I was idly looking at Fraction magazine, an online photography site, and noticed that I couldn’t readily identify how it was built.
What I mean by that is that after seeing a lot of sites, I think I can recognise what the underlying structure is because they are kind of similar. They have ‘a look’.
The ones that surprise me (in a nice way) when I see them and don’t recognise how they are built, are usually Drupal sites.
When I looked at the code in Fraction magazine I saw that it was a built on a content management system called Indexhibit.
I decided to build a site using Indexhibit and this is the tale of how the installation went.
I asked for a free download (there’s a paid-for version for people who intend to use their sites commercially) and I received it and downloaded it and opened up the package to see how to install it.
The readme says:
indexhibit is a free, web based portfolio CMS. It is released under the terms of the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (see license.txt for details).
System requirements
===================
indexhibit requires a web server (Apache), PHP (4 or greater) and MySQL.
Recommended:
PHP 4+
MySQL 3.23+
Apache 2.0+Features
Indexhibit CMS 2 enables you to create your own website. It enables people with little or no previous website knowledge to publish text, image, sound and video.
It is accessible via ‘modern’ web browsers: Firefox, Safari, Chrome. There are many user-friendly and advanced features, including:
– multi-file upload
– drag/drop reordering
– easy selection of exhibit formats
– change of thumbnail size and shape
– exhibit format specific options
– file based tagging system
– password protection of exhibits
– youtube and vimeo input
– multi-user
– native page caching
– simple statistics
– built-in CSS/code editor
– permalinks for images
– plugin system for easy expandability
– and more
I happened to have a domain name lying around doing nothing so I changed the DNS servers to point to a web host on which I have space for another domain, created a database, ftp’d the files and ran the installation routine.
There is precious little to see there at the moment but at least the installation went OK and I hope to add to the site and document the progress.
Here’s the link Flying Twigs UK
Just looked at it. Do they always look that …. basic?
On a totally unrelated note: Has Homeland started where you are?
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I don’t know how varied the sites can look. Here is Fraction magazine .
Yes, episode two of Homeland was on last night. I like the way it has slipped into gear so easily. What episode are you on?
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That magazine’s page looks very nice! Where did you go and download it from?
Last night’s episode, I think was the third. We got to see Brody. It was pretty … graphic, at times..
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Yes, and it maybe ‘free’ with Indexhibit. When I have time I will investigate some of the themes that they have.
The link to Indexhibit is in the article.
I was wondering when Brodie would appear. Don’t tell me any spoilers… 😉
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No way *grin*…
I found the link, looking in there now. So you downloaded the stuff, and then uploaded it to your host?!
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Yes, click the ‘Help’ button and it explains how to do it all. I almost forgot the final step of deleting the install.php file – I’ve got a lousy memory and just plough on.
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I just made a test page in there. Don’t know if you can change font.
So …. if you were to use this for your blog, it wouldn’t be WordPress anymore..?!
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Yes that’s right, it’s not WordPress. It’s like WordPress in that it uses a database from which to pull the information, but it’s not WordPress.
There are several less well known content management systems besides WordPress.
I built a site quite a while ago using TextPattern, which from a quick look at the site just now seems to have developed a lot since I played around with it.
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To be honest … I had no idea of these! Got totally engrossed in this TextPattern site. The only one I’d heard about was Drupal.
I liked the looks of that magazine, and how it behaved. Do you still have your page that you made with TextPattern?
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Yes, I am interested in trying TextPattern again myself after seeing the site.
I deleted the TextPattern site I made. I recall I overwrote it with a WordPress site.
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I just signed up for six months … aquteaccent dot com. This will be a learning experience LOL
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Woah! That was quick. 🙂
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Yes, it’s already there. Some host I found in there, amongst the listed ones. I could choose to have TextPattern preinstalled, so I went for that.
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I did it! Please, have a look
🙂
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Great! Did you create that pattern weave background?
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Yes.
I found a link [http://www.indexhibit.org/tutorial/how-to-integrate-wordpress/], but I haven’t paid for this so I can’t read it 😦
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