====== Museum management server ======
---- dataentry project ----
status_: active
oneline: software loadout for Lefranc museum management
----
As they move forward on the museum, I have been asked to provide software to help with administration. 

===== Planning =====
I have neither the time nor the desire to build any software from scratch for this, so I'll be looking for off-the-shelf solutions. [[https://omeka.org/|Omeka]] is a strong candidate for collection/exhibit management. It should also be capable of operating a mailing list through a plugin, but I doubt it will be able to handle accounting work. 

Alternatively, I could set up a more general CMS. I'm currently exploring [[https://wagtail.org|Wagtail]] for that purpose, which should allow me to present them with an extremely simplified user interface for day-to-day operations. It may even (with extra work on my part) offer some of the accounting features they want, all in a single package. There is also a plugin called [[https://github.com/neon-jungle/wagtail-birdsong|birdsong]] for creating email campaigns.

As is now my custom, I intend to install all software in Docker((I will probably have to make my own image and docker-compose file, as existing images on Dockerhub are severely out of date. Check out [[https://github.com/sunnythepatel/omeka-classic-docker-image|this repo]] for inspiration.)) behind an Nginx proxy. I also plan to offer my services as server admin on an ongoing (paid) basis, though I will **not** be playing daily help desk. 

==== Requirements ====
More details to come.

  * collection management
  * mailing list for newsletter
  * donation accountability

==== Wagtail ====
Wagtail sites are segmented into //apps//, subpackages of the main site. Each contains Django models, templates, static files, and site event handlers (hooks and signals). My initial thought is to have the following apps:

  * a blog-like ''news'' app for running the newsletter (bonus points if I can hook into birdsong to send a campaign each time a page is published to the news section)
  * a ''catalog'' app for storing information on the collection (think the bakery demo's breads section)
  * a ''home'' or ''main'' app to serve the homepage and link to relevant sections
  * a private area for accounting, etc?

Interestingly, a dockerfile is included as part of the base template created by the ''start'' command. I haven't combed through it in great detail, but it could be very useful for deployment.