Large News organizations use big apps to separate the DHTML of a news site, from the content that a reporter plugs into a news editor format. These packages are large, pricey and heavy stuff to set up.
A News site takes 2-3 changes a day to keep up, so it is unrealistic to do it by hand. The layout and links that go with each news article need to be tied to that news article, so basically one needs a story book editor, with a bunch of check boxes, for subject, topic area, include which links, etc. The DHTML needs to provide the layout, time or date, and standard other DHTML entities and links on all pages.
Even a small news site needs this level of automation -- yet I have never been able to find a news site program to help automate this for a writer, a package designed for a small site, maybe only 1-2 editors.
**** BBS, CMS, Blog and portal software don't cut it for these needs ***
Others that DON'T cut it -- DynaPortal, Smarty, P2P, Mambo, Typo, + other standard CMS / DB software
The writer handles only the news story content and related pictures, nothing else, no layout, no DHTML -- the server pages plug in all DHTML code for the page, the story goes into an IFRAME on demand.
Monthly costs like Bondware's online newspaper software are out of the question for a small news site. Most CMS systems are database oriented and that is not the way to go for a small news site. The entire thing can be done with a series of DHTML in PHP pages, a few time and date functions, and maybe a database or server file of inter-links. A lot is pre-done DHTML - some the writer checks for his article.
I can't find anything to suit. Maybe you would be interested to help. I don't mind if you google around for some links, but please, only really relevant ones. The cost is preferably free, no monthly fees and with PHP code that is customizable -- this is essential to any front end, you have to customize it.
It must auto-upload to a server or be online .... news editors know nothing about web design or upload.
You could look here for ideas -
http://www.scripts.com/php-scripts/news-publishing-software/5/the preference is to avoid any reliance on MySQL or SQL databases -- too much DB maintenance.
TIA for some thought, ideas, effort on this tough question.
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