Peridot's Freeform Content Management System

The Peridot FreeForm CMS™ is a database-driven website content management system, which enables less technical or web-savvy individuals to manage complex websites.  The architecture of the system requires a webhosting environment capable of aliasing web URL’s to executable scripts (i.e. Apache Server), PHP5+ (the web sites themselves will generally run in a PHP4 environment; however, the administration console requires PHP5 or above), and the MySQL database.  In general, this configuration is called a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP); however, there are some Windows-based hosting companies that run Apache and MySQL instead of IIS & MsSQL/Access.

The CMS includes the abilities to alter content and upload PDF files and images, and the CMS administrative interface includes the abilities to alter content and upload PDF files and images, plus it will be both PC and Mac-compatible. The CMS is used by our clients to manage the ongoing need to change the site content regularly. These changes include text, photos, graphics, and PDF files.

FreeForm CMS as compared to other CMS's:
One of the fundamental differences between FreeForm CMS and most CMS's is that all page content (categories in FFCMS terminology) is thought to be integral to the site navigation.  In general, the site navigation is a representation of the content topology (basically, a filesystem driven by relationships between the files).  In other CMS's, content is typically created separately from a navigational structure.  This would be like putting all your documents on your desktop, and then creating a directory tree with links to those documents.  While this particular organizational method provides flexibility, it creates much more work and requires a higher level of sophistication in the user.

Our Plug-in architecture provides flexibility by allowing us to develop custom interfaces, controls, and data relationships without adding bulk to the system, while keeping the system usable by people who aren't computer programmers.