E-commerce

Modern AJAX Powered Web CMS

Customer
The customer is a start up company based in Denmark.

Challenge
Many company websites have changed appearance from static websites to dynamic websites with content added by multiple authors. This places certain demands on the CMS used by the company. When choosing CMS for their websites, many companies today normally use a two dimensional frame for choosing. The CMS is chosen with regards to the right combination of functionality and extendibility. The fact that any CMS must have the correct level of usability is normally taken for granted.

The problem is that most of the open source and closed source CMS has low usability in terms of

• Ease of use
• Easy to learn
• Support work tasks
• Easy to remember
• Same appearance and “feel” of CMS and the extra modules available for the CMS

The problem can be solved in two ways, by testing the CMS usability systematically during the development phase and by using the latest web technology. Any CMS is important to look and act as a normal office application. This could be achieved by using DHTML and AJAX. It is likely to make the content contributors’ job done quicker.

The CMS is intended to be sold as a whole package including CMS, web hosting and email. The same server is going to host indefinite number of websites for different clients. Therefore, it is necessary to create CMS screen or even a separate application to adjust customer account and mail. There will not be created a separate copy of the database for each customer, all customers will be in same database. The amount of storage space allocated to a customer and the number of pages used will also be controlled from the administration module.

The CMS and email server will be installed on the same server. When a new customer is set up, this customer is added to the database.

In the context of design the major principle for a CMS is to design a core of the system handling all data and content, and making it possible for all other functionality to be part of other components or add on modules.

Solution
OnClverSoft team developed use cases for the project, data model, the core business logic and web part of the Content Management System by using latest technologies and tools that provide the fastest way of development, best performance and maintainability.

The solution Included:

• Content Management System
• Customer management application
• Templates management application

The solution components provide:

• The implementation of the core system consists of a complete abstraction between content and presentation. All content that can be added to a page consists of different content elements called asset types, and some containing element called a container to keep the content elements together. The general idea is that it makes it possible for an external developer and/or the person adding content to have maximum flexibility when adding content to the system.
• The core of the system implements low level CMS functionality, such as database support, building pages, skin and layout support, assets and asset types, and other numerous useful functions, included into the framework.
• The module manager monitors the flow of content to the CMS. It operates the behavior of modules or other means of the framework kernel or other external modules. It makes sense to do this since external modules may depend on each other.

Results
CMS has user friendly interface (easy of use, easy to learn, easy to remember). It is expandable with modules system, which has good performance, maintainability, reliability.

The customer enjoyed a seamless implementation and significant bottom-line benefits. The company now sees significant growth of client base and has a significant increase in net profits.

Technologies & Tools
Technology domains: Software Architecture, Web Applications
Technologies & tools: Ajax, DHTML, CSS, xAjax, jQuery, RichFaces, JSF, Facelets, Spring framework, Spring-security, Hibernate, Maven2, Sun Glassfish, Apache, PostgreSQL, Debian x64
Languages: Java 5, PHP, XML