Announcing the Simplist CMS
Aug 24, 2006After several weeks I’ve managed to clean up the code, knock out some bugs, and implement some features on my pet project, a basic CMS for Rails Developers. So with little fanfare I’m releasing into the wild Simplist version 0.5. So stick with me for a moment I’ll explain what exactly Simplist is and why I’m excited about making it available to the Rails community.
Where Do I Get It?
First off, for those of you that are impatient, here’s the goods:
Here’s the direct download link: simplist-0.5.tgz
I’ve also created a page with some screenshots.
There is also a Trac site for Simplist that has some basic documentation, some install instructions, and the link if you want to use Subversion to get Simplist.
Now, onto explaining what Simplist is…
Simplist is a Foundation
First off, Simplist is a foundation. It is not a full featured content management system. It is a starting point for Rails developers who want to build a website with Rails, and want an easy way to manage the content, but don’t want to go through all the legwork of rolling their own CMS.
With Simplist the content management aspects are done for you. The functionality for basic blogging is there. The ability to upload files and images is taken care of. But everything else is a blank slate. Simplist is meant to provide a stable foundation and good starting point, but it is expected that Rails developers want the freedom to build whatever they want on top of it.
Simplist does not use any templating languages like Liquid. Nor does it allow you to edit the design from the interface. I expect that most of you want to design in your editor of choice, not a text area on a webpage.
I also assume that many of you want to still roll your own code rather than having preset widgets provided for you. Simplist gets out of your way and says, “Hey, I just manage the content, don’t look at me.” So use ActionMailer for contact forms and registration emails. Make your own web services. Build up your own custom solutions using the full capabilities of Rails.
So that’s what I mean when I say Simplist is just a foundation.
Simplist is Personal
While many of the blogging systems and CMS’s out there have role based security and support multiple users I suspect many people out there never create anything beyond the admin account, myself included. So I created Simplist with nothing more than a single user in mind. This is not to say that Simplist can’t be extended to be a multi-user system, but for me it’s a layer of complexity that can be left out of the main feature set for the time being.
Final Notes
So go download Simplist, explore the souce code, and have fun building. If you run into problems just contact me.