Who is Zaapt for?
Before answering this question, first I will describe what Zaapt actually is.
Zaapt is fairly minimal and only consists of Perl modules, Mason components and database patch scripts. All of these files are passive in nature and all need something else to use them. Zaapt comes with no infrastucture to let you use these things nor to help you set up an actual site.
This is all on purpose!
The main reason for this minimal structure is so that Zaapt doesn't force any particular kind of infrastructure on you besides it's essential requirements such as Perl, Mason, PostgreSQL.
Therefore, you may use Zaapt with apache-perl, apache2, lighttd and
libfcgi-perl and (theoretically) many other configurations.
It also means you have to decide how you do your sessions, cookies, caching,
load balancing and various other things you really need to think about when
building a site. In some cases, you can install one of the zaapt-demo
packages and it will be perfectly fine for you, but if you are wanting to build
a high-traffic site or one with more customisations, then you probably want to
think about these things a little harder.
First and foremost, Zaapt is for Programmers
All of this means that Zaapt is more like a programmer's CMS rather than an
end-user CMS. This is for two reasons:
- because it's too hard to set up for the end user (it might even be impossible)
- it was written by a programmer who wants to have control of these things on each site installation but can re-use models between them
None of this inhibits the possibility that an end-user CMS can be written which uses Zaapt and in fact, one would be very welcome. Please see How to make an End-User CMS using Zaapt for initial details. Also see the Zaapt Demo sites for an example of something which can be installed for an end user and be instantly usable (even if it can't be configured by the end user).
One of the main reasons why Zaapt came about is because I was creating new websites fairly frequently which all contained the same elements, like a blog (or blogs), news, content etc. I wanted a way whereby I could leverage off one implementation of these models but still retain a lot of control regarding the site's infrastructure and it's look and feel.
One thrown-away implementation later and Zaapt was born.
Secondly, Zaapt is for End-Users
If a programmer has set up Zaapt for use by an end-user then it will look perfectly like a full-blown CMS to them. It's just not suitable for an end-user out of the box, that's all. Certain things need to be filled in.
Future
Hopefully one day in the future, a package can be installed which will depend
on Zaapt and get a site up and running straight away. The zaapt-demo and
zaapt-simple-demo sites get a little of the way there, but not all the way
there.
Remember, however, that if such a complete end user CMS using Zaapt thing existed, it would have to pre-decide your implementations and use of cookies, sessions, caching and how the content sections map onto the site for you. This is great for getting a site up and running but bad if you want to have full control.
Packages like this could give you a leg-up to a more customised site too
though. By downloading and customising zaapt-demo you can get closer to
what you really want.
Unlike the zaapt-demo sites, the ability to add new sections and be mapped
via the admin interface onto the site should also be taken care of in an end
user CMS. The Zaapt Demo sites don't work like this and require a code change
for all every new section added.
(Ends)
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