Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

dropplets.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 103 posts

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#61

Post by testdrive5 »

dkuntz2 wrote: post #28
testdrive5 wrote: post #19

Can someone please tell me how this is different from Jekyll? They both work based on the same concept if I'm correct? Also, how about support for category pages? I mean, show a page full of posts from one particular category only? Possible??

They work on completely different concepts: Jekyll requires you to generate your site. Dropplets generates pages on each request. Jekyll runs on your machine, and is written in Ruby. Dropplets runs on your server, and is written in PHP. Jekyll's posts require very minimal metadata, and use a key/value pairing system with YAML. Dropplets' posts require a ton of metadata, and the same metadata for every post, and in a…

Thanks, that was very kind of you.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#62

Post by egsec »

Looks nice, nothing new - https://github.com/kolber/stacey - http://bolt80.com/piecrust/

The video was down for me, but maybe the uploader makes it easier then some other systems? When I try to teach non tech people to use a db-less CMS with no online admin, they get Markdown (they can at least copy and paste my example pages). But uploading files, WinSCP, FileZilla, etc and opening its NOT in word... this blows their minds. So if anyone has seen the uploader and it makes it super simple, it might be worth checking out.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#63

Post by rzimmerman »

This is very nice looking, but I have to nitpick about the "30 second" install. It takes 30 seconds, assuming you've already installed an operating system, a webserver, PHP, and set everything up securely. For a beginner that is really non-trivial. Still better than Wordpress, though.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#64

Post by [deleted] »

sequoia wrote: post #52

warning: typical HN nitpicking (I know, typical, but it was just my first reaction upon seeing the code & I want to be honest). I looked at the code and my first impression wasn't good. These are minor issues but such "smells" are red flags (to mix metaphors) and warn me away from the codebase https://github.com/circa75/dropplets/blob/master/index.php#L... } else if($_GET['filename'] == 'rss' || $_GET['filename'] ==…

[deleted]

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#65

Post by krapp »

Certainly, learning to use Composer (http://getcomposer.org) to manage the packages such as PHPass and Markdown and autoload will clean up a lot of the mess, also updating packages is as easy as running a shell command (or even in my case a batch file..)

I'm a bit worried about the amount of mixedin html and php I see too -- one of the benefits of sticking with an existing templating system (though people will say that's superfluous since PHP is a templating system) is that data passed into templates can be automatically escaped, whereas just mixing in adds the possibility of an xss issue.

It also looks like he's using index.php pages as a way to protect his files possibly? I think he need to look into proper .htaccess protection and url routing - ensure that only predetermined urls can even resolve to anything.

Overall it looks interesting and there's definitely a place for it conceptually but as others have pointed out, the style of PHP is a bit behind what's considered best practice. Still, that can be easily fixed.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#67

Post by ebbv »

TylerE wrote: post #59
ebbv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unique to PHP in any way shape or form.

Perhaps not, but PHP certainly makes it unusually easy.

I know this is a popular idea, but it's pretty easy to write terrible code in any language. See: most code.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#69

Post by unicornporn »

pioul wrote: post #33

The concept and simplicity make me think of Ghost's ( http://ghost.org/features/ ): free, open source, near-minimalist, and self-hosted. The seemingly only advantage is that Dropplets doesn't require a database, and its landing page is amazingly beautiful, clear, and to the point (though Ghost's "features" page is slick as well). On a more technical note, click events seem to be propagated up the player on the landin…

But Ghost uses node.js which almost nobody can actually host themselves, because the hosting that people already pay for doesn't (and perhaps wont) support it. Node may be hip and all, but PHP still seems like the right choice for something as simple as blogging software to me.

Re: Dropplets - A simple database-less CMS

#70

Post by chc »

unicornporn wrote: post #69
pioul wrote: post #33

The concept and simplicity make me think of Ghost's ( http://ghost.org/features/ ): free, open source, near-minimalist, and self-hosted. The seemingly only advantage is that Dropplets doesn't require a database, and its landing page is amazingly beautiful, clear, and to the point (though Ghost's "features" page is slick as well). On a more technical note, click events seem to be propagated up the player on the landin…

But Ghost uses node.js which almost nobody can actually host themselves, because the hosting that people already pay for doesn't (and perhaps wont) support it. Node may be hip and all, but PHP still seems like the right choice for something as simple as blogging software to me.

Almost nobody? A $5 virtual host can run Node.js.
Post reply on HN