Using WB For User Input

[lanesharon]

First I wanted to ask if any of you are using WB for normal user input of pages?  I mean, not those in your development teams, but users who are just normal visitors to your website.  And I mean page input, not blog input.  If you have done this, please contact me so that I can see how you did this.

I am trying to test out the use of WB for a section of my Rare Cancer Website - Personal Stories.  This means I have to make it easy for users to input their stories on a regular page and to show up on an aggregator list page.  Sample of html version is here  --> Rare Cancer Stories

To do this, I am trying to limit the amount of steps they have to take to enter their story and to limit their ability to access anything else that might not be theirs. I am using fckeditor as my WYSIWYG.  I have setup an aggregator called Personal Stories, added the user group (with access to that aggregator section only), and added a user.

When the user signs on, everything works the way that I would like except one minor thing.  They login, click on Pages, page pops up that shows them everything on the site, but anything that they cannot access is greyed out.  One thing that I ran across while testing this. If I set up this user group, they are able to change the original Personal Stories aggregator through the Manage Sections link, even through I do not have Manage Sections checked in the usergroup Pages section.  If they click on the Change Settings on Personal Stories they get an error - Insufficient privelliges to be here.  Shouldn't it be the same for Manage Sections?

At this point, I wish WB could do two things:
1. Show just that Personal Stories aggregator on that list of pages
2. And/or have the Parent drop down menu default to Personal Stories for that group.

Granted, all other Parent options are greyed out so that they couldn't select them, but I am afraid these users will get confused.  It needs to be ASAP (as simple as possible).  If you have any suggestions about how to fix this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks for all of your help with this.

[doc]

Hello,

for this special purpose you should consider using a Blog sofwarte like Wordpress not a CMS.
However, on the Addons site there are some modules you could tweak to get what you want.

Regards Christian

[lanesharon]

I have the News (blog-like) module installed on the website I am testing on.  But, blog format is too constricting and I would still have the same problem of trying to make it simple for user input. 

I thought the main object of a content management system is to allow interactive use by a large number of contributors.  Can anyone suggest a CMS that would allow page entry, with aggregator styled links of all of those pages,  that is easy to use by users (not developers)?  If so, email me or PM me.  Thanks.

[DGEC]

It sounds like you want to let people post their stories automatically, but aggregated like you have currently.
Remember that you can restrict the editors stories or not, but like any "open to the public" page, you will run the danger of spammers. 

Your current method of having people email you their stories and you adding them is probably the best and safest idea. You can always allow people to register and then give them access to only their own page. I think you have to make them a group of one as well.


However, you may want to consider using a wiki if you are sure you want people to be able to write pages on their own. There are a variety of commercial and open source wikis out there, best to check out the features yourself.  I believe some of them allow moderators, which would prevent you allowing spam to be visible, you'd still have to delete it of course.

[lanesharon]

I wasn't going to let the public enter their stories, they can do that on the existing blog, if they want.  I will be setting up accounts for them, so I just thought about a way to do this.  I can setup an account for that user, set up their start page with a section that has a title, based on their diagnosis.  Then have them sign in and enter their story in the second section.  I will setup the page so it is not public, until I review it.  I think I am going to try it.  Wish me luck!

[DGEC]

If you don't mind setting up each user, that should be fine. Go for it!

Couple of things to remember:
1. Remember as I mentioned, unless you want to allow your users to be able to edit other people's page, you will need to put each user in a separate group.  (There might be a modified version out there already, not sure if it was ever finished.) You'll need to make sure they are only allowed access to the WYSIWYG module, the standard template, their one page, etc. 

Hmmm.... I think we need a "clone user" and "clone group" function. Copy page should be on the main page menu too. Anyway...

2. Use an "edit this page" link so they don't have to navigate to the proper Admin page. Tell them not to click on the top menu.

3. Did you look at the Manual module? It's not quite the same thing, but it may work for you.