Tried to write a book on Java based CMS – Magnolia, but…

Balaji D Loganathan

1 min read


Few months back, Me and a colleague of mine (Ganesh Gembali) came up with an idea of writing a book on Magnolia CMS – a Java based CMS.
Well!, two potential International publishers after rigorous reviews & mails said, they dont see big market for Magnolia CMS books compared to books on Drupal & Mamboo.

We are bit sad, but atleast we thought we would share the table of contents that we attempted for. Please feel free to use it for future book writings on Magnolia.
They very much appreciated by quality of the table of contents and the snippets.

Table of contents

Chapter 1 – Introduction to
Content Management System

  1. What is Content
  2. Why content should be
    managed?
  3. How content is managed by
    CMS
  4. Difference between CMS and
    custom web applications
  5. List of existing content
    management system tools
  6. Summary

Chapter 2 – Getting started
with Magnolia CMS

  1. Overview
  2. Installation
    1. Simple war based
      installation
    2. Maven 2 based build and
      install
  3. Installation Trouble
    shooting
  4. Understanding how Magnolia
    CMS works
  5. Creating a Hello world web
    page
  6. Modules of Magnolia CMS
  7. Directory structure of
    Magnolia CMS
  8. Features of Magnolia CMS
  9. Summary

Chapter 3 – Creating a simple
website with Magnolia CMS

  1. Difference between static
    website and template driven website
  2. Building a website layout
  3. Choosing a template and
    adding contents
  4. Publishing the website
  5. Summary

Chapter 4 – JCR and Magnolia
CMS

  1. Introduction to Java
    Content Repository (JCR)
  2. Component of JCR
  3. Features of JCR
  4. Repository structure
  5. How Magnolia uses Jackrabbit
    – JCR Implementation
  6. Repository structure and
    Node types in Magnolia
  7. Summary

Chapter 5 – Administration of
Magnolia CMS

  1. Introduction
  2. User Management
  3. Backing up Contents
  4. Resource management
  5. Configuring Repository with
    various databases
  6. Migrating Contents
  7. Configuring subscribers
  8. Summary

Chapter 6 – Creating Magnolia
Templates

  1. Introduction
  2. Understanding the
    Configuration module
  3. Creating a page template
  4. Creating a dialog
    1. Understanding Dialog
      controls
    2. Using different controls
  5. Creating a paragraph
    template
  6. Testing and using the templating
    components
  7. Summary

Chapter 7 – Templating
Resources

  1. Using JSPX for templating
  2. Using Magnolia Tag
    libraries

    1. CMS – Core Tag Library
    2. CMSU – Utility Tag Library
  3. Using Magnolia Java API
  4. Improving sample website
  5. Summary

Chapter 8 – Advanced
Templating

  1. Modifying existing modules
  2. Content Aggregator
  3. Creating RSS feeds
  4. Pagination
  5. Form Handling
  6. Multipart form handling
  7. Email service
  8. Generating sitemap
  9. Dynamic page linking
  10. Summary

Chapter 9 – Advanced Topics

  1. Configuring the Workflow
  2. Configuring FckEditor
  3. Custom Dialogs
  4. Custom Controls
  5. Internationalization
  6. Customizing admin interface
  7. JCR Browser
  8. Repository querying
  9. Summary

Appendix A:

  1. Integrating with
    Postgressql / MySQL
  2. Externalizing repository
    properties
  3. Bootstrap based migration
  4. Using the sample
    application from the CD


style=’page-break-before:always’>

Topics
idea box that may or may not be moved to ToC:

  • Security
    Features
  • JSR173
    API for data retrieval/manipulation
  • Pros /
    Cons of Magnolia vs Other
  • Additional
    features of Magnolia Enterprise Edition
  • Depoyment/Administration
    of multiple sites through single Magnolia Server ?
  • Metadata,
  • Content
    Types,
  • Workflow,
  • Authorizations
    and access control,
  • Personalization,
  • Content
    lifecycle
Balaji D Loganathan
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11 Replies to “Tried to write a book on Java based CMS…”

  1. Too bad, mamboo drupal & al are php based and i stay away from php… I am desperatly trying to find a good book on java / CMS and only find about openCMS, not sure if this is JCR compliant. I agree that Magnolia is still new/unmature, maybe covering larger such as JCR, JSR-170, CMS products would be more sellable ?

  2. Thanks for sharing this. I understand the publishers; the market for the mass-market systems is bigger and mainstream publishers look at the mass market only.
    However, the need for such a book is there and if you wish to sell it you don’t have to go through a publisher. A joint deal with Magnolia itself would be much more lucrative anyways, as you will not get more than say 3$ from a main stream publisher per book, so you need to sell an awful lot to make it worth the effort. At the same time, most of the potential readers will visit the Magnolia home page and could order it via a fulfillment or print-to-order shop.
    I have also contacted Ganesh about it, so if you are still interested we might be interested as well 😉

  3. Magnolia is neither new (happy 5th birthday this month) nor immature. It is an amazing marriage between usability and enterprise readiness, and our impressive and quickly growing list of high-profile clients proves that.
    Regarding JCR-170 book – that’s a different topic and will be rather useless for normal Magnolia users this proposed book was aiming at.

  4. A demonstration of Magnolia was given at the Orange County Java User Group in November. I was very impressed by what Magnolia can do. You have to make sure you cover Workflow in the book. An approval workflow is important in today’s corporate web sites. Why anybody would use anything but Magnolia for web site creation and maintenance is beyond me. Maybe you can practice you writing skills and put a chapter or two out on the web. If you decide to write a book on a different subject the feedback may be helpful.

  5. I’Hi, I’m using Magnolia CMS about a two weeks, but I can’t find some resources that a I can apply, and I get some errors that I can’t face, in the content of this book I find the topics that I need for my own need, Can you help me to getting started with this CMS, I dont know how to integrate Postgres SQL with Magnolia, I don´t find information on internet… 🙁
    I’m using Sun Application Server 9.2 (Glassfish) and I can´t activate elements from the admin console, seems that is an error with the configuration of the subscribers… but anywhere I find enought information even the Magnolia web site! The documentation is tooo poor… It’s a shame…
    Cal you help me?
    Thaks for your reply, mi email is:
    midireccion6@gmail.com

  10. Very useful information. Thanks for this. You got a great blog .I will be interested in more similar topics.I’m very interested in CMS and all its related subjects.

  11. can please tell me where these book is available , Two publishers which are mentioned above i am not getting these book . Can please share me , where exactly it is available .Thanks In advance

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