[Savannah-hackers] savannah.gnu.org: submission of SPIP

[pitrou]

A package was submitted to savannah.gnu.org.
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Antoine Pitrou <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: gpl
Other License: 
Package: SPIP
System name: spip
This package does NOT want to apply for inclusion in the GNU project

SPIP is a free publication system on the Internet, mainly targetted
at individuals, informal groups and non-profit organizations. SPIP allows 
contributive
writing and managing of  websites having a magazine-like structure, while not
needing any HTML skills (except for defining the layout templates).

SPIP works using PHP and MySQL on a standard Web server (e.g. Apache).


Functionalities :

- Eases management of a magazine-like Web site (i.e. a hierarchy of nested 
sections
containing articles and short stories), rather than a simple news feed.

- Separates the public site from the administration space. The latter can be 
accessed
by two kind of registered users : writers (who can submit articles and short 
stories,
and comment pending submissions) and administrators (who validate submissions,
manage the site structure and configuration...). It includes a small messaging 
system between registered users.

- Graphical layout in the public site is defined by an arbitrary number of HTML 
skeletons
(or templates) that
each define a different page type (usually : one for articles, one for sections,
etc.). The automatic insertion of redactional content by the engine into the 
skeletons
is defined by
specific HTML pseudo-tags. HTML skeletons can also contain PHP code.

- Nearly every configuration and administration task (including installing in 
itself - no
manual SQL scripts)
is done through a Web-based, user-friendly interface. Moreover, contributing 
texts
involves using some convenient
typographic shortcuts so that no HTML skills are required to incorporate
bold/italic text, subtitles, hyperlinks, footnotes and even images uploaded
by the writer. The only task that requires a bit of technical learning is 
writing
HTML skeletons (though there is no need to understand PHP).

- The public site includes interaction possibilities : forums (comments
can be posted under articles, short stories, even sections), petitions.

- A two-level caching system on the public side for template compilation,
and page generation. This helps SPIP keep the resources taken on the
server very low, even with high traffic. On a typical low-end server, cached
pages take no more than some tens of milliseconds to return to the browser.
The cache system is also designed to keep a working site when the database
is down (useful for cheap web hosting...), though of course no
dynamic functionality is then available (e.g. forums and back-office).

- An integrated lightweight fulltext indexation and search engine, which incurs 
no noticeable slowdown when enabled.


Language :

This is probably the bad part. As of now, SPIP is in French. It
doesn\'t prevent you to build sites in other languages, however, but
you\'ll have to understand the interface and documentation. A few foreign
users seem to have taken the step and adopted SPIP although they
are not very capable in French.


Current project sites :
- http://www.uzine.net/spip (documentation)
- http://rezo.net/spip-dev (downloads)


Examples of sites created with SPIP :
- http://www.uzine.net
- http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr (see also http://MondeDiplo.com)
- http://hns.samizdat.net
- http://www.enduring-freedoms.org/summary.php3