The PHP-Nuke content management system is a popular open-sourceproject, designed to help you get your Web site off the ground with minimumfuss...and if you're a budding Webmaster, or just running on a tightschedule, it can probably make your life simpler. This article discussesdeploying and customizing the system to your needs.
There are many uses for the PHP-Nuke system - a budding webmaster could use it as the basis for his or her community portal, a developer or consultant could use it to rapidly build a portal for a client, and a hobbyist could take it apart to understand how it works.
As a tool for rapid development and delivery, it offers numerous advantages - it's easy to install and configure, the built-in theme support makes it easy to customize the interface, and the active community support (take a look at http://www.nukeaddon.com/ for a bunch of great add-ons, toys and utilities built especially for this system) and open license make bug fixes and modifications a breeze. The XML/RDF support is also a nice touch, and makes it easy to integrate other content sources into the system.
That said, there are a few things that I'd like to see changed as well. A greater separation of interface code from application logic would be first on my wish list, as this would make it easier to build themes for the system (this is apparently expected in the next release of the software). I'd also look for improvements in the administration user interface, especially in the menus and the aesthetics, and better documentation for future releases.
That's about it for the moment. I hope this article offered some insight into the features available in the PHP-Nuke system, and some guidelines on how to go about deploying and customizing it to your own needs. If you have comments, or simply want to share your experiences with PHP-Nuke, drop me a line - and till next time, stay healthy!
This article copyright Melonfire 2001. All rights reserved.
