Documentation | Advanced Web Content Management
SpryPanel Documentation -> 0.0 Preface

SpryPanel Documentation | 0.0 Preface

SpryPanel is a Content Management System (CMS) which is especially suited for small to medium sized web sites. SpryPanel is completely web based and uses PHP as its primary scripting language and MySQL as the database backend. It was designed to be as simple as possible to use, while still offering power users the opportunity to exploit advanced features and to develop functions of their own.

History of SpryPanel:

This is the third major version of SpryPanel. The original version (then called ClanPanel) was designed and developed as a very basic CMS, which required re-written for each individual web site it was used on. Version two, when the current author was introduced to the project, took the basic idea of the original and made it modular. However, again, it needed to be specifically re-written for each site. While this is a lot easier in a modular program, it is still time consummating when it doesn't need to be. It also meant that to use the software you needed to know PHP quite well if you wanted to deploy SpryPanel on your own site with out the assistance of others. Removing this obstacle was once of the primary goals of the third generation of SpryPanel, so that anyone could deploy it on their site with the minimum of hassle. We also wanted to keep the content entirely separate from the site design, so that a designer can create a beautiful site with out worrying too much about the content, which can be edited later on.

Future of SpryPanel:

While we currently have no plans for version four of SpryPanel (it might happen one day…) we have a very long list of features that we would like to see in version three. No piece of software is ever complete and to that end we intend to release a major new version of SP3 at six month intervals with new features such as ftp file editing, spell checking and many more. SP3 also allows both content management and system control plugins to be added which we will release new version of when ever we can. To suggest a feature that you would like in SpryPanel, e-mail it to suggestions@sprypanel.com.

About the Authors:

SpryPanel was developed by the team at SpryMedia.Net as a CMS solution for the web sites we develop, since we couldn't find one that offered all the features we wanted at a reasonable price. With the release of SpryPanel version three we realised that we had a great piece of software on our hands and that others could really benefit from it.

Name: Allan Jardine
Position: Lead Software Developer
Allan joined SpryMedia in winter 2003 and quickly set about writing a new version of the existing panel that was being used at the time. While quite happy with the solution, he realised that it wasn't all it could be and that there was a lot of room for improvement. So he set about writing SpryPanel 3 which he is now very content with, and looking forward to seeing how it develops with future work. While not working on SpryPanel Allan is performing research for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks.

Name: Kevin Stroup
Position: Software Quality Control / Marketing Analyst
Kevin has been with SpryMedia since the beginning, bringing new ideas to the table every day in order to make SpryPanel the most efficient and user-friendly software it can possibly be. He works closely with the development team to ensure that SpryPanel performs above industry standards and exceeds all client expectations. Kevin also manages business and client communications for the company in order to effectively market this outstanding software.

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