[opencms-dev] Beginner completely lost

Tue Sep 1 12:51:27 CEST 2009

Hi Gregor. I've been working with OpenCms for 6 months. I had to either
develop an application with OpenCms or find another job. Some people love
it. I still wonder why. If I had a choice I would run away from OpenCms and
spend my time learning something else. You will need plenty of time to get
familiar with OpenCms implementation and configuration.
I am sorry if that is not what you or others like to hear. It is just
another point of view.

2009/8/30 Paul-Inge Flakstad <flakstad at npolar.no>

> 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...
> > gpgp-fp: 79A84FA526807026795E4209D3B3FE028B3170B2
> > gpgp-key available
> > @ http://pgpkeys.pca.dfn.de:11371
> > @ http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/
> > skype:rc46fi
> >
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> >
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