About RVCMS

About RenovatioCMS

RenovatioCMS is a freesafe and user-friendly content management system. It has been released under the GNU General Public License. This license states (roughly speaking) that you may copyalter or redistribute RenovatioCMS, as long as you allow your users or customers to do the same and as long as the disclaimers mentioning the original authorsof the software are left untouched. In the next paragraphs, we will try to explain the concept and the goal of content management systems in general and RenovatioCMS in particular.

Content management systems

Content management systems are software applications, often web-applications that allow users to easily publish documents and articles on-line (content management), without requiring a lot of technical knowledge. One of the main properties of web content management systems is the conversion of plain text to enriched web pages using skins or templates. This allows the author to write a simple article in plain text, while the visitorthat reads the article, also receives menusbackground imagesheaders and page details.

You can edit pages like this one, using the included CodeEditor.

Our intended target group

One of the things that makes RenovatioCMS special, is it’s intended target groupRenovatioCMS is specifically designed for users who possess some programming skills or possess the eagerness to attain these skills, but who also value user-friendliness. For instance, the input of a new RenovatioCMS page may consist of plain text, but also HTML,PHP, SQL, CSS and JavaScript are allowed. This gives the user the same flexibility as when designing a new web-system from scratch, while at the same time it delivers the conveniences that make using a CMS worthwhile.

In case of most content management systems, priority number one is creating a user-friendly environment for less experienced users. By using Word-like WYSIWYG editors, developers try to convert “complex” concepts (like altering the style attribute of a table) to “simple” concepts (like expanding columns or rows using your mouse). This in itself is a nice idea, but the achieved “user-friendliness” fails to support users that are trying to accomplish something the developer didn’t think of.

Before creating RenovatioCMS, we’ve tried some other content management systems. During this time, often questions arose like: “Why doesn’t it let me alter the HTML itself? It would allow me to align this table in no-time.” or: “Wouldn’t it be nice to read some data directly from the database halfway this article, instead of inserting it by hand?” When using RenovatioCMS, the possibility frontiers are being determined by the capabilities of the one who is in command: the user, not by the software itself. This may be one of a few reasons for you to choose RenovatioCMS.

An example of a WYSIWYG editor.

How RenovatioCMS works

RenovatioCMS is developed for Apache web-servers that support SQL and PHP (LAMP or WAMP servers). Basically, RenovatioCMS consists of nothing more than a collection ofdocuments, a menu and login system, some management tools, a CodeEditor and a skin. These documents shape the actual contents of a website. They are stored in a databaseand can be edited using the built-in document management tool. When a page is being visited, the document involved is retrieved from the database and evaluated as if it where an ordinary *.php file.

The generated output is stored in a buffer and combined with other data like the menu structure or the account properties. The result is transferred to the skin. The skin then moulds the combined data into an HTMLCSSJavaScript construct and sends it to the visitor. The included management tools used for language, menu or document management, are documents as well, but they are not considered to be part of the CMSitself. They are more like “convenient additions“. The core system is (and will be) nothing more then “The apparatus that evaluates documents and shows web-pages to the user“. The reason we try to keep it this way, is because it guarantees simplicity and therefore, safety.

The RenovatioCMS equivalent of a WYSIWYG editor.

Finally

So, in a nutshell, we are trying to equip you with all the tools you need to create and manage a web-site fast and effectively. On-line documentation is (or will become) available to help less experienced users uploadinstall and configure their content management systems. More experienced users can start downloading right away.

Our company is supported by donations and advertising payments. Therefore, our services are without charge. If you have any questions or remarks regarding our activities, please feel free to send them to: [email protected].

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