WebGUI is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

written in

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

and released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

. The system permits non-technically minded users to arrange content in pages and layouts, containing 'Assets' (

applet In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program, often as a plug-in. The term is frequently used to refer to a Java applet, a program w ...

s) which permit

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...

visitors to view and interact with various types of data from basic Articles to full-blown

Content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

and custom applications. In July 2014, Scott Walters proposed
project
on

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

to bring the nascent Version 8 rewrite to a formal release with a supporting

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

community. Version 8 is, according to the Kickstarter project page, "a massive modernization effort that reworked core to use

Moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

, Plack, Try::Tiny" along with a general code cleanup. The project achieved its

crowd funding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...

goal on July 16, 2014.

Introduction

WebGUI (pronounced web-GOO-E) is a system that gives web administrators the ability to manage the appearance and features available in the user interface to fit each user's skill level. Its users and groups system allows control over content editing and viewing privileges, and the versioning and workflow systems allow for content approval hierarchies and tracking of content as it moves through the site. Everything in WebGUI is a template which allows for customization, while keeping the site content and style separate. The system was originally built as an

application framework In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user inter ...

by creator

Plain Black Corporation In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. In ...

to support their customer development work, but a majority of its current independent users utilize it as a

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manage ...

with the modules with which it ships.

History

In 1999 a development project called Web Done Right began in an effort to create a web application framework. Over the next several years, Web Done Right evolved and eventually became WebGUI. WebGUI and its parent company Plain Black Corporation were launched to the public in 2001.

Features

The WebGUI software can be used for: *Web-based Administrative Interface *WYSIWYG Rich Text Editor *Workflow Engine *Versioning *E-Commerce *User Management *Group Management *Search engine friendly URLs *Internationalization

Architecture

WebGUI is built as an application framework, and has a pluggable architecture to aid in the extensibility of applications. Developers can create custom applications and functionality that match an organization's processes. A pluggable

macro Macro (or MACRO) may refer to: Science and technology * Macroscopic, subjects visible to the eye * Macro photography, a type of close-up photography * Image macro, a picture with text superimposed * Monopole, Astrophysics and Cosmic Ray Observat ...

architecture allows for even more extensibility and flexibility. WebGUI's

modular design Modular design, or modularity in design, is a design principle that subdivides a system into smaller parts called ''modules'' (such as modular process skids), which can be independently created, modified, replaced, or exchanged with other modules ...

allows code to be easily accessed, changed, and replaced. WebGUI is a

mod_perl Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, U ...

application but there is a project codenamed PlebGUI to port WebGUI to

PSGI Plack is a Perl web application programming framework inspired by Rack for Ruby and WSGI for Python, and it is the project behind the PSGI specification used by other frameworks such as Catalyst and Dancer. Plack allows for testing of Perl w ...

, the Perl Web Server Gateway Interface, which enables deployment using CGI,

FastCGI FastCGI is a binary protocol for interfacing interactive programs with a web server. It is a variation on the earlier Common Gateway Interface (CGI). FastCGI's main aim is to reduce the overhead related to interfacing between web server and CGI p ...

, et al.

Built in applications

With WebGUI, users can create: * Online shops that accept credit cards. * Forums (Flat, Nested, and Threaded views) * SQL Reports (Drill down and hierarchical queries enabled) * Polls *

Classifieds Classified advertising is a form of advertising, particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals, which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements use ...

* Web Log (blogs) * Photo Galleries * News Listings * FAQs * Link Directories * Job Postings * User Contributions * Syndicated News (includes

aggregation Aggregation may refer to: Business and economics * Aggregation problem (economics) * Purchasing aggregation, the joining of multiple purchasers in a group purchasing organization to increase their buying power * Community Choice Aggregation, the ...

) * Events Calendars * Surveys * Self-Grading Tests * Articles *

Search Engines A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a l ...

* Web Services Front End * Matrix Comparison Systems * Weather Data * Stock Data * Dashboard (My Page) * In/Out Boards * Project Management * Time Tracking In addition, there are many user contributed applications available.

Themes

WebGUI comes with a number of built in themes, and additional themes are freely available in the add-ons section of th
WebGUI website
Everything in WebGUI is a template, and templates are accessed through the admin user interface.

Translation

WebGUI has a translation server that allows anyone to contribute translated terms for any field label in the user interface. These translations can then be applied to a site and users can manage content in their native languages. WebGUI contains Dutch, German, English and Spanish translations.

Licensing

WebGUI is licensed under

, which means it is free to download and use.

System requirements

* Application Server:

Database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

Operating System An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

: Any *

Programming Language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

Root Access In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of th ...

: Yes * Shell Access: Yes *

Web Server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initi ...

: Apache

WebGUI runtime environment

To ease the installation of WebGUI's requirements, Plain Black distributes them inside of the WebGUI

Runtime Environment In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile ...

(WRE). The WRE includes everything needed to run WebGUI, excepting some

modules that versions of WebGUI released after the WRE may require. The WRE is pre-

compiled In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily ...

by Plain Black for their list of supported systems, and members of the community submit WRE

binaries A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document file ...

for other systems. In addition to the requirements, the WRE includes tools to administer WebGUI servers. The 0.8 version of the WRE introduced the WRE Console, which is a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

tool (viewed with a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

) to set up and manage WebGUI sites.

Mascot

Gooey, the purple octopus is the mascot of WebGUI. It was created by Darci Gibson.

Reception

A 2019 review by staff at Business.com noted WebGUI's collaboration features and community support as among its useful features, and ability to customize each user''s interface depending on their skill level./https://www.business.com/reviews/webgui/#:~:text=The%20Verdict&text=Since%20content%20management%20systems%20are,without%20disrupting%20the%20live%20site.

References

{{Reflist

External links

WebGUI web siteWebGUI Project on SourceForgePlainblack CorporationWebGUI Translation Server
Free software programmed in Perl Free content management systems Perl software