README FOR RAM-CMS

About:

RAM-CMS is a simple content management system designed to be portable and easy to use. It features simplicity all around - from installation to everyday usage.

RAM-CMS is targeted at those of us that long for a simple solution that is extremely flexible.

RAM-CMS is not a typical Content Management System because we appeal to those that know a little HTML, but don't want to just use plain HTML because of the overhead of maintaining HTML pages. RAM-CMS acts as a combination template system and content organizer, with the added benefit of reduced bandwidth as a result. (In future a web based management system will be developed).

Features:

Example Pages:

A sample website is included to give you some ideas, as I find the best way learn something is by example, and indeed will be more accurate and understood than this documentation :)

The index file is never called directly; it is assumed your server has the index file name set as what Apache would call a "DocumentIndex" - the index.html file is a common example. The reason for this it so index.php can be renamed to index.phtml, default.asp, or index.cgi - depending on how your web server is configured - this is what makes hyperlinks portable between different server editions of RAM-CMS. If your web server does not act this way you will need to modify parts of the code. Most web servers with PHP and ASP installed should not require this. Note that if your server support a different "DocumentIndex" file name for PHP (like default.php), then simply rename index.php to whatever is configured to be the "DocumentIndex" for PHP scripts. This applies for the other server editions as well (e.g. index.pl to index.cgi)

To link from one page to another the convention is to use the following basic format: <a href="./?page=page-name">Page Name</a> This makes all the pages portable should they be moved in the future, and also hides the underlying technology from user view - Tim Berners-Lee would be proud. Starting with 0.3.0, nice links can be used like so: <a href="./page/page-name">Page Name</a> (this requires additional configuration and may not work on all servers)

Speed of RAM-CMS:

RAM-CMS is very fast - much faster than virtually all other CMS systems.

Factors that keep RAM-CMS Fast:

Well Written?

This code is very well written. It is clean and very easy to follow. This code is so well written that I decided to go ahead and port it to as many server side languages as possible - as a result RAM-CMS works on PHP 4, PHP 5, Classic ASP/VBScript, and Perl, with more ports on the way (I have plans for ASP.NET, JSP, Python, and Ruby)

FAQ / Q & A

Q. What does RAM-CMS stand for?
A. Well, originally the RAM part stood for the authors initials.
   Now, RAM-CMS in this context stands for 
   "Really Amazingly Modest Content Management System"

Q. How well have you tested RAM-CMS?
A. I have tested RAM-CMS on the following:
   Lighttpd 1.4.13 / PHP 5.2.0 FastCGI (Debian 4.0)
   Apache 1.3.26 / PHP 3.0.18 SAPI (Debian 3.0)
   Apache 1.3.26 / PHP 4.1.2 CGI (Debian 3.0)
   Apache 1.3.26 / Perl 5.6.1 (Debian 3.0)
   Apache 1.3.33 / PHP 4.3.10 SAPI (Debian 3.1)
   Apache 2.2.3 / Perl 5.8.8 (Debian 4.0)
   Apache 2.2.3 / PHP 5.2.0 SAPI (Debian 4.0)
   IIS 5.0 / ASP SAPI (Windows 2000 Server)
   IIS 5.0 / PHP 3.0.17 CGI (Windows 2000 Server)
   IIS 5.0 / Perl 5.8.8 CGI (Windows 2000 Server)
   IIS 7.0 / ASP SAPI (Windows Vista Ultimate)
   IIS 7.0 / PHP 5.2.6 CGI (Windows Vista Ultimate)
   IIS 7.0 / Perl 5.8.8 CGI (Windows Vista Ultimate)
   RAM-CMS is tested on the above before each new release 
   to ensure that everything works as it should.

BUGS

A bug tracker is now available at http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=ram-cms.

The author of this program can be contacted via: http://savannah.nongnu.org/users/ramnet.

Documentation License

Copyright © 2007,2008 Robert Alex Marder. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the file FDL.TXT.