Can ya Lenya? Well now with CWI you can, and build a pretty darn good java based dynamic site! CWI is proud to embrace Apache Lenya, a Content Management System (CMS). This differs from the vast horde of other open source CMS solutions available, as it is Java based. Rather than being based on Zope or written in PHP, Lenya is totally based on XML, XSLT and other related open standards. It also supports browser based inline WYSIWYG editors, such as Xopus, Bitflux and Epoz. Being based around the Cocoon project gives Lenya greater flexibility in dynamically distributing content. Lenya takes advantage of this framework by storing all content as XML, and transforming it on the fly when required by clients. Lenya then intuitively caches the results of the transformation, to be quickly reused if needed. For example, it is capable of translating to HTML or PDF, prior to delivering.  Having used programs backed by the Apache foundation for many years on our hosting platforms, we believe in the stability of Lenya’s solid Jakarta components.  Furthermore, a comprehensive suite of unit tests create a highly effective means of determining what impact any of your shenanigans would have on the code! Bad days happen, and if you are having a really bad goober day, the unlimited rollbacks, it’s built in revision control, and scheduler can help keep you on track. Different workflow areas for live editing, and for authoring is a great feature as well!

• Content Actually Exports: Content can be exported as static HTML pages for use in a non-database-driven website, something we wish more CMS solutions would do!
• WYSIWYG Editing: Xopus, BXE and Kupu have been integrated into Lenya.
• Workflow Areas: Lenya differentiates between Admin, Authoring, Staging and Live area. Steps are logged for auditing purposes.
• Version Control: Reserved CheckIn/CheckOut, and Unlimited Rollback are integrated.
• Search: Apache Lucene has been integrated into Lenya, a nice full text search engine.
• Multi-server deployment: Lenya can be deployed across multiple servers, each server being assigned unique capabilities. One server could be set up for Authoring and one for live deployment of the published site. OK, you caught us, we are just trying to sell more servers, no really …it does.  

Being the security conscious company we are, we really like Lenya’s security aspects as well. Once you are up and running, you can use Lenya’s advanced security features to help protect your newly developed site. Using the built in tools you can control access by IP ranges, use an LDAP server for authentication, or restrict areas of your site to members of a group or individually.  All pages of your Lenya project can be secured through a dedicated SSL certificate for further security, and because you can get one right here at CWI for just $60/year, why not add the SSL encryptions? There are so many other useful features, with a nice site content management view, but if you haven’t already tried it, you’ll just have to try it yourself. Though already capable as is, if you are looking to build your own custom system and solution, we would recommend Lenya as a good starting point. While other options are available, their flexibility pales in comparison.