A real live use-case, from scratch

What's interesting is that it will be an installation from scratch, in a "cinema verite" approach where we will assume nothing and if we trip over things, we'll talk about them. We'll talk about what I hope to gain by using Mura, and why it seems a good fit.

Ee'll proceed each step of the way with me as the new user (I have never used Mura), the Mura guys as my trusty guides, and of course with people able to ask questions all along the way and hopefully learning for themselves as we go.

Though I've not yet used Mara (or any CMS), I've been a big fan for a couple of years, observing it from the outside. Indeed, I blogged about how very impressed I was with their site in my May 2008 entry "A CFML-based product that really gets how to win customers, and what we can learn from it". And then I've watched as a couple of the ColdFusion Meetup episodes recently had covered Mura.

Though I've never really considered a CMS for my site, as I saw all that was possible with Mura and how it allowed for integration of existing CFML, I started to wonder if it may make sense to consider it for my site.

Going about enabling a CMS for a hodgepodge site

My site really hosts a few things and therefore offers different challenges in considering enabling a CMS. And this is what we'll cover over the next few weeks.

Some parts are static while others are dynamic (database driven). Some are just long static lists (my articles and presentations). Similarly, the CF411 site (which redirects to a page on my site) is an even larger list.

Each has just grown over time and naturally I'd love to make them both database-driven and to have some sort of paging, categorized presentation, searching, and such, and Mura can provide that. It can also allow me to let others contribute (especially to the CF411 site), which is a natural fit for a CMS.

Of course, I could also enable such db-driven paging and user contribution by hand. Idneed I had done that already for another part of my site, my UGTV repository of links to hundreds of recorded CF presentations. I knew when I started that it would not only grow substantially and that it would require entry of data by others.

So besides wanting to add more dynamic (and user-contributable) features for the other "static" parts of the site, it would also be interesting to see if/how I might keep or change this existing CF-driven part of the site. FWIW, the CF-driven part does not use any framework, either, since it was really a smallish app.

Another thing I've long wanted to add with all these sections (articles, presentations, UGTV, and CF411) is the concept of a "Landing page", where each item could have a page with more detail about it as well as features like rating, commenting, recommended related items, and such.

Again, I could do that for the UGTV site since it was already DB-driven, but since I'd have to make the other three sections be DB-driven and I'd have to code that, I just started to wonder if a CMS may be the way to go.

Mura to the rescue, and a case study is born

I thought to ask the Mura guys about things, and they felt on the surface that it woudl be a good fit. They asked me to present a list of the things I'd be interested in adding (as well as preserving), and on reviewing it, they not only felt it would work fine, but that it would make a great case study for the Mura show. They knew me from the past CFMeetups and they sensed that I would welcome the chance to do all this live on a Connect session. I said I would, absolutely, as I was sure many would benefit from seeing such a raw, live presentation. As they thought it over, they decided to propose a few weeks (whether they happen consecutively is to be determined), and I was open to that, as well.

Indeed, I expressed how I preferred (with the extra time) that we really do do it from scratch, so that people see really everything entailed. And of course we'd introduce how we got to this point (what you've read above), how they think it can all be done, and then (once we do the install, all this in the first show), we would proceed in future shows to start really integrating the site into Mura.

I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope others will too.

Update: The recording is now posted and available.