looking for components for a site

[weeDiddy]

I'm relatively new to vb.net and I'm involved in a project to rebuild a website for the charity that I work for. At the moment its a collection of information pages, it does have some directories but thats about it. What we want to do is add components like; a forum, a faq section, we need log ins and separate sections for differrent user groups, I would like to be able to add content management functionality to some of our users so they can create edit and update there own pages with approval from head office. What I think I'm probably looking for is an open source content management system like dot net nuke, what I need is some advice as to how difficult it would be to implement such a system or if I would be better seeking each component from third party vendors. Any help would be appreciatted

 

[TechGnome]

You're better off getting an existing third party CMS (content management system). Nearly all that I have seen though, are PHP based, not ASP. Xoops is one, Joomla another, as well as the nuke family.

-tg

 

[weeDiddy]

Thanks tg, could you give me your opinion on how difficult these cms's are to implement(I know its a very general question), would it easy for the complete non programmer, only possible with some knowledge or best left to expert? Or if anyone has experience of any one of the above mentioned I would be very interested to find out how they got on.

 

[TechGnome]

It's simply the amount of effort and data that needs to be dealt with.... there's the content itself, users, authors, comments. And then security, who can post what, edit this or edit that.... not to mention preventing what's known as SQL Injection attacks, where people can destroy your database simply by fooling it with the right text. Look at system like Joomla, Xoops and WordPress, and you'll see what I mean.... they've all been around for years, have had dozens of people working on them, and they are still not complete, and still have bugs from time to time.

-tg