Open Source Business Solutions
NOTE: ewok is no longer under active development. Although the code will remain available indefinitely, users are advised to look at migrating to alternative solutions.
ewok is a web content management system (CMS), written in Perl (Embperl), and released under the GNU GPL (see "Licence":#licence). It attempts to significantly lower the bar for content creation by non-technical users, while simultaneously offering web gurus the kind of extensibility and flexibility they need to create serious content. Using Embperl, it allows (properly permissioned) pages to execute arbitrary perl code, allowing integration with just about anything. It is suitable for use in intranet environments, internet website content creation, and ISP contexts.
ewok is considered BETA code. See the "README":README.html for details.
ewok features include:
a browser-based file manager allowing directory navigation, file uploads, and in-browser editing of files
component-based templating, allowing standard style, header, and footer components to be applied to all pages in a site without any work by content authors
template inheritance, so that style, header, and footer components are inherited by lower-level directories and can be individually overridden at any point in a tree
arbitrary metadata attached to both files and and directories (e.g. owner, title, status, version, next page, etc.), accessible within components and pages (headers, footers, sidebars etc.)
a staging/publishing model that allows flat HTML files to be generated to a publishing area, allowing the power of dynamic component-based pages for document creation and editing, but the performance benefits of static HTML for published use
text markup features that allow text pages (this page, for instance) to be converted to HTML on the fly, allowing fairly sophisticated content creation without any knowledge of HTML
a user model that supports view, edit, and publish privileges, and allows authorisation to be delegated for whole document subtrees without having to modify webserver configurations
written in Perl (Embperl + Embperl::Object), allowing templates and (permitted) pages to embed and execute arbitrary perl code
filesystem-based (no database required), allowing content to be change-controlled using standard source management tools (CVS et al)
ewok requires:
Note that the current requirement for root access is not typically a huge limitation, since there's usually no real need to have ewok on your (ISP's) webserver machine. Install it on a private machine instead and mirror the published content to your actual webserver. All the benefits of dynamic authoring with the performance of static content!
Current version: ewok-0.5.2.tar.gz.
ewok is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence.