Frameworks

How does open source fit into the enterprise architecture?

What is the best path for migration of proprietary legacy applications to open source?

What open-source alternatives exist for different proprietary products- and do they meet the enterprise needs?

What are the technical capabilities, features, and functions of various open-source applications?

What kind of support services exists for the open-source applications?

Midgard CMS is a comprehensive Content Management System. The features in Midgard CMS include the following:

Comprehensive authoring tools

Website management

Multilingual support

User management and access control

Web developement

(midgard-project.org)

Lou Rosenfeld is an independent information architecture consultant. He has been instrumental in helping establish the field of information architecture, serving as president of Argus Associates consulting firm from 1994-2001. With Peter Morville, Lou co-authored the best-selling book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O'Reilly), often known as the "Polar Bear" book.

CMSWATCH: How do you define Content Management?

CMSWATCH: So, where does IA end and CM begin?

by Tony Byrne (cmswatch.com)

You can find a variety of definitions of content management systems and portals, and most of them will overlap; hence so much confusion in the marketplace.

A portal generally delivers content so it can be consumed. But portal software packages typically aggregate content and data from a variety of locations, and in many cases, include search and collaboration services as well. A web content management system generally supports the production of content, but some CMS products deliver content as well, which can make them "portal-like". This is especially the case in the open-source world, where CMS packages often grew out of dynamic page delivery systems.

The "Nuke" variant of open-source portals is a classic example of a hybrid approach. Designed originally for community-oriented sites, nukes emerged to foster easy publishing of various different content types, but the key architectural consideration is that site visitors are often authors, and vice-versa. Nukes are also characterized by the plethora of other site-management and community tools that are typically woven into overall package. Think community website in a box.

This makes nukes ideal for certain types of sites, like fan clubs, or certain type of collaboration-oriented intranets where a wiki may be seen as to open-ended.

There are various flavors of nukes, some of them with long (and colorful) histories. DotNetNuke is simply a variant built on the Microsoft platform.

(cmswatch.com)

The distinction between "framework" and "product" is most pronounced in open-source community (c.f. the OSCOM matrix). People throw the two terms around loosely, but a framework typically represents a technology platform of base architecture, on which a CMS is a product (or several) can be built. I think this a useful distinction, commerical CMS products roughly divide along these lines too, although most vendors now avoid calling their offerings platforms in an era where "out-of-the-box" has became de rigeur.

The good news is that separating technology between underlying platform and more concrete products represents good architecture. The bad news is that frameworks are sometimes an excuse for not doing the hard (but essential) work of applying business context and real usability to the technology.

You will be hapiest with a platform if you have substantial developer resources, unusual or highly complex requirements, and suitable patience. If you want something quick to implement, that provides the basics (usually), and you are willing to sacrifice some functionality or features (ah... but which ones?), then a product might be better.

by (cmswatch.com)

After checking out the lastest WACT build from CVS, integration of AJAX functionality became a whole lot easier. This is a simple example of using the Prototype and Script.aculo.us javascript libraries to implement a rich UI with WACT. First of all, the controller itself:

<?php
?>

Here's our HTML template (application.html)

<?DOCTYPE html

?>

The script block bellow automatically performs the linking of the textbox (ac1), the AJAX request and the response container (ac1update). When the value of the textbox changes, the onChange() event will be triggered and the Prototype framework will compose a complete POST request to '/samples/controllers/application.php/search' will direct the request to the CommandController named 'search' that's been registered as the child of the root PathInfoDispatchController.
<script>

</script>

The results array will be populated in results.html

<list:list from="results">
</list:list>

The populated template will be sent back as the response to the POST request made by the autocompleter. Once the autocompleter receives the response from the server, it will insert the unordered list into the container specific (ac1update) as innerHTML.

And there you have it, Ajax goodness with WACT!

(www.phpwact.org)

You Aren't Going to Need It

"Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them."

Increase complexity

Close coupling of views and controllers to model

Potential for excessive updates

Close coupling between view and controller

(www.phpwact.org)

Substitutable user interface

User interface components

Multiple simultaneous views of the same model

Syncronized views

Easier user interface changes

Easier testing

(www.phpwact.org)

Typically each concern of the MVC triad has ties to a specific platform. It is possible to isolate these platform dependencies from the platform independent portions of the application by splitting each concern using the Bridge pattern.

(www.phpwact.org)