Bitweaver

bitweaver, is a port of TikiWiki undertaken to provide a faster modular CMS framework. It is an open source (LGPL) Content Management System (CMS) / Geospatial Content Management System (GeoCMS) / Groupware web application enabling websites and portals on the internet and on intranets and extranets. bitweaver is a customizable modular multi-feature package; each component can be loaded independently then enabled / disabled and customized by the bitweaver administrator. bitweaver extends the customization to the user with selectable themes

The project has been hosted on SourceForge as TikiPro since 2004 and renamed as bitweaver in June 2005.

Major Components
bitweaver provides components in these general categories:

* Content Creation and Management Tools These features enable administrators and users to create, display, and maintain online-accessible content of all kinds, including text, binary data, images, links, and much more.
* Content Organization Tools and Navigation Aids These features enable administrators and users to organize, structure, and present content in a manageable way.
* Communication Tools These features enable administrators and users to communicate with each other (and the outside world) by means of numerous media, including internal messaging, voice telephony, data interchange, and many more.
* Configuration Tools and Administration Tools These features enable administrators (and users who have been given the appropriate permissions) to configure and administer all aspects of a bitweaver site.

In addition, bitweaver allows each user to choose from several different pre-defined visual styles/themes/skins. These themes are implemented using CSS and the open source Smarty template engine (which is included in the bitweaver installation). Additional themes can be created by the bitweaver administrator for branding or customizing the look of their website, but requires familiarity with CSS and Smarty.

For more information, see the [http://doc.bitweaver.org/wiki/Bitweaver+Overview Overview page at doc.bitweaver.org].

Content Creation and Management Tools
* Articles - fast-breaking news, announcements
* Blogs - online diaries or journals
* Boards Forums - online discussions on a variety of topics
* Comments - user comments that can be appended to articles, Wiki pages, forum posts, and more
* Fisheye - collections of graphic images for viewing or downloading
* HTML Pages - static and dynamic HTML content
* Maps - navigable, interactive maps with user-selectable layers
* Newsletters - content mailed to registered users
* RSS Feeds - newsfeeds from external Web sites
* Treasury - computer files and software for downloading
* Wiki - collaboratively authored documents

Content Organization Tools and Navigation Aids
* Calendar - show when content was created or modified
* Categories - classify content according to subject descriptors
* Hotwords - automatically attach links to specified words or phrases
* Modules - control appearance and content of boxes that appear in the left and right columns
* MySite - provide content organization and communication tools for registered users
* Search - provide full-text search capabilities ( three different engines supported )
* Structures - create hierarchically organized "breadcrumb" navigation aids for sets of Wiki pages

Communication Tools
* Chat - real-time text chatting
* Shoutbox - provide a "graffiti" box on the site's home page.

Configuration Tools and Administration Tools
* Feature specific configuration of any installed package
* General configuration (set up, name, and configure the bitweaver site)
* Login configuration (how users register and log in)
* Quota configuration for user files
* Admin DSN - create links to external databases
* Banning - block access from individual IPs or ranges of IPs
* Cache - control and flush cached data
* Edit templates - edit SMARTY templates
* Phpinfo - view PHP information on the server
* QuickTags - define QuickTags for inserting Wiki syntax
* Search Stats - view search stats
* Stats - view site stats
* Theme control - assign different themes to various bitweaver packages
* Users - manage registered users

For fuller details of all the current facilities refer to the [http://doc.bitweaver.org/wiki/Bitweaver+Features bitweaver features] page.

Internationalization
bitweaver is an international project, providing translations of the interface in many languages. The default interface language is English/en; but bitweaver is designed to support any language encodable with UTF-8. As of 2007-11-22, bitweaver has 32 languages listed and while some of these need updating to include newer package translation elements, on the whole these are all usable. A work still in progress is the provision of management tools for the translation of content in addition to the translation of the user interface.

Implementation
bitweaver is developed primarily in PHP, but has some JavaScript code. It makes extensive use of a database, via the ADOdb database abstraction library, has support for PostgreSQL, , MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server. bitweaver will run on any server, including Apache and Microsoft's IIS, that provides PHP 4.1 (or later) and one of the supported databases. See the bitweaver website for .

Components of bitweaver utilize other open source projects, including ADOdb, Smarty, Graphviz, Tinymce, fckeditor, jscalendar, Overlib, and Mapserver.

Easy Installation
The advanced installer take new users through every step of installing the core packages and when appropriate importing content from other systems. It checks your PHP settings, informs you of the pertinent settings, and allows you to select which bitweaver packages you want to install. It provides a graphical interface when upgrading your system or when converting from another CMS to bitweaver. The installer can also be used to add packages that were omitted originally, or load new packages as they become available.

Project team
bitweaver is under active development by a large international community of over 40 developers and translators. Project members have donated the resources and bandwidth required to host the bitweaver.org website, which exclusively utilizes bitweaver. The project members refer to this dependence on their own product as "" and all of the core developers also run their own sites based on bitweaver with personal extensions that are easy to integrate into the bitweaver structure.

History
bitweaver is the result of a split from the TikiWiki project. Originally called TikiPro as a reference to it's more professional approach to modular programming, the name was changed to bitweaver following requests from the TikiWiki project. The project has been hosted on SourceForge since its inception as TikiPro, and through it's renaming. Founding members include Christian Fowler, Max Kremmel, Stephan Bourg, and Brian Todoroff.

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See Also

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