as send email announcements to all players and users that have not opted out. I’m also thinking of adding things like associated seasons, sports, coaches, and fee management. Also maybe a Board Task List. I’m wondering if there is a need for such a tool by others out there. My thoughts are to set it up on RIAForge as an open source tool. What do you think?

Also, if you know of a CF tool already out there that does this, I’d love to hear from you.

Posted in ColdFusion, Open Source. 2 Comments »

cfEasyAlbum - Version 1.01 released

October 4, 2007 — Vincent Collins

cfEasyAlbum has a new release today.

Version 1.01 now provides the option of multi image upload with the excellent Flash tool SWFUpload and image resizing is handled by the nifty tmt_img cfc.

This is all nicely packaged into a newly added admin section which allows you to create albums without the need for ftp.

cfEasyAlbum is a new open source web album organizer that I have written. I’m looking for people to download and play with it. Once you download it, simply extract it to the web directory of your choice, edit the ini.cfm file and you are done.

Keeping with the name, cfEasyAlbum is:

  • Easy to Install
  • Easy to Configure
  • Easy to Update

You can of course also simply upload your own albums via ftp if you wish to continue to do it that way.

You can see it in action here: http://www.ecoastjobs.com/cfeasyalbum.cfm

As always, I would love to to hear your comments.

Posted in Adobe, ColdFusion, Open Source, cfEasyAlbum. 11 Comments »

cfEasyAlbum, Open Source Web-Based Photo Album Organizer - no database required

September 28, 2007 — Vincent Collins

I’d like to announce the first release of cfEasyAlbum today. A simple, but elegant way to display photos on a CF site without the need for a database. I’ve had many requests over the years so here it goes.

The first ‘official’ release date is today and I hope to add functionality as I find time.

A demo of the tool as well as download files can be found here

This is simple to integrate with any existing website and the tool only requires ColdFusion 6.1 or higher. NO DATABASE IS REQUIRED!!!

The whole point of this application was to keep it simple. The goal was to remove the complexities of databases and other tools and thus allow you to simply convert your photos using your tool of choice and ftp them up to the server in a self-defined structure. Tools like Picasa, which is what I use, allow you to do this easily by exporting from your existing albums. All you have to do is create a thumb, medium and optionally an original copy, put them all within your specified folders and ftp them to the site. cfEasyAlbum will automatically detect the new album and begin displaying it. No updates to a database, no clunky individual image uploading. It just works.

You can add an unlimited amount of albums and it is plenty fast.

There are really only a couple of rules you need to follow for this to work.

  1. Thumbnails and medium sizes are required. Print or original is optional
  2. All sizes of a given photo must be the exact same name. This is how we link them together
  3. The name of the folder that houses each album is used for the name of the album.

Future Editions:

  1. Admin section for changing configurations
  2. Integrating a tool such as Rad Upload (http://www.radinks.com/upload/applet.php) or SWFUpload (http://swfupload.mammon.se/) to upload photos in bulk without the need for ftp.
  3. Optional text file in each album directory that allows you to provide a description of the album
  4. Optional Filters so you only display jpegs, gifs, or pngs

I’m considering asking for some space on RIAForge but haven’t invested the time to see how that all works. I’ve never used subversion, which is what is used there. Does anyone reading this use RIAForge to host your development project? If so, what are your thoughts? How does it work?

I have never released a piece of code ‘into the wild’ before so here is what I ask of you all. First of all, be kind! I’m sure there are things about my code that will drive some people crazy. I’m here to say however that one of the reasons I’m doing this is to make cfEasyAlbum better. I’m also interested in learning from you, the community, better coding practices. Bouncing the premise of the project, as well as the code and functionality, off you all is a good start in that direction.

So, let me know what you think! I have a thick skin when it comes to constructive criticism.

:)

Posted in ColdFusion, Open Source, cfEasyAlbum. 3 Comments »