Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Pages: 1
#1 2009-06-16 19:27:23
- MNicholson
- New Member
- Registered: 2009-06-16
- Posts: 1
TextPattern as a VLE....
Hi
I am a web developer in a secondary school in England. We are currently looking into replacing our old intranet with a VLE, and have had a few demonstrations from companies, the latest which was today.
A lot of the VLE’s simply repeat what we have currently on on own website (which myself and another colleague have spent a few years developing, calendars, blogs etc), and so obviously it doesn’t seem worth it to invest £10,000’s for features which the school already have up and running and use regularly.
But we do need a system which can serve as a space for departments in the school to upload material for each lesson, upload homework, and also students to upload work for staff to see. We would also like the ability for students and staff to have different login areas (e.g. students taken to student homepage, staff to another etc.)
Would TextPattern help us with these?
Now I’m pretty well versed in programming, especially in PHP, which our own website is created in, but having something to install and then edit would be a great help, Ive read some good reviews of TextPattern, but if anyone could offer me any advice I’d be most grateful.
Thanks
Mark
Offline
#2 2009-06-16 19:41:28
- jpdupont
- Member
- Registered: 2004-10-01
- Posts: 752
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
Do you know the free claroline www.claroline.net ?
Offline
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
Big chunks of this are definitely do-able. There are a forms which behave like server-side includes. Your site also becomes searchable and flexible (The content’s in a database and pretty easy to build archive pages etc.). Articles are also time-stamped and can have an expiry date set, too, which I imagine you’d find useful.
You can easily devolve site-authoring to departments, too. (Surely a good thing). And calendars and all sorts of goodies are available as free plugins.
The clear demarcation between different parts of the site for staff/students might require a bit of work to get right… Yes, there are native levels of author from demi-god ‘author’ through to mere-mortal ‘staff-writer’. However, I guess you’d really want some groups only to be able to post to a particular section (You know Textpattern organises stuff around sections, right?)
There are a few password plugins around (as well as native support), but I anticipate this problem around students uploading to a specific part being a puzzle to figure out… (Anyone?)
My suggestion might be to see how far you can get in Textpattern – I imagine quite a long way – this forum’s a good place to ask about the specifics of where you get stuck. (Textpattern is a very elegant tool to use, but might be a bit lightweight for all of your needs). And then if you really can’t plug the gaps then maybe it’s Drupal or Joomla for you… (Or spend $$$ with a nice, shiny VLE. Obviously)
Hope that helps!
Offline
#4 2009-06-18 07:11:25
- jpdupont
- Member
- Registered: 2004-10-01
- Posts: 752
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
Excuse my bad english. Difficult to explain exactly what I mean.
Like Mark, I’m a teacher in a secondary school, in Belgium. I build also sites for customers. I’m the webmaster of my school sites.
For all my new sites I use Textpattern. I move actually the main site of my school from expressionengine to textpattern.
Actually, as many projects in the school have a website, I build a new TXP installation for each project.
One install and many sites would be here very helpfull.
TXP is awesome for many things, like your main site or groups/projects sites. But for a real VLE, use a real VLE app. Many VLE apps are free, like claroline. It’s very painfull to try to build an entire VLE with TXP+plugins. But with some PHP/TXP experience, It’s possible to mixt the best of all the apps.
Offline
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
jpdupont wrote:
I move actually the main site of my school from expressionengine to textpattern.
EE to TxP, interesting.
I also agree with the right tool for the job, there are many learning apps to choose from.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
Offline
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
An Aside
jpdupont wrote:
One install and many sites would be here very helpfull.
Have you checked out the latest svn yet? It can run multiple sites from a single install, and testing is needed :)
Offline
#7 2009-06-18 15:01:36
- jpdupont
- Member
- Registered: 2004-10-01
- Posts: 752
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
Yes, I would be happy to test multiples sites from a single install, but as I’m on a shared hosting, I have no possibilities to create symlinks etc.
Actually, I have :
- mysite.be = school main site.
and
- mysite.be/cta
- mysite.be/1d
- mysite.be/ctnnl
- mysite.be/project4
- mysite.be/…
= a few TXP installations to drive many school projects.
Each project is driven by a private owner, and must have his own txp admin.
It would be fine to allow this with one txp install.
Is it possible with a shared hosting ?
Offline
Re: TextPattern as a VLE....
jpdupont wrote:
Is it possible with a shared hosting ?
I haven’t tried a multi-site/single install yet, so I can’t answer you for certain.
So that we don’t hi-jack the thread, it would probably be best to ask in this thread
(and there is this old how-to)
Offline
Pages: 1