An easy to use development tool

May 16, 2008 15:30 GMT  ·  By

When we are looking for certain solutions for content management, there are real chances to not find the desired application. A possible alternative out of this situation is the selection of a simple to use and standards compliant content management system (CMS) or framework having a high degree of universality regarding the range of implementation.

The modern content management systems were created by using the latest web technologies and, consequently, they are more responsive, lightweight and flexible in the customization possibilities provided to webmasters.

Pixie is a website maker based on microformats. According to Microformats, "the microformats are a set of simple open data format standards that many are actively developing and implementing for more/better structured blogging and web microcontent publishing in general." Pixie application is compliant with the latest web standards, while also being accessible, easy to extend and administrate.

The installation of this PHP / MySQL based application is performed by an automatic installer. In order to install it on a PHP enabled web server or locally on your computer, you will need to create a MySQL database. The default role of this application is to be a blog platform, but Pixie can be also employed for the creation of any website type.

The website administration panel is very intuitive, allowing nontechnical people to manage the website content without much effort (the content is separated from layout). By logging into the website administration panel, the dashboard will be displayed. From this area, you can easily navigate and perform various tasks, like checking traffic statistics, evaluating the latest activity performed on the website, adding or editing content, and more.

Pixie can be extended by developing plugins and blocks. These elements do not have a complex code structure. For example, RSS feeds can be displayed by writing only a few lines of code for a Pixie block. The block type elements are very useful when it comes to displaying the same information on multiple web pages. The information (blog posts) is organized with the help of tags that play the role of categories.

Pixie also contains the jQuery library that allows you to easily add new AJAX based functionalities to the website. By having multilanguage support, it is very simple to translate the CMS into your language, by editing the file en-gb.php (which is the English translation).

Pixie CMS is appropriate for any type of website. The appearance of the webpage can be controlled by editing the CSS file containing the formatting directives of template elements. You can discover other attractive features, like drag and drop website navigation system organizer, anti-spam integrated system, and more by downloading it from here.