Creating an offline Content management System

[adam405]

Come September i am about to under go my final year at university. I am being a good student and planning my final year project now.

I have thought about creating an offline content management system for a website. What i need is some guidance to see if my project is possible.

The Plan

I plan to use VB to create a little software package that will take the user through various step to create a simple web site. This will involve

1. Installing a database
2. choosing a template design
3. add content into the database
4. upload files onto a chosen web server

of course the above step are the minimal steps for creating a website.

The main questions i am faced with is

1. Can i use VB to control other programs? I.e. install the database without the user seeing anything to do with the database itself; it all happens behind the scenes.

Any help or suggestions are really appreciated.

[mendhak]

Alright, I'll bite.

Yes, you can use VB (what version?) to control other programs to a certain extent. Yes, you can install databases (what database server?) using different libraries provided to work with each. If you're talking about installing a database server itself, then that may have legal repercussions, since each customer would probably need a license to have, for example, SQL Server installed.

As for the rest of your requirements, yes that's possible, and there are many websites that already do the same. I don't know what version of VB you're talking about so I can't be more specific, but if you're using VB.NET and ASP.NET, then have a look at Themes.

[adam405]

Thanks for the reply mendhak. I dont have a version of vb installed at the moment.

I will look into VB.NET.

What do you think of the project idea?

I dont have much knowledge in VB at all. Can anyone recomend a good book or and website so i can begin to learn more.

Thanks

[Hack]

Welcome to the forums.

If you don't have VB, or have not studied VB, then why would you be planning on using it for a final project?

[adam405]

i have used it in the past a little.

I am studying systems design rather than computer science. For our project we can either design the system or create the system. To get a 1st when your only submitting a design is pretty unheard of. So therefore i want to make a system.

My programming knowledge is mainly Php and mysql.

I can make an online cms with php. But everyone does that for there final year project. Therefore i was going for something unique. I.e an offline CMS. I have done some reaseach into this which lead me to VB. Hence the reason why i am posting here.

Thanks

[Hack]

How are you in ASP?

[adam405]

Never used it. But i have plenty of time to learn.

[Hack]

Well, as this is going to be a web app, my suggestion would be ASP.NET

It has the benefit of being a web development platform, and something else you could add to your arsenal/resume.

[adam405]

ok thanks for the advice. How difficult do you think the project would be?

[Hack]

From a theoretical standpoint, everything is easy.

It would depend on how sophisticated you wanted it to be. In addition, there could be the licensing issues that mendhak spoke of.

Do you have a design yet, or are you just still thinking about it?

[adam405]

I am currently just thinking about it. I want to try and make a simple version first and then build on it later on.

With the licensing issue it shouldn't matter as i am using this for my personal use. Its not a commercial product.

Do you know of any good place to learn how to create an exe file