Content Management Systems

A content management system might be simply defined as a system which supports the publishing or sharing, editing or manipulation, searching and indexing, archival or versioning of content, frequently documents, typically using Web technologies. A more extensive definition can be found in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system Wikipedia topic entry].

In plainer terms, content management systems are the applications used to manage Web sites where the writers, editors and users are able to upload, edit and manage content without needing to know too many of the technical details about how the site actually works.

Zope-based Solutions

The most established Python-based content management systems are those derived from ["Zope"], notably [http://www.plone.org Plone], [http://www.cps-project.org Nuxeo CPS] and [http://www.infrae.com/products/silva Silva]. These solutions have been used in large scale and high profile deployments over a number of years, and a range of organisations provide support and services for those solutions.

Non-Zope Solutions

For those wanting non-Zope CMS solutions, there are a few options which may provide at least some of the features found in the more established solutions mentioned above, and the solutions mentioned below may be targeted more towards developers than individuals or organisations wishing to immediately deploy a complete and working solution.

• [http://orangoo.com/skeletonz/ Skeletonz] is simple, powerful, extensible, reliable. Has been in development since October 2005. Ajax based editor with spell checking & UTF-8 support. High performance: best result is around 600 request/sec. Open source, GNU GPL. You can try its [http://orangoo.com/skeletonz_demo online running demo]. Login with admin/admin user/password. The demo is reset every hour.

• [http://www.djangoproject.com/ Django] offers elementary support for content management (and was initially derived from the lower levels of a commercial content management system).

• [http://payago.com/ Payago] is a lightweight website management system based on [http://nevow.com/ Nevow].

• [http://www.pylucid.org PyLucid] is a lightweight CMS. No shell account is needed. To run PyLucid you need a standard Webserver with Python (at least v2.2.1) CGI and mySQLdb.

• [http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/webware-sandbox/Sandbox/fbar/teeny_tiny_cms/ teeny_tiny_cms] runs on ["Webware"] and uses SQLObject, SQLite and Docutils.

Wiki Solutions

Despite their simple beginnings, many Wiki solutions offer many of the capabilities listed above. Numerous Wiki projects have been written in Python; the following are the most widely deployed:

• MoinMoin is the solution used to publish and manage the information on this page!

• [http://trac.edgewall.org/ Trac] provides a Wiki within a larger solution for the management of software projects and project information (bug tracking, source browsing, and so on).