Comment » Siteframe: the CMS for Document Sharing
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day that wanted a way of sharing his project documents and files online. He was thinking about using Drupal, which is a great CMS (especially for someone that, like him, knows PHP), but probably not the easiest way to accomplish this task. I suggested he try the content management system Siteframe instead.
Why I like it
Siteframe is one of the better CMS out there if you want to share documents and files. It is very easy to create folders and groups, and assign permissions. This is a great tool for students working on group projects, yet can’t always meet in person. One group member can set up the site, then create a folder for the project and group for the members. Permissions can then be set to allow group members to upload more files, comment on existing ones, etc. It is a lot more organized than always sending emails.
When adding new documents, which can be a file, image, or article, there’s options available to allow comments, ratings, copying, and body descriptions. I imagine that some people could use Siteframe as a photo sharing site, but I prefer Gallery2 for this task.
Potential Downfalls
The major downside to Siteframe for professional purposes is that while the project is being actively maintained, the user community still seems rather small. There is always the danger with smaller projects such as this one that they will fade away. For an organization that wants to go the open source route, I would stick with Drupal or Joomla. These projects have a large enough user base that they will likely be around for a long time, not to mention that they have tons of documention. There are consultants for hire, should you need professional support or custom programming, as well as a few books available for both Drupal
Documentation for Siteframe seems to do the job but is rather lean, which is a common occurrence among open source projects. I can’t blame the developers - it is more fun for them to code than to write documentation. The Q&A section is rather small, but most of the questions were answered.
Siteframe is led by one developer, Glen Campbell, with contributions from other developers and webmasters. Individual projects are fun to use for personal purposes, but for project life reasons I am hesitant to use them for commercial purposes.
Other Notes
I have version 3.x installed. This version is being actively maintained, but the latest version of Siteframe is 5.x (Beaumont).
In order to install the Beaumont version, your web server must meet the minimum software specifications:
- Apache 2.0 (1.3 in theory works, but is untested)
- MySQL 4.1
- PHP 5
- Smarty
Unfortunately my web host does not yet have PHP5, so I could not test out the Beaumont version. According to the Siteframe website, it looks like there may be problems in the future should I decide to upgrade to Beaumont:
There is a facility in 5.x to assist with migrating data from a 3.x website; however, because of the substantial differences, especially in how templates are handled. it is not really possible to simply upgrade a site from version 3 to version 5.
Siteframe uses the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license, which according to the Digital Divide Network means it can be edited and used for commercial work as long as the author is credited and the same license is passed along.
Conclusions
This is an excellent CMS for the individual or small, non-commercial group that wants to share documents, files, and photos.
