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Flat File Mini CMS in PHP

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mouser:
have you always dreamed about making your own CMS (content management system)?

we are looking for someone to make a really minimal cms system in php, which uses flat files.

volunteers?

allen:
Flat files, my favorite :) Depending on just how mini it is, I may be able to help. I've been a bit busy the last few weeks but things are, hopefully, slowing down!

mouser:
allen!!!
we miss you in the irc channel!!!!  :-*  :tellme:  :-*

Eóin:
Did you ever look into CMSimple?

mouser:
cmsimple is too simple (All the content in CMSimple is stored in one long file, CMSimple uses the H1, H2 and H3 buttons to divide the text into a sequence of 'virtual pages'. )

here is what i was thinking: less a cms than a template-driven website builder.

basically the idea would be to build a directory tree in a special directory, with content files that can use template variables for menu navigation bars, etc.

and then the cms builder will scan this content tree and build the public_html website by parsing the content files and generating php or html files as the case may be.

so the key features are:
1) the website builder will build static pages (either html or php or whatever the case may be for different files)
2) but it will use some flexible templates and variable expansions to allow it to properly create hierarchical menus and navigation bars automatically.
3) and it will auto discover the tree-based structure of the website based on the content tree.  so if you add a new subdirectory, it will be picked up in the builder and navigation menus will reflect it.
4) we will add special template variable relacement that can grab posts and thread info from the forum.
5) we will add special template variable replacement stuff that will make it easy to do things like create a software hierarchy section like you see here:  https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/index.html
that is, it will be able to grab thumbnails from subdirectories to be able to present a nice list on the parent page.  ie you will be able to say, on the parent page, show an entry for each subdirectory, grabbing the thumbnail and summary for each subdirectory.

i want to use smarty templates as the foundation of template expansion: http://smarty.incutio.com/?page=FrontPage
it looks perfect for the job.

so in other words the idea is to be able to build a public_html static page website from a simple content hierarchy.  and we need to be able to on demand say to rebuild a specific page or subtree.  we will use this to retrigger building pages when content on the page changes (like a page that shows some embedded forum posts).

another way to look at this is that this is the BACKEND page generation system of a cms.  the actual user management and content creation stuff is not adresses by this builder tool.  but i think this offers the most important aspect of the cms that we need.  and then we can add on some mini content creator stuff that triggers rebuilding later (like fckeditor or using forum posts as content).

see also this thread: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=3689.0

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