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spacefreak · Jul 28, 2005, 07:29 PM

I know that the excellent forums here are powered by vBulletin, but I'm curious as to what (if any) back-end package powers the news section here at MacNN.

Any guesses?

OwlBoy · Jul 28, 2005, 07:36 PM

I think it is a custom thing. MacNN predates a lot of the newer 'news' packages out there these days.

And I would guess at this point, MacNN has been built up and modified from its original system.

Mods will be able to say for sure though, just what I would assume.

-Owl

ghporter · Jul 28, 2005, 07:46 PM

It is some form of content management system, but beyond that I can't say. Of course there are a LOT of content management systems. Bill Machrone of PC Magazine recently pointed out that blog software is a CMS...then there's what organizations like the New York Times use; it's the same principle but on a very different scale.

spacefreak · Jul 28, 2005, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by OwlBoy

I think it is a custom thing. MacNN predates a lot of the newer 'news' packages out there these days.

And I would guess at this point, MacNN has been built up and modified from its original system.

Mods will be able to say for sure though, just what I would assume.

Do you mean "from scratch".

I'm sure it's heavily customized. Even the forums here are pretty heavily modified from the base vB package. I'm just wondering what what base the news section was built around.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jul 28, 2005, 07:49 PM

What type of news software is there for a Mac?

spacefreak · 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

It is some form of content management system, but beyond that I can't say. Of course there are a LOT of content management systems. Bill Machrone of PC Magazine recently pointed out that blog software is a CMS...then there's what organizations like the New York Times use; it's the same principle but on a very different scale.

Yeah, I understood that much.

But if you "can't say", then so be it. It's not the answer I was hoping for, but I guess that's as far as I'm going to get here.

i just figured that (if the core code fit certain specs that I am looking for) the developers of the CMS might want some business.

besson3c · Jul 28, 2005, 10:58 PM

I've looked at many third-party CMSes, and because they are written to be so general, they always seemed pretty complex and full of features I didn't need (which also confuse the users I design CMSes for). I've always just developed my own for the sites I maintain. It's not that hard to do.

For a site with the needs that MacNN has, I'd bet they did the same thing.

spacefreak · Jul 29, 2005, 12:23 AM

I'm a tweaker, not a coder... so it would be difficult for me to whip up a CMS from scratch.

Because the CMS will be modified, maybe significantly, I was hoping to find a product that is supported by an active and flourishing company. Again I mention vBulletin, because they are that type of company. In the shopping cart arena, X-cart is sorta like that, too.

If anyone can suggest a stable and well supported News-focused CMS (php/mySQL) that can handle the functions that are present in MacNN's news section, I'd totally appreciate it.

I really don't want to dig into an open-source blog package like WordPress if there was something better suited for the tasks. Still sniffing around...