Choosing components for new project - beast, mephisto,?

I’m starting a new project which will have need the following
functionality to start:

  • basic cms
  • forum
  • review tools

For the forum it looks like beast is the answer, or maybe savage beast
(http://www.nnovation.ca/2007/5/18/savage-beast) if its any easier to
implement.

For the cms I’d appreciate some input. Choices are mephisto, radiant or
maybe even comatose. Any feedback on ease of integration with those
would be appreciated.

The review tools I guess I’ll be building myself.

Future plans for the app include a big social networking component, ala
facebook.

I haven’t done any programming with Rails for months, so ease of use and
speed with which I can get up and running are important.

Any opinions or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Nick

Nick C. wrote:

For the cms I’d appreciate some input. Choices are mephisto, radiant or

Any opinions or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
Nick

Actually, I’m looking at something similar myself (not a facebook like
site though) and am torn between the options. So far, it seems that
Radiant is a good bet for the CMS aspect of the site. It seems to be
(relatively) easier to extend and interface Radiant with other Rails
apps. Also, Radius seems to be reviewed quite well in what I have
found.

I’m considering RForum or Beast/ Savage Beast for the forum in my
arrangement to be coupled with a wiki - right now, informl seems to be a
good choice for it.

I haven’t yet started to look at it closely enough to figure out how all
these will play together along with a decent single sign-on arrangement
(for the apps). Unfortunately, things that pay my bills (= not web
related work) are preventing me from playing with this project.

By the way, what kind of review tools are you planning?

Cheers
Mohit.

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Rick O. wrote:

own thing. I like this approach because I can mess with one app
without disturbing the others. As for single sign on, not that it’s a
big deal, but you can use OpenID. Beast supports it now, and I’m
hoping someone will submit a Mephisto patch for it Though, it’s
looking like I’ll have to do that one day. Though honestly with a
decent password manager, multiple passwords are not a big deal for me.

Thanks Rick. What you suggest is in line with what I’m considering.
Personally, I haven’t seen Lighthouse yet - what do you use that for?
I’m thinking of OpenID as one solution too - I don’t personally care
about having multiple passwords, but I think people who will see my site
as some kind of portal would like to have 1 account that lets them get
into the wiki, the forum, their personal account, etc.

Any reason you prefer Mephisto over Radiant? I’ve actually been
struggling with mephisto for my personal technical blog
(notepad.onghu.com )

Cheers
Mohit.

I haven’t yet started to look at it closely enough to figure out how all
these will play together along with a decent single sign-on arrangement
(for the apps). Unfortunately, things that pay my bills (= not web
related work) are preventing me from playing with this project.

By the way, what kind of review tools are you planning?

I keep those functions all separate. Mephisto handles the blog and
the ‘brochure site,’ Beast is the forum, and then Lighthouse is its
own thing. I like this approach because I can mess with one app
without disturbing the others. As for single sign on, not that it’s a
big deal, but you can use OpenID. Beast supports it now, and I’m
hoping someone will submit a Mephisto patch for it Though, it’s
looking like I’ll have to do that one day. Though honestly with a
decent password manager, multiple passwords are not a big deal for me.


Rick O.
http://lighthouseapp.com
http://weblog.techno-weenie.net
http://mephistoblog.com

Rick O. wrote:

hacking. I’ve integrated rforum, typo, and instiki before, which all
have vastly different user models. It’s all a big hack though, which
is why I prefer keeping it separate. Using hyperlinks and similar
templates for integration seems to be a more sensible solution to me.

I agree with you, though I fear that I may have to visit the

Any reason you prefer Mephisto over Radiant? I’ve actually been
struggling with mephisto for my personal technical blog (notepad.onghu.com )

I wrote mephisto, so I of course think it kicks ass :slight_smile: Radiant’s fine too.

My apologies - I hope I didn’t come across as rude cos I didn’t mean to
and I do appreciate Mephisto’s simplicity! At least that answers one
question that I had in my mind - why does the name ‘Rick O.’ sound so
familiar? :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers
mohit.

Thanks Rick. What you suggest is in line with what I’m considering.
Personally, I haven’t seen Lighthouse yet - what do you use that for?
I’m thinking of OpenID as one solution too - I don’t personally care
about having multiple passwords, but I think people who will see my site
as some kind of portal would like to have 1 account that lets them get
into the wiki, the forum, their personal account, etc.

Lighthouse is my main app. But, I’m not going for a completely
integrated experience. However, it’s not tough to do with some
hacking. I’ve integrated rforum, typo, and instiki before, which all
have vastly different user models. It’s all a big hack though, which
is why I prefer keeping it separate. Using hyperlinks and similar
templates for integration seems to be a more sensible solution to me.

Any reason you prefer Mephisto over Radiant? I’ve actually been
struggling with mephisto for my personal technical blog (notepad.onghu.com )

I wrote mephisto, so I of course think it kicks ass :slight_smile: Radiant’s fine
too.


Rick O.
http://lighthouseapp.com
http://weblog.techno-weenie.net
http://mephistoblog.com

Rick O. wrote:

I keep those functions all separate. Mephisto handles the blog and
the ‘brochure site,’ Beast is the forum, and then Lighthouse is its
own thing. I like this approach because I can mess with one app
without disturbing the others. As for single sign on, not that it’s a
big deal, but you can use OpenID. Beast supports it now, and I’m
hoping someone will submit a Mephisto patch for it Though, it’s
looking like I’ll have to do that one day. Though honestly with a
decent password manager, multiple passwords are not a big deal for me.

I’ve scoured the beast forums for integration experiences and there seem
to be a few different approaches, with none emerging as a clear “best
practice”. I know you favour the separate sub-domains approach but
that’s not going to be possible with our site. Rick, what’d be your 2nd
best choice?

  1. Install beast, integrate mephisto and the rest
  2. build app, integrate beast and mephisto
  3. install mephisto, integrate beast and the rest

Cheers
Nick

On 21-May-07, at 6:32 AM, Nick C. wrote:

looking like I’ll have to do that one day. Though honestly with a

  1. Install beast, integrate mephisto and the rest
  2. build app, integrate beast and mephisto
  3. install mephisto, integrate beast and the rest

Cheers
Nick

Hey Nick - I’d like to provide the use cases that for which I built
Savage Beast.

  • Tightly integrated forum(s) - visually, single sign-on, domains, etc.
  • Many many forums - N forums associated with more than 1 Model

The Soup creates forums for each person to project match - using the
forum for private project conversations.

So with Savage Beast you essentially get the Beast with 3
capabilities that satisfy the above:

  1. Stripped out user authentication - this belongs in the application
  2. A polymorphic Owner association - join forums to whatever Model
    you want (belongs_to :owner, :polymorphic => true)
  3. Leverage the rails engines plugin - permitting you to over-ride MVC

Other than the above, you’re getting stock Beast - I propose that if
like Best, and you have the above use cases, Savage Beast should
bring joy.

I must say that the above would not be possible without a well
designed forum - for which Beast is. It does what it does simply, for
which SB would not be possible.

Feel free to email me if I can help any.

cheers, Jodi
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