Bricolage Content Management System

Bricolage module for Drupal: : Alan Dixon recently announced a Drupal module that allows an existing Bricolage-managed Web site to incorporate Drupal managed content into its pages. The current incarnation has been in use at The Tyee, a Vancouver-based daily news Web site, since late 2006. This module was commissioned and sponsored by The Tyee — so a special thanks to long-time Bricoleur Dawn Buie for pushing this development forward.

Implementing comments in Bricolage: Speaking of integrations, there was a good conversation on the mailing list about implementing user-submitted comments — a frequently sought after functionality — and it was concluded that there are several options for enabling comments on a Bricolage-powered site. To start with, there are stand-alone applications like the Perl-based Simple Comments and also commercial options like Pluck. Add to that a smattering of “Web 2.0” / Software as a Service options from startups like Intense Debate and Disqus and it’s starting to look like Bricoleurs have more options than one might have thought. And, just to make your head spin, Adeola Awoyemi and the team at Digital Craftsmen have even developed a 100% Bricolage-powered (complete with workflow and versioning) comment system for the Branded Content site.

Prominent, but anonymous art museum launches on Bricolage: People close to this project report that the museum’s Web department uses a customized version of Bricolage to automatically generate all pages associated with public events, including its online calendar of events and list of exhibitions. They also report that the museum developed an extension to Bricolage that enables users to enter event schedules in a structured fashion and developed code to automate the display of schedules in a variety of human-readable formats. Parties interested in learning more about this system can contact the maintainer via the Bricolage users mailing list at users@lists.bricolage.cc.

And, Bricolage insiders know that there will be two more Bricolage-powered sites launching in the next few weeks... So stay tuned for details.

Announcing BuildingBrics.com — a user-generated template repository: BuildingBrics.com is a place for Bricolage users to easily share their templates. Gossamer Threads have graciously offered to host this subversion repository and to help maintain it. Though sparse at the moment, we are confident that it will evolve into a lasting resource for those looking for the added functionality of a new template, or tips on using existing ones. Currently, the repository has a copy of the most recent bricolage.cc templates, and the templates found at http://bricolage.cc/templates/, and a smattering of documentation. So, here's the invitation: let's get our favorite templates committed and documented! Please see the Wiki or or e-mail the-oc@bricolage.cc for more information.

And a quick "Saludos!" to Ivan Chavero — a new Bricolage user based in Chihuahua, México. Ivan offered up a new theme song for Bricolage performed by his band sEIS pISTOS, and he is just one of the many fun and social folks who hang out in the #bricolage channel on irc.perl.org. As the saying goes: stay awhile, stay forever!