| Developer(s) | OIC Group, Inc |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 2.0 / August 31, 2011[1] |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Content management framework, Content management system, Community, ECM and Blog software |
| License | GPL |
| Website | http://www.exponentcms.org |
Exponent CMS is a free, open source, open standards modular enterprise software framework and content management system (CMS) written in the programming language PHP.
Exponent uses an intuitive and flexible content editing system that allows website content to be edited right on the page as it appears - without back-end administration. The default installation includes a complete set of modules for managing a typical website. Additional modules are developed by a community of open source developers and can be installed via a web browser.
Exponent CMS can be installed in a Linux, Unix, Mac OS X or Windows environment, or any platform that supports the Apache web server and the PHP language (version 5.2.1+). Exponent CMS currently requires a MySQL (4.1+, 5+ Recommended) to store content and settings.
Contents |
Exponent CMS was originally written and designed by James Hunt of OIC Group, Inc, starting in 2001. Minor contributions were made by other OIC members, Fred Dirkse, Greg Otte and Adam Kessler, but most of the original work was done by James. In 2005 James left the OIC Group. Not much besides bug fixes were done on Exponent from 2005 - 2006 as Fred tried to man the ship by himself. In 2006 Adam came back to OIC Group and together he and Fred started trying to revitalize the Exponent Project. The release of version 96.6 followed shortly thereafter.
During the summer of 2007 OIC hired Phillip Ball who was an active member of the Exponent CMS Open Source community. With Phillip on board OIC was able to quickly get version 0.97 out the door that same summer.
While trying to get the 0.97 release out the door Adam started planning out a new MVC framework for Exponent and Phillip was getting heavily involved with YUI Javascript Library. The two different research path converged in the fall of 2007 as together Adam and Phillip started on new version of Exponent CMS. Adam wrote the new Exponent Framework and Phillip went to work cleaning up and moderninzing the interface and trying to tightly integrate the YUI Javascript library. The result was Exponent 2 or Exponent MVC. Exponent 2 was released in the summer of 2011 following a series of pre-release versions.
The Exponent 2.0 codeline has now become Open Source and available for download.
This release of the code is targeted towards developers and community members wishing to get more involved in documentation and bug testing. Over the last month, us here at Online Innovative Creations have shifted our focus towards getting the systems and guidelines in place to allow for more community involvement in the development process.
OIC doesn't want to miss out on the valuable input and help we stand to gain from the community who's itching to get their hands on the code.
You can download a copy of the current MVC codeline on https://github.com/exponentcms/exponent-cms. The 'master' branch contains the current release, with the bleeding edge code slated for the next release being found in the 'develop' branch.
The core functionality of Exponent CMS and Exponent Framework is still managed by OIC Group with a community of open source developers making module, translation and theme contributions.
The Exponent CMS was designed from the ground up with designers in mind. As such, it is incredibly simple for someone with a little knowledge of html and css to create an Exponent CMS theme. Themes for Exponent CMS are written using html/xhtml and css. You just have to place a some hooks in your theme file to integrate Exponent CMS into your theme. That makes Exponent CMS highly flexible for designers. Any html based design can be easily converted into an Exponent theme.
In Exponent CMS content and presentation have been separated. To accomplish this the Smarty template engine was used for creation of views. Views allow the same content to be displayed in different looks and customized to match a sites theme.
Translations for Exponent CMS's 0.9x interface are available in 3 languages: English US (the default), Danish (Dansk) and German (Deutsch). The English source is managed by OIC Group, Inc. The Danish translation is managed by Elund Christensen, Jens Thomsen and Thomas B. Nielsen. The German translation is managed by Gerhard Starrermayr. Exponent 2.0 is currently only available in English, but is ready for easy translation into other languages.