[opencms-dev] Beginner completely lost

Sun Aug 30 17:11:55 CEST 2009

Hello Gregor!

I was first introduced to OpenCms around 18 months ago. I came straight out of scool (where focus had been on OOP) and thinking back to that time, I had a lot of the same questions you do (although I knew I _had_ to learn OpenCms as it was already decided). What I did, was I didn't use OpenCms' template one/two. I set out to create stuff myself, in an effort to learn the system. Maybe not the best idea, but it certainly gave me some insight, relatively fast. Before long, I also read the book (OpenCms 7 Development), which helped me a lot. It may be the single most useful resource if you want to learn OpenCms, IMO.

Now, I know there's not any good beginner guides out there. Such things are mostly scattered around the mailing list, forums and whatnot. But it isn't all that hard to build stuff from scratch. You'll just have to familiarize yourself a bit with OpenCms and its mechanics; templates, resource types, properties, collectors - and last but not least, modules. The hardest part for me was understanding the way templates work, since I wasn't too familiar with the concept of templates.

I'd recommend you spend some days just setting up a test-site so you can fiddle around with these things. Being familiar with Java will help you, as you will be able to examine the docs. There are a lot of classes in OpenCms. Starting out, here are a handfull of the important ones (add the opencms.jar library in your IDE project):
CmsJspActionElement / CmsJspXmlContentBean 
CmsObject
CmsResource / CmsFile

and also:
OpenCms (in org.opencms.main)
CmsProperty
(CmsJspNavElement)

Also, you should read anything about "creating structured content", "defining custom xmlcontent" and so on. Structured content (also called xmlcontent, which is the "general type name" OpenCms uses for all types of structured content) is a simple way for you to define your own (structured) resource types. You do the definition using one or more XSDs, and this is explained several places online and also in the book. This is perhaps a more advanced topic, often involving the creation of a new module, but I would not wait with this. It is essential if you're thinking of building stuff from scratch rather than using OpenCms' template one/two.

I hope you do not ditch OpenCms. It is really a great tool, and my bet is you'll enjoy it once you get to know it. Ask your specific questions here on the mailing list, and I'm sure we'll try to help you along. :)

Cheers,
Paul
________________________________________
Fra: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org [opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org] på vegne av Florian Heinisch [florian.heinisch at 3kraft.com]
Sendt: 28. august 2009 18:13
Til: The OpenCms mailing list
Emne: Re: [opencms-dev] Beginner completely lost

Hi Gregor,

apparently you feel the same way I did when I started with OpenCMS.
Except of you already have read the OpenCMS book ;-)
Well, IMHO OpenCMS has a really steep learning curve. As the standard
installation of OpenCMS provides a lot of features it might not that
easy to grasp every little detail of OpenCMS at the very beginning.
I fully agree with you the documentation that comes along with OpenCMS
is not very beginner-friendly. And as far as I know there is no
complete "how-to-build-a-website-from-scratch" tutorial. You'll have
to grab all the necessary information from different sources.

Nevertheless, if you are firm with Java and the concept of a J2EE web
application you should be able to get your website up and running with
OpenCMS.
Therefore, I would suggest you'll do the following:
1. Install OpenCMS with all the template2 modules
2. Follow the instructions in the OpenCMS book to setup your
development environment (Eclipse) with WebDAV for efficient development
3. Develop a template from scratch as described in the OpenCMS book in
order to convert your website layout into a OpenCMS template
4. Have a look at the existing content types (such as Article, News,
etc.) that come along with the standard OpenCMS installation
(template2). For the case that these content types do not fit your
needs, develop your own (also described in the book and in the OpenCMS
wiki).

That's it basically. Feel free to share your problems with the mailing
list for the case that topic was not discussed yet :)
If you'll drop OpenCMS in favor of another open source Java-based CMS
please let me know which one and for what reason (personal interest).

Good luck,

Florian

On Aug 28, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Gregor Schneider wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi there,
>
> I'm looking for an CMS in Java since due to our security-policy PHP is
> not an option, and we don't know our ways aorund in Perl.
>
> Therefore, OpenCMS is (was?) one of our candidates, and has been my
> personal favourite until I started testing.
>
> Giving you some background-information:
>
> Installation 1:
>
> - - OS: Debian Edge
> - - DB. MySQL 5
> - - Java: SUN JDK 1.6
> - - Webserver: Tomcat 6
>
> Installation 2:
>
> - - OS: Windows XP
> - - DB: MySQL 5
> - - Java: SUN JDK 1.6
> - - Webserver: Tomcat 6
>
> On both installations I'm using OpenCMS 7.5
>
> Myself:
>
> I know my ways around in Java, JSPs, Servlets, Tomcat-Administration,
> so there should hopefully not be any lack of knowledge of essential
> components
>
> However:
>
> After having set up OpenCMS, all the questions began:
>
> - - Where's the documentation?
> - - Where's any sort of a good tutorial?
> - - How do i...?
>
> I have to setup a complete new webpage, so just editing the
> demo-applications doesn't help at all.
>
> What I'm really, really missing is a step-by-step-howto showing the
> following:
>
> All tutorials / books I read just start somewhere in between showing
> how to hack into existing pages, but not how to set up a new site from
> scratch.
> And yes, I looked into the Wiki, however, the points of interest don't
> contain anything but a headline.
>
> Currently I feel that OpenCMS is one of those really bad examples of
> an OpenSource-project, where the code is the docs. Ok, I'm exagerating
> a bit.
>
> So if anybody could give me a piece of advice how to set up a new page
> incl. new templates, how to start, what's the best practices etc., I'd
> really, really appreciate this.
>
> My other option is to dump OpenCMS as a cms for our company, which I
> really dislike, however, currently that seems to be the most likely
> option.
>
> And yes, Ive read
>
> - - http://opencmsnewbie.netfirms.com/
> - - http://www.opencms-wiki.org
>
> The book from Packt Publishing: OpenCms.7.Development (Apr.2008)
>
> Again, any hints are really, really appreciated.
>
> Cheers
>
> Gregor
> - --
> just because your paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you...
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> gpgp-key available
> @ http://pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de:11371
> @ http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/
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