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A New CMS for ASP.NET Lovers

The market for ASP.NET CMS products is expanding rapidly.  Users now have another option for blending content management and the power of ASP.NET with Webaptive.  Just released by developer Striquent, Webaptive is an enterprise CMS available in premium and community versions.  The biggest draw to this program is its ability to incorporate content management functionality into existing applications without the implementation of third-party software development kits.  This is made possible by the presence of IIS and the stack of Microsoft .NET technologies.

Creating ASP.NET Applications

Webaptive works closely with the web server to add CMS functionality to your applications.  From within IIS, you can choose the application you want to enhance. Once you make your selection and a database is automatically created, you can then enable existing applications or develop new ones.  Because the method in which Webaptive associates itself with applications is specific to the ASP.NET framework, it is strongly recommend that you create your pages and applications using standard ASP.NET programming practices.

CMS Features

Though rich in ASP.NET functionality, Webaptive offers many of the same capabilities found in other CMS products.  For instance, it has a built-in WYSIWYG editor for easily creating articles and blog posts, a CSS editing facility, and support for multiple authors.  Some of its more advanced features include localization and campaign management as well content inheritance options for managers and administrators.  Another unique quality of Webaptive its seamless integration with Perifigure, Striquent’s sister product.  Perfigure is a powerful analytic tool that analyzes site performance and provides detailed statistics on traffic, marketing campaigns and several other business related activities.  These capabilities alone make Webaptive a very attractive CMS for business users.

Standing Alongside and Out from the Crowd

Marketed as a CMSaaS product, Webaptive shares a few qualities with similar hosted SaaS CMS solutions such as CushyCMS and Surreal CMS.  Many of these platforms work by mildly blending content management features into a web page or website.  Though effective for the most part, they are not all that intrusive in regard to the core technologies and as a result, only provide limited CMS functionality.  Although Webaptive performs in a similar manner, it goes beyond the basics by digging into the code at the ASP.NET application level.  This gives it the ability to interact with ASP.NET controls as well as the standard HTML elements.  When all components are properly configured, this CMS can truly help you take your web applications to the next level.  Another difference is that whereas most SaaS CMS platforms are hosted solutions, Webaptive can be downloaded, installed and configured on your own server.

Availability and System Requirements

The Webaptive CMS is currently available in three versions: Community, Express and Enterprise editions.  In terms of functionality, the Community and Express versions are nearly identical.  However, the community version is free and therefore does not come included with reliable technical support.  The Enterprise edition is the most powerful version of the product as it is equipped with many advanced back-end versions and of course, paid support.  In order to run Webaptive, you will need the Windows Server 2003 operating system or higher and an SQL Server database.  These elements are needed to support your ASP.NET applications and web pages.

Textpattern: The Text-Friendly CMS

In World Wide Web years, TextPattern is a mature CMS that has been around in alpha and beta versions since 2001 and finally distributed under the GNU GPL in 2004.  The product has been dramatically improved over the years and the most notable enhancements yet can be seen in the latest version release, TextPattern 4.20.  If you need an easier and more efficient way to manage your content, the features of this open-source CMS tool may be of interest.

Word Processing-Like Environment

One of Textpattern’s key features is Textile, an intuitive syntax that allows you to easily convert plaintext into well structured rich web content.  Often nagging elements such as hyperlinks, tables and image tags can be created with one or two markers, making it closer to working with ordinary text as opposed to complex code.  When you are ready to publish your content, Textile takes all marked copy and automatically converts it to clean, valid XHTML.  In addition, all articles you compose in Textpattern can be viewed in plaintext, XHTML or a rendered preview.

Versatile CSS Editing

Textpattern offers full support for CSS, offering two modes that allow you to customize and enhance the presentation of your site in different ways.  Manual CSS mode lets you to create or edit any CSS data directly from the administrative interface.  This enables you to quickly edit styles without dealing with the hassle that often results from uploading via FTP.  You can create your style sheets from scratch or by using one of many compatible WYSIWYG editors.  Automatic CSS mode is an advanced feature that utilizes an organized interface to make CSS parameters more comprehensive and manageable.  CSS can really enhance the performance of a website and Textpattern allows you to harness all the power of this optimal design technology.

Link Friendly

There are quite a few CMS tools that offer power and ease of use, but lack the features needed to easily increase visibility via the search engines.  This isn’t the case with TextPattern as the software excels in SEO-friendly pages and link management.  You can store an unlimited number of links in an unlimited number of categories anywhere you want on your site.  It also makes it simple to add news links through the built-in editor or a Javascript book marklet, which displays a popup window to use where ever you may be on the web.

Add-on Functionality

Although Textpattern is not supported by nearly as many plugins as open-source products like Joomla and Drupal, the platform is very extensible.  All available add-on components can be installed and maintained in a straightforward manner.  Once you have incorporated them, they can be easily enabled or disabled through the administrative interface where you can also access help and parameters used by supported plugins.

Conclusion

Textpattern is an open-source CMS product that is free to download and use.  The software requires PHP 4.3 or higher, MySQL 3.23 or higher and the Apache web server.  Its developer also strongly recommends the use of a Unix operating system, although it states that the software will “probably” work on any platform that supports PHP.  Being a free and user-friendly tool, you may want to check your system requirements and give Textpattern a test drive to see if it meets your needs before giving up your preferred CMS.