phpWebsite Web Hosting

phpWebsite Web Hosting

phpWebsite is a complete website content management system (CMS) provided by Electronic Student Services at Appalachian State University. It is considered to be a Free and Open Source Software and is licensed under the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL. This system was founded and hosted by the Web Technology Group at Appalachian State University; phpWebSite is developed by the phpWebSite Development Team, a network of developers from around the world. The system allows a seamless web based administration to further facilitate easy maintenance of interactive, community driven web sites. The system’s modules are forever growing; to further enhance its functionality which allows easy site customization without the need for unwanted or unused features. The client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative requirements.

PhpWebSite first began with the release of its version 0.7.0 on January 29, 2001 as a fork of Phpnuke. Then a complete rewrite of PhpWebSite was done in March 2002, in order to remove all Phpnuke codes. Then the stable version phpWebsite 0.9.0 was released on Feb 2, 2003 without the phpnuke code. PhpWebSite 1.x (codename:Fallout) began development in 2003 with the core and core modules rewritten again for new functionality and ease-of-use issues. The first edition 1.0.0 has been available since November 2006.

phpWebSite is written in the PHP Programming Language further facilitating the writing of customized modules by developers. PHP is a server side programming language that is simple, cross-platform, and fast. The focus of this advanced system is to provide extendible, flexible and feature rich content management solution to Universities, corporations and individuals. Below is an explanation and a brief overview of its core features:

1. Easy and hassle free web-based administration is achieved which means minimal expertise in needed to maintain, manage and organize website content.
2. A Flexible Layout Control: The website page layout can be modified and changed at any time according to user’s specification and personal choice.
3. Topic-based announcements: Website announcements can be easily organized by category with great flexibility and ease with automatic history rollover.
4. Interactive content: The content can be highly interactive ranging from posting comments, suggestions, web links as well as submission of announcements.
5. The system features a full featured event calendar which can be used to post events by category and sub category offering more flexibility and improved organization features to the website.
6. A fully customized user experience like themes which allows the users to customize their website to certain specifications, personal preferences and/or special needs.
7. The system is XHTML and WAI compliant and is committed to meeting XHTML 1.0 specifications by their 1.0 release. The current errors in this release are negligible.

The entire 1.x series of phpWebSite is templated with the use of template files and the Pear HTML_Template_IT templating system. The files do not contain any php and are strictly html, which allows the users to customize every aspect of their websites including the incorporation of some very interesting themes. The users can create the entire look and feel of their websites best suited to their preferences and other requirements. Moreover, it also allows users to incorporate their own text or html directly into module output without editing any php code, making it a very flexible and powerful tool, eliminating the need of having to learn php to create a nice look website.Every module is assigned a content variable by the layout module. When any page is rendered, phpWebSite uses these content variables to position any output received from modules. Every module has its own files, templates, installation and version information, and graphics. During the installation process, users can opt for the installation of core modules only. All the other modules have to be added by hand via Boost. Some core modules include layout, users, and boost. In the 1.x series; only 1 account per user is allowed. This particular can be setup as a default user account or can be given administrative privileges to specific modules within the site (granulated administration).

PhpWebSite is released in 2 different versions, Stable and Release Candidate (RC1, RC2). The Stable Release is supposed to be thoroughly tested by beta testers and the public before being declared stable. phpWebSite has adopted the PEAR PHP coding standards with a few addendums regarding HTML/XHTML markup, file headers, comment styles, etc.

The phpWebSite open source software is created for Appalachian State University, and is released publicly. All bugs found within the system should be posted to Sourceforge. It functions smoothly on a Linux server running MySQL and Apache compiled with PHP version 4.2.2 or higher. The key components of phpWebsite comprises of:

• Content creation and management tools: Used to create, display, organize and maintain all web site content including text, documents, files, images, links, and much more. These tools comprise of announcements, block maker, Calendar, FAQs, Form Generator, Photo Albums, Poll Manager, Web Pages and Wiki among others.
• Content organization and management tools: Used to organize and efficiently and conveniently maintain all content. These include the document manager, FatCat Categorizer (to categorize all of the information on the site), link manager and the menu manager.
• Communication Tools: It enables administrators as well as users to interact with each other through internal messaging, email, data interchange etc. These include the bulletin board, comment thread management, multi-send notes and RSS news feeds.
• Configuration tools and administration tools: All aspects of the phpwebsite can be efficiently configured and administered.
• Development Tools: These powerful features enable users and/or administrators to develop modules for phpWebSite. These include the module maker, Phpwebsite debugger (used for viewing session and request information) and the Skeleton Module (for use by developers when creating a new module). Each user is allowed to choose from several different pre-defined visual styles/themes/skins. These themes are implemented using CSS and template files. Commercial themes are available for purchase and commercial theme design services are also offered.