Building a family website - Need help

groverat

My family has used myfamily.com for years now and it is just not cutting it. We are used to the way it runs, but the commenting system has really limited us.



pMachine seems like the best blogware option, but I am wondering if anyone has experience using any canned software solution that can do the following things...

1 - Require username/password to get past the index. (We don't want it publicly viewable/searchable.)

2 - Automated announcement e-mails based on calendar events.

3 - Integration with some kind of photo software.



I am looking at some different options but I would like some suggestions.



Please help. :-)

running with scissors

Quote:

Originally posted by groverat

My family has used myfamily.com for years now and it is just not cutting it. We are used to the way it runs, but the commenting system has really limited us.



pMachine seems like the best blogware option, but I am wondering if anyone has experience using any canned software solution that can do the following things...

1 - Require username/password to get past the index. (We don't want it publicly viewable/searchable.)

2 - Automated announcement e-mails based on calendar events.

3 - Integration with some kind of photo software.



I am looking at some different options but I would like some suggestions.



Please help. :-)

the down side to pmachine is that it lacks any true photo gallery integration. but that part could be managed in a separate script such as whitealbum or just publish out of iphoto. you could also consider pmachines bigger brother, expression engine. it's not quite there yet in terms of functionality, but they are promising all kinds of additional features to be rolled in as modules or plugins in the near future. might be worth keeping an eye on. although neither is very complicated to set up, i does take some mucking about in code to get them to do what you want beyond the preset templates.

groverat

Yeah, EE looks really nice but the $99 to get it started does not look nice at all.



You sound like you use this stuff, Okie, have you used WhiteAlbum before?

faust9

Do you "need" a canned solution? What options are available on your host? Does it run PHP, and MySQL (a lot of host do), and if not does it offer asp, M$SQL? In all honesty, one can easily(even with minimal) write a small DB and PHP script(s) to do what you need.

groverat

I don't really need a canned solution, but a good bit of distance in the right direction would be needed. My PHP and MySQL skills are limited to what I have had to do to customize my pMachine blog.



It doesn't have to be pMachine sponsored or anything, just sort of a repository for pictures that all of the members could upload to where all of them could be found in one location (with sub-categories, of course, and maybe commenting).



The key to this is making it easy to use for others, not me. This is for my family, most of whom are barely able to check their e-mail and use Word to write a letter.



Anyone who has used myfamily.com will know what I am talking about.



--



Also, does anyone know anything about keeping it password protected, even for viewing?

Would password-protecting the index file work?

faust9

Ahhh, I thought this would be a site you ran that let everyone check up on you... A little different. You could still cobble something together that would easily allow your family to communicate. I'm sure there are true PHP/MySQL pro's here who could help. I'm willing to lend a line of code or two though I'm a C programmer who only dabbles in scripts.

groverat

I am really surprised this kind of thing is not more common. Maybe my family is the exception in how much we all like to keep in contact with each other.



Our myfamily.com site is very active, lots of posts every day on all kinds of subjects. But the layout and functionality are limited and unfortunately there is absolutely nothing better out there, free or pay.



Does anyone out there run a multi-author weblog with a simple yet robust image gallery functionality? Come on, this is a Mac board! :-)

sparhawk

looks like a good question. Am curious what others will come up with...

ever looked into VBB or UBB?

http://www.phpbb.com/

groverat

I've been tinkering with phpBB, yes, and it is great. The main problem is that it only does one thing. It does that one thing fabulously and it is the most important thing of all the things I need the site to do, but it is still just the one thing.



However, I could find external solutions for the other things and try my best to keep them linked together as seamlessly as possible.



Thanks for the suggestion.

groverat

Anyone have opinions on Coppermine v. Gallery?

running with scissors

Quote:

Originally posted by groverat

Yeah, EE looks really nice but the $99 to get it started does not look nice at all.



You sound like you use this stuff, Okie, have you used WhiteAlbum before?

yeah, i've messed around with whitealbum a bit in the past. very easy to setup and manage. it's pretty bare boned though, but that's kind of what i like about it. its not weighed down with bunch of crap that you don't need. it would be fairly easy to drop it into an existing pmachine page. want to modify the look, just play around with the css. piece of cake, even for redneck such as yourself.



if you do decide to stick with pmachine, be sure to go through their support forums. you'll find a good group of developers there to assist you when you get your sorry ass in a pickle.

running with scissors

hey rat,



i'm curious if you made any decisions on this? if so, what did you come up with?

ijerry

There are quite a few scripts that you can write for password protecting a site, and workarounds for servers that have different options.



You could just make a simple database and have them upload via a script in a form that will automagically upload the pics from the persons computer into the specified fields in the database....



Make your index page the login page, this will allow you to make a password for your internal upload page and viewing pages...Not that hard to do, and well worth it once it is setup.