What Exactly is Mambo?
Mambo is a collection of PHP scripts that run on a web server, connect to a database, and display the retrieved data in a systematic way. In other words, Mambo is a data-driven PHP web application.
Mambo can be downloaded for free, and then installed to your local machine for testing and development. The files and the database can be uploaded to a web-hosting service, so that your site will be available to anyone on the Internet. There are even web-hosting services that offer Mambo installation at the click of a button.
Component-Based Architecture
Mambo is built around a 'core' set of functions, which perform mundane tasks such as selecting what part of the application the user should be shown, checking who the user is, and what they can do on the site. What makes Mambo exciting to the world is its support for components. These are extensions to the Mambo core, and provide the real functionality of your site. Mambo's support for managing content comes from the Content component, and there are components for displaying news feeds, discussion forums, and galleries among others. These extensions can be easily configured, and new extensions can be added to the system.
There is no shortage of third-party components on the Internet, and you can find a Mambo component for almost any imaginable purpose.
Templated Interface
The look of a Mambo site is controlled by a template. This is a collection of images, styles, and other resources, together with instructions that determine the layout of the page. A new template can be selected, and your site will be transformed immediately. In fact, you can even apply different templates to different parts of your site, so that your site can have different looks across different pages should you wish.
User and Permission Management
Mambo allows users to create their own account on the site, and takes care of boring details like making sure users can get a new password when they forget their current one. Pages on the site can be restricted so that only certain types of user get to see them, and also, certain users can be given certain permissions so that they can add or edit content themselves. Instead of you having to do everything yourself, you can set up other people to help with the running of the site.