| WebMake as a CMS
                          WebMake is, arguably, a Content Management System, or CMS.
                          
                         
                          To be more specific, it's oriented entirely towards generating a relatively
                          static site, such as a weblog, a news site (without comments or
                          personalisation) or a typical informational site.
                          
                         
                          It does not have any dynamic, database-driven, features suitable for "live"
                          sites that update frequently with dynamic data; nor does it have support for
                          "personalisation" features, where the site displays different data based on
                          what the user presents in their HTTP request. (Of course, using WebMake does
                          not preclude using PHP, mod_perl, Mason etc. to provide these, however.)
                          
                         
                          Here's the relevant details of what it can do.
                          
                         WebMake's CMS Features
                          
                            
                              Separation between content and layout
                            
                            
                              Since, logically, content and layout are entirely separate tasks, they
                               should be easy to keep separate in the CMS.
                              
                             
                            
                              WebMake uses content references to include content into pages, and
                               implement templating. This allows you to separate the content text from
                               the template layout HTML; the template designers just need to include
                               a content reference, such as ${body}, instead of the
                               text. 
                            
                              No requirement for text editors to know HTML
                            
                            
                              Only the layout staff should really need to know HTML, so the staff who
                               provide text content can do this without HTML knowledge.
                              
                             
                            
                              WebMake provides Text::EtText, which provides an
                               easy-to-edit, easy-to-read and intuitive way to write HTML, based on the
                               plain-text markup conventions we've been using for years.
                              
                             
                            
                              Generation of pages automatically, using metadata from content items
                            
                            
                              It should be possible to generate index pages, sitemaps, navigation links,
                               and other text automatically, based on properties and metadata of the
                               pieces of content loaded.
                              
                             
                            
                              WebMake supports this by allowing any content item to carry arbitrary
                               textual metadata. Perl code can then be used to dynamically
                               request a list of content items that have a particular set of metadata,
                               and any page can refer to another content item's title, description,
                               abstract etc. without itself needing to parse the content text.
                              
                             
                            
                              Flexible URL support
                            
                            
                              It should be trivial to rearrange a site, if required, totally changing
                               the URLs used in the site's pages.
                              
                             
                            
                              WebMake supports this by using symbolic URL references,
                               which can be modified by changing one line, causing references to that
                               URL throughout the site to change.
                              
                             
                            
                              Edit-In-Page Functionality
                            
                            
                              Most CMSes boast a nice, browser-based user interface to creating, naming,
                               uploading and filling out content items and media.
                              
                             
                            
                              WebMake now provides a CGI script, which allows a certain
                               degree of web-based maintainance and content editing. It's not quite as
                               foolproof as some of the bigger CMS systems, but it's a start!
                              
                             What WebMake Is Missing
                          
                            
                              Database Support
                            
                            
                              It would be nice if WebMake could load content from a database. It
                               currently cannot, although there's nothing in the architecture that would
                               preclude this; there just has not been a need, just yet.
                              
                             
                            
                              Unfortunately, this may not be possible -- this IBM software patent details a mechanism whereby a server can dynamically rebuild its
                               pages, based on changes to objects in a database. WebMake could run
                               afoul of this if database support is added (although there are a few
                               points where this could be avoided).
                              
                             
                            
                              XSLT Support
                            
                            
                              This will definitely arrive -- as soon as a good XSLT engine becomes part
                               of Perl, or at least becomes easy to install from CPAN. It's on my list ;)
                              
                             
                            
                              Workflow
                            
                            
                              There's currently no logic to support workflow. This would not
                               be difficult to add, though.
                              
                             
                          
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