CMS 13 of 24: Exponent, Enano CMS, AptitudeCMS

Exponent Content Management System

Exponent is a website content management system (or CMS) that allows site owners to easily create and manage dynamic websites without necessarily directly coding web pages, or managing site navigation.
Exponent is completely self-contained

Unlike other site management tools, no additional applications need to be downloaded by a user to permit them to use Exponent. Everything, from user management, to site configuration, to content editing (and content approval for large, multi-admin sites), is done within the system - simply. Exponent does what other CMS systems do - it allows anyone to create website pages, content on pages, and manage where these pages are placed on a website - but it does all this in a completely new way.

Easy-to-use at any skill level

Exponent uses an intuitive and flexible content editing system that allows website pages to be edited on the page as it is displayed - no more back-end administration, no more navigating endless administration pages to add a simple line of text - simply visit the page you need to edit as if you were a site visitor, and make the change.

Why designers love Exponent

Exponent CMS is modular, but flexible. Content Management can be mirrored through a site and edited in any instance or copy from any page that the content is placed on, or simply created as unique content. Multiple site themes and CSS stylesheets are easily integrated, and sub-themes (separate frameworks for content within a common appreance or theme) are possible with minimum fuss. A large range of different content modules can be activated via the admin interface with ease and used, other community-supported modules uploaded and installed automatically in a few moments, and external scripts can be incorporated with ease. Exponent’s framework also rewards developers who need to create their own custom solutions.

Exponent is Open Source

Exponent is created for the community, by the community. Exponent developers support the Exponent Project because they believe in not only the system as a new and radically different CMS offering, but also because they appreciate its underlying simplicity and common sense. But also, it’s free for download from this site.

Enano CMS

From the reliable and solid core to its beautiful, responsive user interface, Enano has everything you expect from today’s content management framework. We decided to put only a basic set of features in to the core and leave the remainder up to the various plugins that are available. Some of the features in the core are:

* No-nonsense administration - Many CMSes organize their administration interfaces using drop-down menus or icons. Enano’s administration menu has less than 20 sections, and all of them are well-organized so you can quickly find what you’re looking for.
* Forget hunting through the manual - Most options in the administration panel are fully explained right on the page. We believe this is a better way to explain a button’s function because you don’t have to search for the answer in the documentation. With Enano, help is always at your fingertips.
* Set it up, fast - We think Enano’s installer is one of the smartest around. The Enano installation wizard is heavily optimized for easy keyboard navigation, fast verification of database options, and of course a reliable installation.
* Full user management - The session manager in Enano is designed to provide a simple security model that is friendly to developers.
* Add features easily - Since the first beta released in September 2006, Enano provides support for plugins that can add features or replace existing major subsystems. For the casual administrator, this means that you can change and enhance your site without modifying and patching Enano system files, making upgrades a snap. For developers, this means setting up plugins is as easy as writing a single PHP file and enabling the plugin in the administration panel.
* Released early, released often - New versions of Enano are released regularly, so when bugs or security problems are found, fixes are available quickly.
* Take feedback - Users can leave comments on articles using an extremely streamlined AJAX-based flat style discussion system. And you can include wiki-formatted text and smilies in comments. Visual confirmation powered by freeCap ensures that you don’t have to deal with spam.
* Speaking of AJAX… - Most other Enano functionality uses AJAX too! Editing, renaming, restoring, and deleting pages are all possible using the on-page AJAX controls. For users with older browsers, most Enano functionality is also implemented using HTML forms, so users with legacy browsers can still use your site.
* Fully skinnable - Enano supports templates and swappable CSS files, so you can design themes and include alternate layouts or color schemes. You can also embed PHP code into most templates, allowing custom logic and plugin-like functionality.
* Search engines just love it - Using the easily configurable mod_rewrite support, you can have a heavily search engine-optimized site in seconds. Most Enano themes also follow the W3C’s recommendations on heading usage, so search engines know what content to display.
* Protected against attacks - Enano’s security model acts as a blanket around sensitive functions. Heuristic analysis of SQL queries ensures that if an SQL injection vulnerability exists, it is much more difficult to exploit. Even with the heavy protection, Enano’s security never gets in your face. When further authentication is needed, you can authenticate using a beautiful AJAX-based login interface.
* File upload support - In addition to storing articles, Enano supports uploading files. Images can even be embedded into pages and scaled to thumbnail size with ImageMagick and GD support. (GD support added in Enano 1.1)
* Password-protected pages - You can require a password for individual pages to be viewed with this feature.
* Wiki features, but only where you want them - While Enano is perfectly good as a wiki, sometimes you’ll want a core set of pages that don’t act like a wiki at all. Selective Wiki Mode allows you to enable or disable wiki features only on certain parts of your site. For even more flexible selection, try the page grouping system, which lets you build large groups of pages that share a common set of permissions.
* We’re paranoid about security too - On a public WiFi network and scared of hackers stealing your login information? With Enano you don’t have to worry. When you log into an Enano-based site, your password and session key are encrypted with military-strength 192-bit AES. Enano 1.1 uses the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol to negotiate a key, strengthening the login process even more.
* Fine grained access controls - Enano’s access control list system allows highly specific control over who has access to what parts of your site. User groups and page groups allow centralized administration of access settings, and smart precedence logic ensures that more specific rules are given higher priority.
* It’s all about freedom - The biggest benefit of using Enano is the rights you get with it. We believe that everyone should have the legal right to download, use, modify, and distribute software. This is why we decided to release Enano under the GNU General Public License version 2. Enano will always be free to download and use, and we encourage you to create your own remix and share it with others.

AptitudeCMS

AptitudeCMS is an application framework to help you quickly build full featured, robust, secure and scalable PHP applications. Out-of-the-box AptitudeCMS supports the foundation of a content management system. You may be asking yourself, “Does PHP really need another content management system?” While there are many good, open source, PHP-based content management systems none provide the proper mix of solid framework components and the need for PHP developers to strip framework components out to help an application scale. We recognize the “AptitudeCMS” brand may be new to you but the codebase has been in production use for over three years and only now have we formalized this work into an open source project. From here we look forward on collaborating with others to make incremental improvements to the foundation we’ve provided.