Sitellite 4.2 Content Management System – A Review
Ever since January 2001, web services company Simian Systems Inc (http://www.simian.ca) has marketed their own brand of custom developed content management solutions called Sitellite. Now, Simian Systems unleashes the much anticipated 4.2 version of their Content management suite of software called the Sitellite 4.2 Content Management System (http://www.simian.ca/index/sitellite).
In case you have been living in a box somewhere, Sitellite is a powerful and popular content management system solution and application development framework built in PHP and uses the Apache web server to operate. The typical database back-end is MySQL, although the Enterprise Edition of Sitellite gives system administrators other options when connecting their DB up with Sitellite, including Oracle™, Microsoft SQL™, and other open source databases such as PostgreSQL.
Sitellite 4.2 has an intuitive user interface, using the revolutionary XED 2 WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) page editor. After logging in to your website, XED 2 (pronounced Zed) allows website writers to edit all the images, pictures, graphics and text on their website and even allows copy and pasting text from their favourite word processor from an easy to use web interface. XED keeps a record of all of your changes and allows you to go back previous versions at any time, and also includes a 25 level undo/redo per web editing session. Sitellite 4.2 Professional and Enterprise editions also offers web novices the freedom to add new navigation at the click of a button, add tracking metrics, polls, discussion forums, Blogs, event calendars, manage email-based marketing campaigns, slideshows, and automate the publishing of your changes at a future time and date. Sitellite 4.2 is easy to use and any manager or admin assistant can edit their own website without the need to call for tech support.
How is all this possible? The Sitellite Application Framework (or SAF) is the engine behind the new technology. The SAF allows web developers to add any functionality into Sitellite using over a hundred well documented, standards compliant programming libraries. These PHP classes make up the core of Sitellite itself and provide reusable, generic components for building any type of web application.
Also new in Sitellite 4.2 is an advanced revision control system called Rex to replace the previous versioning system. Rex offers far more in terms of functionality and flexibility than most versioning systems. Some of the key new features in Rex include: drivers for separate revision stores and drivers for separate collection sources. A source is the location and format of the data that you want to keep versions of changes to. Rex allows you to attach revision control to any data source, provided a driver exists, without requiring any changes at all to the data source of the collection. So if you want to manage a remote FTP server's contents through the Sitellite Control Panel, including a complete revision history for each file, all you need to do is write the driver. This opens a world of possibilities not so readily available in other revision control systems.
Also new in Rex is “Facet” control. A facet is a field that is configured to be searchable in the Sitellite Application Framework and allows you to quickly perform compound search queries on large collections in seconds and with unparalleled simplicity. For example, say you want to search for products in the Sports section between $10 and $20 in price, with a status of "Archived". This would be a matter of just a few clicks. This can make the need for reporting also less important, since it can practically double as a reporting utility. And the best part about it is, the more content the more useful you'll find this idea of facets. Finally, Rex boasts tight integration with Sitellite, including the Scheduler, and SiteSearch, via simple INI-formatted configuration files.
Another new feature in Sitellite 4.2 is the ability to dynamically generate a series of objects and their relationships based on the saf.Database.Generic package and its capabilities. What this means is that you can perform dynamic object-relational mapping, including proper management of the relationships between objects/tables, with the code generated automatically for you.
Generic makes it very easy to create applications quickly and with very little code. Plus, code based on Generic has the following additional benefits: the code is highly readable: Generic makes your code transparent and obvious in its purpose. It’s highly object-oriented: Generic makes MVC-structured applications the norm. The code is highly reusable: API's based on Generic all provide a standard set of methods, and being object-oriented and based on Sitellite, are easily reused anywhere in Sitellite or outside of it via SAF. All in all, Generic makes the already advanced Sitellite Framework truly revolutionary, and even more flexible.
In short, Sitellite 4.2 is a dream come true for managers, content writers, and developers alike. The Sitellite 4.2 Content Management System can handle any website - from small NPO projects to large corporate or governmental institutions, Sitellite 4.2 has the ease-of-use, and the application interface for any project.
Contact Simian systems today for more information at
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