Frog CMS
Encyclopedia
Frog CMS is an open source
content management system
originally developed by Philippe Archambault. The design decision taken from its start was to use PHP5 as the language for the software, along with a MySQL
database backend, although it also has support for SQLite
(version 3). It is a port of the Ruby on Rails
CMS known as Radiant, although Frog has begun to take its own development direction.
Work began in December 2006, and a first functioning public beta was released in January 2007. During 2008, Archambault expanded the development team. The 0.9.5 release marked a licensing change, from the MIT license
of previous versions, to the current GPL v.3
license. The target of a version 1.0 release by January 2008 was not met, but development continues with a stable 0.9.5 release (April 2009).
.
Since then no commits have been made to the main Frog CMS SVN repository hosted on Google Code, and only one post has been made on the project blog hosted on the website. Despite the only post stating that the Frog CMS project is still alive, there is no evidence within the Frog code repository, blog or community to back this up.
Despite still having an active community of users and plugin developers the project seems to have stalled, with no immediate sign of revival.
The forked project, Wolf CMS, however seems to thriving with a growing community and active development.
As of the 28th of December 2010, the Wolf CMS code repository was moved from Google Code to Github.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
content management system
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
originally developed by Philippe Archambault. The design decision taken from its start was to use PHP5 as the language for the software, along with a MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
database backend, although it also has support for SQLite
SQLite
SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...
(version 3). It is a port of the Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails, often shortened to Rails or RoR, is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language.-History:...
CMS known as Radiant, although Frog has begun to take its own development direction.
History
Attracted to the Radiant CMS system, Archambault set about to write a PHP equivalent. The first name given to the project was "phpRadiant", although by February 2007 it was renamed "Frog" after consultation with the PHP team.Work began in December 2006, and a first functioning public beta was released in January 2007. During 2008, Archambault expanded the development team. The 0.9.5 release marked a licensing change, from the MIT license
MIT License
The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...
of previous versions, to the current GPL v.3
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
license. The target of a version 1.0 release by January 2008 was not met, but development continues with a stable 0.9.5 release (April 2009).
Features
Frog CMS offers the common advantages being based on the well-known PHP/mySQL pair. Resisting the temptation to develop its own arcane scripting system, PHP is available directly to developers, but may be hidden from users. It also makes use of an "Extra Light PHP Framework" to provide some commonly used functions to the CMS. Otherwise, its main features include:- simple hierarchical structured page creation and navigation
- drag-and-drop page re-ordering
- styles and metadata assigned globally or on a per-page basis
- flexible page content with reusable "snippets" (header, footer), or sidebar, or extended (custom fields) content
- lightweight core with many functions available as "plugins", including file-management, comment forms, TextileTextile (markup language)Textile is a lightweight markup language originally developed by Dean Allen and billed as a "humane Web text generator". Textile converts its marked-up text input to valid, well-formed XHTML and also inserts character entity references for apostrophes, opening and closing single and double...
and MarkdownMarkdownMarkdown is a lightweight markup language, originally created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz allowing people "to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML "...
support, and database connectivity via PDO (required for use with SQLiteSQLiteSQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...
); user-contributed plugins include the TinyMCETinyMCETinyMCE, also known as the Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor, is a platform-independent web-based JavaScript/HTML WYSIWYG editor control, released as open source software under the LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML textarea fields or other HTML elements to editor instances...
and FCKeditorFCKeditorCKEditor is an open source WYSIWYG text editor from CKSource that can be used in web pages. It aims to be lightweight and requires no client-side installation...
wysiwygWYSIWYGWYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
editors, gallery, and lightbox-styleLightbox (JavaScript)Lightbox, and the newer Lightbox 2, is a JavaScript application used to display large images using modal dialogs. The script has gained widespread popularity due to its simple yet elegant style and easy implementation...
image display - user management, allowing three levels of access ("Administrator" = full site access; "Developer" = complete access except to the "User" module; "Editor" = access only to unprotected pages) to the backend; pages can be selectively "protected" from those with "Editor" rights
- built-in CSS editing
- UTF8 encoding, with i18n modules currently available for Bengali (Bangla), Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Development Status
As of 27 January 2010, development of Frog CMS has appeared to have stalled. In July 2009 Martijn, who had become a core developer of Frog CMS and the driving force behind releases 0.9.3 through to 0.9.5, left the project to work on his own fork of the project, Wolf CMSWolf CMS
Wolf CMS is a content management system and is Free Software published under the GNU General Public License v3. Wolf CMS is written in the PHP programming language...
.
Since then no commits have been made to the main Frog CMS SVN repository hosted on Google Code, and only one post has been made on the project blog hosted on the website. Despite the only post stating that the Frog CMS project is still alive, there is no evidence within the Frog code repository, blog or community to back this up.
Despite still having an active community of users and plugin developers the project seems to have stalled, with no immediate sign of revival.
The forked project, Wolf CMS, however seems to thriving with a growing community and active development.
As of the 28th of December 2010, the Wolf CMS code repository was moved from Google Code to Github.