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We're currently in planning stage, please join our discussion here: http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php?/topic/17591-planning-yii-cms-a-different-approach/

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Yii Content Management System - a different approach
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Introduction

While we have a very good and reliable PHP-framework with Yii, it still seems like there is a need for a flexible and solid Content Management System based upon Yii.
For sure there are a few CMS-extensions for Yii, like FlexiaCMS, MongoCMS OvenCMS or phundament. But the workflow or project structure many Yii-developers choose for their applications simply does not fit in these predefined applications.
I think that the main problem is, that these CMS modules provide just „too much“ functionality and that they are very hard to integrate in a custom app. You usually have to start with the CMS module and add your custom code to it.
So, I would like to present a different approach for a Yii-based content management system.


The Goal

The main goal for me would be a system with really decoupled components for the tasks a user usually needs to perform to add content to a website.
For sure some components will have to be written first, not everything is ready for download, yet. But, if available, I would like to use existing and tested Yii extensions.
Basically it should be more a concept and a guideline on how to use the components available from the Yii extension repository and how to glue them together to create a dynamic web-application – Yii-style!


The Application

For phundament 2 I've created a picture which shows the fundamental components of a CMS. It's based on the ancient greek view of the world with for elements.
These four elements would be air (users and authentification), soil (structure of the application), fire (content-widgets) and water (general content or data).
Let's explain this a bit more in detail...

Authenification, Users & Permissions

If you want to add, edit or update any contents of your application you need to login first and have the appropriate permission to perform your task.
For this kind of component or module we find many entries in the extension repository.

These components should be easily exchangeable, because the framework connects the user and auth data with the rest of the application and provides an easy access to this data.

Application Structure & Pages

Another part of a CMS is the functionality to create a custom site structure.
We need something like a custom controller which renders views and layouts read from a data storage, like MySQL or XML.
There is already one in the extension repository and phundament also provides this functionality.


Widgets & Cells

Another important part would be a system to distribute widgets across views.
Phundament does this with it's cellmanager widget, which simply instantiates other widgets with given parameters.
http://code.google.c...CellManager.php
If it finds a CWidget it renders form fields for all public properties, if it finds a widget which implements a CellManagerWidgetInterface it uses a custom form from the widget to edit the data.
This widget can create any type of content for the application, as long as there's a widget which displays the data.

Application Data

Content like HTML, media-files or model data should be handled by seperate widgets and modules. Therefore I will not go into further details here, because it does not really belong to the concept.


Conclusion

In my opinion that's everything you need to create a basic CMS based upon Yii.
A very powerful and slim solution, where you can use just the components you want, to retain maximum flexibility within your application.


Development & Distribution

For code-development I would point out two platforms.

Subversion on code.google.com

Currently the most popular platform for development with a lot of nice features and many developers are familiar with subversion.

Git on github.com

While not having too much experiences with git, I like the concept of „everything-is-a-branch“ of git very much.
This approach could be very helpful, when dealing with a lot of different components, which are also dependent on each other.


Open tasks

Installation process
Internationalization / Localization / Meta-Data
Coding & Structural Guidelines
Application & Extension Manager


Summary

I would really like to hear some feedback from you regarding the structure and concept.
Is there already a similar project?
Do you see pitfalls or flaws? 
What do you think about the way of development and distribution?
And most importantly, would you like to join this project?



Best regards,
schmunk