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UNIX-based "Template" Software for Web Design?

Posted by Cliff on from the -internet-version-of-the-coloring-book dept.

jedinite asks: "I work for a large company looking to expand our web development offerings to cover lower-end sites. We are looking for a template-based program which we can offer our customers where they can "point and click" to develop their own website over the net. Basically, the user could provide a few graphics of a specific size, cut and paste some text as content, drag and drop a few links, and have a very basic website which they create & maintain themselves. I'm having serious trouble finding a package such as this which runs in our UNIX environment (we're mostly a Solaris/Apache house, but have some Linux/BSD boxen as well). Does anyone have any comments on or experience with any software package or module which performs this desired functionality? Anyone know of a software package for UNIX-hosted 'template web design'?" This is an interesting approach to the thought of homepage design. Thoughts?

4 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. AXDTK by Matts · · Score: 2
    I can't resist posting this, although it doesn't really answer your question about a point and click interface, it may help you develop something similar...

    If you have Perl skills, then you may be interested in the Apache XML Delivery Toolkit. It's a suite of modules that help you with the following:

    - Delivering XML to web browsers in a desired format.
    - Delivering the same page in different styles
    - Delivering the same page to different media (e.g handhelds (WAP), browsers, tty's, etc).
    - Developing a consistent style across your site.

    It's all built around mod_perl, and it works in much the same way as Cocoon does, except that it's built in Perl, not Java.

    If you're interested, take a peek at http://xml.sergeant.org/axdtk/.

    --

    Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
  2. Turnkey or roll your own by yelvington · · Score: 2
    It sounds like you're looking for something like Urbanite, which is a commercial turnkey suite of tools for building a Geocities-like system.

    Most of the large players have either built their own tools or contracted with integrators to have tools built for them.

    Platforms such as Midgard (based on PHP) and Zope (based on Python) make it radically easier to develop such tools.

    There also are any number of open-source Slashdot-like environments such as Squishdot; some browsing around in Freshmeat.net will churn them up quickly.

  3. How about Zope? by twstdpear · · Score: 2
    Check out Zope (and the ZDP).

    It's an open source web application server and it would make the job you're referring to a snap.

    Some sites which use Zope:
    www.zope.org
    www.technocrat.net
    appwatch.com
    www.codecatalog.com

  4. Hrmrmrm by GoRK · · Score: 3

    Well... as for web development environments that use "templates" - e.g. server-parsed scripts that are a little less involved (program-wise) than CGI scripting include:

    1) ColdFusion (my personal choice even though it's a bit slow) www.allaire.com (commercial)

    2) PHP (And w/ 4.0 Zend) www.php.com

    3) Zope www.zope.org

    4) iHTML www.ihtml.com (commercial)

    5) MetaHTML www.metahtml.com/www.metahtml.org (commercial and GNU versions)

    I have used all of these on Linux with sucess in each. All of them could allow you to create templates that replace "blank spots" in web pages with user-entered information from a database.

    What you are asking though seems a little bit different -- you seem to be looking for a prebuilt approach like a tripod, geocities, xoom, or AOL "home page wizard/generator"

    You might have a look at www.cgi-resources.com. They have a VERY good listing of CGI's and I believe I've seen a categor for page wizard scripts.

    ~GoRK