Ultimately, almost every website is a collection of HTML pages. While it is possible to manually write all of your own HTML, doing so requires extensive technical knowledge and is not needed for most sites. A variety of tools have been created that take care of most technical aspects of web publishing, allowing you to focus on creating web content. If you’re nonetheless interested in HTML and its related languages, JavaScript and CSS, read our web content help page.
Use open source tools
We strongly recommend using open source tools, hosted on our own server, whenever possible. Open source software is free, but, even more importantly, its source code is freely available. By downloading an open source application and hosting it on the NML server, you can ensure long term access to your work, even in cases where the open source software project ends. If the company behind a proprietary application goes out of business, stops supporting a product, or suddenly changes access to their tools, you may lose your work.
Cloud storage, social media, and streaming service risks
Cloud storage, social media integration, and media streaming services can be quite useful, but be careful how you store, share, and plan to access all third party tools. Even successful free web services have a history of changing access and terms of use with little or no warning. In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram and asserted a right to use or possibly sell users photos. In December 2013, Flickr suddenly modified its embedding code, adding a Flickr logo on all embedded content, among other changes. Google has a long history of closing services.
Especially for sharing large and streaming media, you may decide to use services such as Soundcloud, YouTube, and Vimeo. However, remain familiar with the services’ terms of use, and be certain that you retain rights to your work (at least to the extent you like or will need for future publication). Also make sure you have copies of your cloud-based work, including metadata, so you’re not locked into a particular service. If your online work will become part of your ingested dissertation or thesis, be sure your site has a built-in backup plan, since the library’s archived copy will almost certainly outlive your streaming service. Ask NML staff if you’re concerned about choosing a streaming content provider or fully backing up the work you upload to one.
Content management systems
Most websites created at the New Media Lab are built using a content management systems (CMS). A CMS allows you to manage the look, functionality, and content of your website while requiring little or even no coding knowledge. Choosing a CMS that fits your needs is particularly important. Some CMSs, such as Drupal, are extremely flexible, allowing you to customize almost all aspects of your site, but, because these systems make few assumptions for you, they require more technical knowledge and more planning and can be rather complex to configure and to maintain. Other CMSs, such as WordPress and Omeka, are built with more specific goals. They’re more immediately ready to handle certain tasks but sometimes more difficult to expand beyond their developers’ original concepts.
NML staff are available to discuss your site goals and which CMSs you might want to consider. The following are just a few of the tools that can be installed on the NML server, but they’re among the best for most projects at the lab.
WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs in the world and at the NML. WordPress began as a blogging platform but has evolved into a more feature-rich CMS. It has one of the largest software user communities, and if you ever need outside help, it’s generally easy to get a response on the wordpress.org forum.
WordPress is excellent at managing pages of content, blogs, and similar text content. However, its built in search and media managing features are quite basic, and, because its database is optimized to store and retrieve text-based articles, it has extremely limited support for metadata. WordPress sites are often easy to customize and can be expanded in many ways. WordPress.org publishes thousands of free themes, and more still are available for purchase. While there are tens of thousands of plugins, using more than a few on a site can easily cause complications. WordPress also allows for easy collaboration with teams of authors, editors, and/or bloggers. However, options for customizing user access rights in WordPress are limited. For example, it would be difficult on a WordPress site to set up teams of editors each with access to only certain groups of articles. We like WordPress’ ease of use and highly recommend it for many purposes, but for digital archives and structurally complex sites, we often recommend a different approach.
Omeka
Omeka is a digital archiving and cataloging CMS built by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Omeka is a popular choice at the NML for a variety of document collections. Omeka includes built-in support for the Dublin Core metadata schema, making it an excellent choice for digital archiving and cataloging. Cataloged items can be grouped into digital collections and, with the help of plugins, other formats. Like WordPress, Omeka can be customized with free themes, though there are relatively few options. We recommend Omeka for digital archives and document collections, but its focus makes it unhelpful for other types of websites. Some NMLers have created both Omeka and WordPress sites, with links between content on each.
Mediawiki
Mediawiki is the open source software on which Wikipedia runs and is released by the Wikimedia Foundation. Mediawiki installations generally look and feel very much like Wikipedia and function quite similarly. Depending on a site’s goals, this can make the site look familiar and accessible or can make the site appear “to much like Wikipedia.” Mediawiki can be configured in myriad ways, including to require user registration, so its use does not necessarily require your site to be as open to public edits as Wikipedia. Mediawiki’s primary strength is that it enables collaborative writing. Mediawiki supports extensions but their installation process requires more tech savvy than that of WordPress or Omeka.
Drupal
Drupal is among the most adaptable content management systems. Drupal is built out of a number of modules, which can be added and removed as well as substituted for or extended by one another. This flexibility makes Drupal quite powerful but can also make it overwhelming for many purposes. We don’t recommend Drupal for most sites, but for extensive projects or anything requiring a custom database or unique metadata schema, it can be an excellent CMS.
Other tools and plugins
We plan to continue to update this page with specific recommendations of tools NMLers have found useful. Please let us know if you have suggestions or questions.