The ASF CMS

Posted on: 2010-12-02 04:25:43+00:00

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Note: Projects and the ASF itself used the Apache Content Management System from 2010 to 2021. It is no longer available.

Links to suggestions for setting up a project website, and website guidelines, are available under "PMC resources" in the general Infrastructure documentation page.

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Over the past 3 months, the Infrastructure Team has developed and deployed a custom CMS for Apache projects to use to manage their websites. There is a document available which explains the rationale, role, and future plans for the CMS. We have opened up the ACLs for the www.apache.org site for all committers to now be able to edit content on the site using the cms (while still restricting live publication to the Apache membership and the Infrastructure Team).

The basic workflow for committers is easy to describe: first install the javascript bookmarklet on your browser toolbar. Next visit a webpage on the www.apache.org website. When you've located a page you'd like to edit, click on the installed bookmarklet: you'll be taken to a working copy of the markdown source for the page in question. To edit the content click on the [Edit] link. A markdown editor will show you a preview of your changes while you work. When you have finished, submit your changes and [Commit] them.

Your commit will trigger buildbot to build a staging version of your changes. You can follow the build while it is ongoing, and once it has completed you can click on the [Staged] link to see the results. Members and Infrastructure Team members can continue on and publish those changes once they are satisfied with them. Other committers may need to send a note to the site-dev@ mailing list to request publication of their changes.

The publication links in the CMS are essentially merge + commit operations in subversion which are tied into the live site via svnpubsub. That means publishing in the CMS is virtually instantaneous.

The CMS is now open to all top-level and incubating projects. Interested projects should contact the infrastructure@ mailing list or simply file an INFRA ticket against the CMS component. Early adopters are encouraged to collaborate on the wiki page for working out usage and adoption issues.