CMS Made simple: Confused

[dntel]

Hey,

Firstly, apologies if this isnt in the right place but I didnt really know where to put it.

That out of the way have a slight problem, my companies website was hosted by someone else and built by someone else. I'm pretty sure they have no clue what they are doing and made a website with this CMS Made simple content management system.

As I'm to do SEO for the website, and I have never used this CMS, can someone just confirm for me what happens and how I upload it to a new server, I'll attach an Image of the folder layout that it was sent over in.

I'm pretty sure that you just add all of this to the server, and the domain points to the index.php but I want to confirm.

Thanks a lot for your time!

[thewebhostingdi]

Yes, you will have to copy all your files and folders and upload it inside the root folder using FTP on the new server.

[JunkMale]

And the database will need to be backed up.

Then uploaded to the new server system.

[opifex]

Have used CMSMS twice at client request... it's kind of nice BUT you need to be really careful with folder/file permissions when changing servers especially if any extensions were originally added via the admin panel. A clean install might be easier and then import the original database. The built-in SEO features are pretty good.

[JunkMale]

Support ! Geeez, I just spent the best part of a day constantly repeating myself like a stuck record. I had an idea what the issue was, wanted to modify the config file, asked where it was and got blanked. So I then thought the best way was to deal with the actual module that was causing the CMSMS to break. Again, I got every answer other than the specific answer I was looking for.

I have now had to go to my web host to get the mto email me in writing the way in which the server is set up so I can go back and tell the DEV team that the issue IS NOT the server but the coding in the module. You know rocket science is not my field of expertise but when you install something and your entire web site is taken down by that script, then comes up again when you delete the module completely... and I am being told that the problem is in the hosts server... Hmmmm, yes I was born yesterday.

So your going to find that any migration using the existing version and subsequent issues will be met with the standard "Upgrade" message over getting any real help.

[opifex]

You must have overlooked the config file.... it's config.php in the root.
No "rocket science" needed. CMSMS has really good community support... of course it's always helpful to state your problem clearly and ask for help in a polite manner.

[JunkMale]

Opifex, I did and it was "Empty" and rocket science it is not, they however could have simply complied with my initial request and we would all be one happier family. Yes I was polite but as the issue was being dragged on and my requests were being blatantly ignored.

I was asking a specific question and I was not getting the answer, an analogy of this situation is your in the DIY store wanting to buy some blue paint and the clerk keeps on directing you to the wall paper section. These guys just did not see beyond the "Upgrade" option and were not prepared to support a client that was only 2 sub version away from the newest, 1.6.4 -> 1.6.6 is not a major upgrade requirement and filtering through the differential update file, I can see that 98% (based on counting the files) were language file updates. Hardly a major security consideration.

As for the "Community Support" it is debatable based on my experience, I call good support "Answering the question" not "Answering with another" or pointing people in to trouble shooting something completely unrelated. So from my point of view, 6/10 for the support.

[opifex]

Once again, config.php is in the root. It is written by the installation script. The copy on the server is not blank.
You might want to become acquainted with wikis, faqs and help guides before beginning your rants. This applies to all the programs that you are attempting to use.
I recall past rants about Firefox, Ubuntu, Gimp.... need we continue?

[JunkMale]

Well GIMP I have stuffed in the trash, waste of my time, I installed Macromedia Fireworks and within 2 minutes of operation I had whacked out a nice gradient banner with the site logo on it... Tried doing that in GIMP and all I got was severe headaches, fed up of "Undoing" processes because it is not an easy image editor to use and it did not do the job.

Audacity, again, stuffed it in the bin and installed Sony SoundForge, now I can edit audio without any of my hard drive space being eaten up because Audacity can not clean up after it has messed itself.

Firefox, given up with that browser nannying me and blocking out stuff or stopping downloads and a friend who is a die hard firefox user has switched to Opera after a short stint on MSIE8 when he couldn't edit his site with FireFox.

The config file WAS empty and after allot of poking around I uploaded a copy from a back up that was full.

The issue in CMSMS I have experienced or rather am experiencing is nothing out of the ordinary and the attitude of the people helping is "A" typical and had I been given the info I requested instead of the run around, then I wouldn't be ranting about it would I. People don't generally moan of complain or rant if they have nothing to rant about do they, SO THINK ABOUT IT.

Need we continue indeed? You rack em up and I'll knock em down. ;)

SO back on topic, has the thread starter resolved the issue or are they still having issues I wonder?

[Robbe]

As of moving, installing or updating CMSMS you have to make sure all your file/folder permissions are correct, you have to change the urls and paths in config.php and you have to delete all the temp files in tmp/templates_c.

I've installed over 100 sites using CMSMS and it's userfriendly, search engine friendly and adpatable/expandable.

Please PM me if you're still stuck, and I'll help you.

[JunkMale]

AND What they do not tell you is that CMSMS relies heavily on Smarty, you have to dig up a thread that has calguy practically stating that CMSMS is a frontend and the workhorse is Smarty template engine.

I have had many issues with CMSMS and severe lack of help from the forum. Those that have answered posts are IMHO nothing more than aliases of the dev team.

I have noticed that they try to stear everyone in to paying for support. I have questioned these ethics with the FSF about the fact that they provide a forum but hardly assist with help. While I have no problem with people earning money, its the method employed in which your forced to pay up or your problem is not resolve.

I gave up wasting my time on them and I went instead to the Smarty Template Engine which is what CMSMS is built on and within 30 minutes I had the answer I needed and CMSMS forum dragged out an issue over 3 weeks and never answered my question and the only developer who posted an answer was more concerned with pulling me up over a comment that was basically a fact.

So heads up, IF you have CMSMS and are having issues with it, don't bother with CMSMS at first, get your heads in to Smarty and it will very likely have the answer for you, based on my experience, your less likely to get help and especially if your a n00b and more so if your NOT a developer, it appears that they only provide assistance to web developers, so take that as the bench mark to indicate how much help your likely to get.

I think what annoys me more is that I have spent time and provided bug fixes and warnings on code that posed a security risk and it seems to have just been blatantly ignored as these fixes have not shown up in the code at all. I still have to manually insert my fixes to resolve the problem. My attitude now is stuff CMSMS, I am getting hands dirty on the smarty code because that is all I cam seeing when I open up any randomly selected file that makes up the CMSMS code base.

Simply put, its a badge job.

[opifex]

You are always welcome to code your own CMS or modify any existing Open Source CMS to your liking.

[JunkMale]

You are always welcome to code your own CMS or modify any existing Open Source CMS to your liking.

Yep, this is true and what I have been doing, trawling through the code base to see what I can dump and remake in smarty directly.

[henris]

If you take an orignianl version of CMS Made Simple, it does not provide any config.php file. If it is a new installation, you should create one (with notepad f.i.) and leave it empty then save it under config.php.

If you don't do this, CMSMS will ell you that the connfig.php is missing. If it is there but empty, you will get the possibility through the install procedure to fill it in with the appropriate data.

I am not a CMSMS DEv, I use it for years to a lot of satisfied customers. So I don't think it was an error to do this. But I do understand that sometimes frustration leads to aggessivity. :-)

Don't get dispeared, just read the manual.

Henris (from Belgium)

[JunkMale]

LOL, read the manual... Thats what I did do and it told me nothing other than what was within the CMS itself and nothing to do with the issue at hand. To be frank, the CMS wiki is pathetic, it does not provide any user meaningful support. The support in the forum is atrocious and judging by my lurking, I see a pattern.

I have since ditched CMSMS after it got hacked (and I wonder who, not why or how as the hack forgot about the audit trail and modifaction I made to harvest IP addresses,etc.) so I have started to write my own bespoke version ground up so that I know what goes in, no backdoors and has some of the features of security I was requesting assistance with CMSMS but got blatantly ignored.

For me, CMSMS showed their true colours. All I can say is use it with caution and if you find all your service requests seem to be turning in to paid support... dot the i's and cross your t's because as sure as a cat is a feline, your being taken for a ride.

THAT is all I have to say on the matter.

[Jarrod1937]

LOL, read the manual... Thats what I did do and it told me nothing other than what was within the CMS itself and nothing to do with the issue at hand. To be frank, the CMS wiki is pathetic, it does not provide any user meaningful support. The support in the forum is atrocious and judging by my lurking, I see a pattern.

I have since ditched CMSMS after it got hacked (and I wonder who, not why or how as the hack forgot about the audit trail and modifaction I made to harvest IP addresses,etc.) so I have started to write my own bespoke version ground up so that I know what goes in, no backdoors and has some of the features of security I was requesting assistance with CMSMS but got blatantly ignored.

For me, CMSMS showed their true colours. All I can say is use it with caution and if you find all your service requests seem to be turning in to paid support... dot the i's and cross your t's because as sure as a cat is a feline, your being taken for a ride.

THAT is all I have to say on the matter.



I have not personally used cmsms so i can't comment on that, but judging from your other replies i'd have to say you just don't know how to use the various software you're talking about. As simple as that...
Hopefully no one here follows your advice, as cmsms may actually work for their project because they may use it correctly. And yes, security is a common issue with "all" software, as no software is 100% secure, if it is provided for free it is generally up to the developer to secure it, thats nothing new. On top of that it is often individual developers who setup such software incorrectly that cause those insecurities in the first place, i wouldn't be surprised if that was the case here.

[JunkMale]

I could work the thing perfectly fine TYVM.

As for your comments, laughable. The widget I wrote was simple, it took your IP address, the port, the requested URI and a couple of other nuggets of information directly from SMARTY which CMSMS is built upon and stuffed them in to a separate database.

I did the same for the other sites I help maintain and what do you know...

In short, I hit a raw nerve, they didn't like it, so they did something about it and if CMSMS want to say anything about it, well they know my email address as I have a log, not only data from the CMSMS databases but my own tracking system.

As for setting up software... Well lets put it this way, I installed CMSMS as it came out the box on the server as per install script supplied by CMSMS, so IF ANYTHING was off about it, the thing was "BUILT IN" form the beginning. So your comment and argument is mute.

You state that you have never used CMSMS but you sing their praises later in your comment about my inadequate or lack of understanding in its management...

Judging from you reply, you do not seem to know what your talking about.

No disrespect intended but until you have been on the receiving end of CMSMS support, you don't know jack.....

This is why I am specifically writing the "Admin" side of things so that it is impossible to hack, mainly because until editing is needed, no such URI for an admin path exists. I asked for simple information on where to find how to rewrite the URLS and I got told not to do that, why? Is it because they want access via the back door as a superuser?

[criterion9]

I could work the thing perfectly fine TYVM.

As for your comments, laughable. The widget I wrote was simple, it took your IP address, the port, the requested URI and a couple of other nuggets of information directly from SMARTY which CMSMS is built upon and stuffed them in to a separate database.

I did the same for the other sites I help maintain and what do you know...

In short, I hit a raw nerve, they didn't like it, so they did something about it and if CMSMS want to say anything about it, well they know my email address as I have a log, not only data from the CMSMS databases but my own tracking system.

As for setting up software... Well lets put it this way, I installed CMSMS as it came out the box on the server as per install script supplied by CMSMS, so IF ANYTHING was off about it, the thing was "BUILT IN" form the beginning. So your comment and argument is mute.

You state that you have never used CMSMS but you sing their praises later in your comment about my inadequate or lack of understanding in its management...

Judging from you reply, you do not seem to know what your talking about.

No disrespect intended but until you have been on the receiving end of CMSMS support, you don't know jack.....

This is why I am specifically writing the "Admin" side of things so that it is impossible to hack, mainly because until editing is needed, no such URI for an admin path exists. I asked for simple information on where to find how to rewrite the URLS and I got told not to do that, why? Is it because they want access via the back door as a superuser?

I think Jarrod was remarking on your various other threads where you appear to bash several other software packages because you admittedly don't understand them. You also went on a rant about Linux in general some time ago because it wasn't exactly the same as windows. I'm not saying CMSMS has good support in any way, just that I'd still take my chances if it fit the project well given your post history.

[criterion9]

In short, I hit a raw nerve, they didn't like it, so they did something about it and if CMSMS want to say anything about it, well they know my email address as I have a log, not only data from the CMSMS databases but my own tracking system.
JunkMale were able to trace the attacking IP addresses to CMSMS? This post sure suggests that to be the case.

[Jarrod1937]

Criterion understood more of what i was getting at. If you bash every software known to man its like the boy who cried wolf. Your previous bashing of many different types of software, for which many have had positive experiences with, lower your credibility when complaining about another piece of software, even if those complaints turn out to be legit. However, please don't take my comment personally (which you seem to since you even pm'ed me...). It was merely a remark from an outside observer, not a direct attack.
And lastly, no i wasn't defending cmsms, if you reread my post it states:
"Hopefully no one here follows your advice, as cmsms may actually work for their project", which means will it work for everyone and their projects? I don't know, but it was more so a suggestion that they try it themselves instead of being completely turned off by your posts.
"install script supplied by CMSMS"
Which may be true. Technically a lot of cart software packages come with installers too... but there is still plenty to do even after the installers have ran to get the software running optimally and securely. But as i said, i don't have personal experience with cmsms so i can't comment specifically on their software, i can only extrapolate from my past experiences with other packages.

[\\.\]

software is opensource.

so unless anyone looks at the codebase, you have no idea if a backdoor exists or not and it is always wise to assume that much.