Architecture of SheerCMS

The SheerCMS Content Management System consists of four main sections, the website, the controls, the data engine and the content store.

Content Storage.

SheerCMS uses an XML file to store all web site textual content; page definitions, list entries, etc. This allows for easy configuration of the website with no database configuration and possibly less cost. The choice of an XML file as the content library also allows the number and type of items to be easily extended.

Other site content, images, Flash files, etc are held under the Content folder of the website, along with the Content.xml file.

Data Engine.

Rather than accessing the Content.xml file every time a item of content is requested, the content is read into a data engine. This consists of a number of Manager classes that track and manage content of a specific type, for example the PageManager contains all of the Page Definition items.

These engines act as a write through cache, updating the Content.xml file if and when new content is added or existing content is modified.

Controls.

The provided controls interface directly into the Data Engine. These controls all inherit from the ASP Webcontrol class and can be used within any ASP.Net website that has a reference to the SheerCMSControls DLL. All controls create the minimum of structural HTML, providing the most CSS friendly structure possible. All HTML rendered by SherrCMS controls is XHTML 1.0 compliant and helps to make SheerCMS a good choice developing a cross browser friendly website.

Website.

The last part of SheerCMS is the website. This is a collection of example template pages and the online administration console. The example templates consist of special templates, used for rendering specific controls, and general templates, which are used to render page content. The website also provides an example layout for the website and give the user a quick start option and can be used as a starting point for your own SheerCMS implementation.