Design Decisions
Tools, technologies, platforms, schools-of-though. Definitely the hottest area of debate but I’m not aiming to be the best. This project is more of a “what if” attempt with a clearly defined target audience. Simple, client-side cms, static web site structure, no Java, PHP, MySQL…
Platform:
There are many great CMS tools out there. Most are PHP, MySQL Web based tools. In this project I wanted to explore the advantages of a Windows Client for the CMS following in the footsteps of CityDesk and FrontPage. The advantages are being able to work Offline and the speed and reactiveness of the tool. The UI will still be Web (HTA) because of the ease of programming such a UI.
Persistence:
Likewise, why use MySQL, Access or other SQL database? Everyone\’s doing it and in order to keep the tools simple we could use XML files in a folder structure (see Infrastructure).
Language:
Visual Basic Script in an HTA environment. It’s my personal choice and ease of use as this is installed on every Windows system by default.
Content Delivery:
This system will publish (via FTP) a set of static files making up the website. These files can be hosted on any server and can include any sort of scripting. The finished site can be PHP, ASP, Perl whatever….
Another good reason to use a CMS which generates static content files is here.
Comment by Administrator — September 19, 2005 @ 7:47 pm
You know there is a lot of precedent even beyond city desk. There was an early attempt by userland software called Clay Basket http://www.scripting.com/clay/ that was really powerful (It never went anywhere I think because it was early and Dave Winer always seems to piss people off)
Comment by Sam D — September 20, 2005 @ 8:24 pm
If you’re going to be using VB in an HTA environment, surely this will alienate all Firefox users? I’m a big fan of Firefox and would want to be able to use that as my browser in which to edit content.
Of can HTA be used in Firefox too? I thought it was a purely M$ thing?
Comment by Jeremy — September 29, 2005 @ 10:38 am