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View Full Version : Actinic for Schools???

Rich Brady
10-Sep-2008, 11:27 AM
Hello all, I have an idea and I thought I'd run it passed you guys first.

I've been approached by a school that are looking to have there website redesigned.

They want to be able to add certain content themselves and even get the pupils involved in ICT Lessons.

Originally I thought about building the site in Dreamweaver, but my concern is that is they delve too deep the site may end up broken.:eek:

After pondering I wondered whether building them a site in Catalog would be an idea, obviuosly they wouldn't need the E-commerce side of things, but using the Fragments and moding a few layouts I thought it would be a more robust approach. Any thoughts?
Rich Brady
10-Sep-2008, 11:47 AM
I've just realised the title of this thread makes it sound like some sort of Tesco promotion...:D
acompton
10-Sep-2008, 12:05 PM
Actinic seems a bit expensive for what they want. How about a freebie Content Management System?
Rich Brady
10-Sep-2008, 12:10 PM
That was my concern... I've not had to implement any CMS into my sites yet, could you recommend any?
Mike Hughes
10-Sep-2008, 12:40 PM
Is actinic lite / 25 (or whatever) still around?

Have a word with actinic and see what they say. This version only does up to 25 products, but as they don't need any then it might be an idea. It's often given away as a promotional item with the magazines.

Mike
acompton
10-Sep-2008, 12:54 PM
Why would they want products to be there at all? Its just going to cause confusion
Mark H
10-Sep-2008, 01:05 PM
Adobe Contribute? - often bundled with Dreamweaver.
Darren B
10-Sep-2008, 01:29 PM
Theres a few open source cms programs around
CPG Dragonfly
CivicSpace
Drupal
E107
Geeklog
Jetbox
Joomla
Mambo
PHPNuke
PostNuke
Typo3
Xoops
phpWebSite
Nucleus
Soholaunch
Xoops
phpWikiI have not tried these but theres plenty to chose from when cost is an issue
RuralWeb
10-Sep-2008, 01:55 PM
I read somewhere that there were currently over 1200 CMS about - lots to pick from.
Darren B
10-Sep-2008, 02:04 PM
kin ell - good luck then
Rich Brady
10-Sep-2008, 02:15 PM
I read somewhere that there were currently over 1200 CMS about - lots to pick from.

:eek::eek:
completerookie
10-Sep-2008, 05:35 PM
I'm 99% certain, I've seen actinic-lite (25 items) available on one of this month's magazine, but for the life of me I can't remember exactly which one.
jont
11-Sep-2008, 07:04 AM
Maybe worth approaching Bruce Townsend at Actinic to see if they want to supply several copies of the Lite version... future potential designers using their products etc. Worth an email.
Rich Brady
11-Sep-2008, 07:07 AM
Maybe worth approaching Bruce Townsend at Actinic to see if they want to supply several copies of the Lite version... future potential designers using their products etc. Worth an email.

Cheers Jont, I'll get in touch...
rob880
12-Sep-2008, 10:03 AM
I don't know why you'd even consider Actinic for this.

I've used Joomla to design several sites...

1) It's free
2) Students can assign their own accounts and access privileges (publisher, editor, author etc)
3) Once it's installed (the hardest part) it's really easy to maintain publish and create new content and pages.

This is an Actinic forum and I'm 100% behind it as an e-commerce product, but to try and taylor it for a standalone CMS website it absurd.

I didn't design this site (http://www.lrtyfc.co.uk) a friend with very little technical knowledge did, but it is similar in scope to a school website.
Darren B
12-Sep-2008, 10:10 AM
Oooh i was just starting to have a play with it here

https://128bit-secured.co.uk/joomla/
acompton
12-Sep-2008, 12:13 PM
I don't know why you'd even consider Actinic for this.
Well said. This is what I was trying to point out back in post #3
Rich Brady
12-Sep-2008, 12:17 PM
I don't know why you'd even consider Actinic for this.

I've used Joomla to design several sites...

1) It's free
2) Students can assign their own accounts and access privileges (publisher, editor, author etc)
3) Once it's installed (the hardest part) it's really easy to maintain publish and create new content and pages.

This is an Actinic forum and I'm 100% behind it as an e-commerce product, but to try and taylor it for a standalone CMS website it absurd.

I didn't design this site (http://www.lrtyfc.co.uk) a friend with very little technical knowledge did, but it is similar in scope to a school website.

I'll have a look at that thanks.
Darren B
12-Sep-2008, 12:29 PM
I don't know why you'd even consider Actinic for this.



To be honest actinic is very good as a CMS for ease of use and usability, i have done in the past and so have many others.

Alot of CMS packages require SQL, alot of schools dont have this facility

As always the big difference with Actinic is "OFFLINE" Ability & "PORTABILITY"

So the requirement is more down to what the school want to do with it. Actinic has its limitations but what do they want and can they servers support it.
RuralWeb
12-Sep-2008, 12:43 PM
Actinic is a very good cms sytem but it would be the totally wrong product to use for a school. I've done a few school sites and generally what they want is for each class to have thief own pages with access from the of in that classroom. Also it's almost certain they will not want to allow in checked content to be publish so a system where pages can be sent for review and authorization is also required

On both of the above actinic fails and so I would not use it.