A number of different parties have expressed interest in jointly developing a content management framework (CMF) in Smalltalk, with the aim of using it to build Smalltalk-powered portals or content management servers (CMS).

This page attempts to summarize the present discussion and identify issues for further exploration.

Background

Content servers generally employ a template-driven architecture to simplify the tasks of authoring and collaboration (most often, these templates are a script-based technology). CM solutions offer the great advantage of enabling all parts of an organization to more effectively collaborate and publish dynamic site content.

Summary

• What are our requirements for a CMF?
• What existing (Smalltalk-based) technologies are available?
• What about open-source frameworks?
• What about emerging portal standards?
• Where can I find articles that summarize the emerging standards?
• What about the market?

Leading issue: Requirements need to be specified. To achieve this, use cases have been collected.

General implementation requirements:

• CMF must be fully documented (absolutely mandatory)
• Compatibility with emerging standards

• Persistence Engine
• Document and Template management
• User and Group management
• Web Publishing Framework
• Localization

• Membership/registration/dues suite
• Content Authoring suite
• Workflow suite
• Administrative suite
• Syndication

What existing technologies are available?

A number of general frameworks for building web applications in Smalltalk exist: VisualWorks Web Toolkit, Squeak Seaside, Swazoo, AIDA/Web, and EZBoard. The extent to which they meet the requirements for a CMF is a separate issue.

Comment:
My impression is that the existing frameworks implemented in Smalltalk do not meet all of the CMF requirements outlined above. Some of them include developer documentation (e.g., VisualWorks) but most do not. Some provide compatibility with emerging standards, but many implement novel server technologies (e.g., Seaside). Most of the aforementioned frameworks are currently in development, and so a re-evaluation is called for sometime in 2004. [MDR]

What about open-source frameworks?

The most visible and highly regarded currently appears to be Plone. A brief summary of its architecture may be found here.

In the Java camp, there's Jetspeed, which is described as "an Open Source implementation of an Enterprise Information Portal, using Java and XML".

Many frameworks built with PHP/MySQL exist. Among these, TikiWiki has been highly recommended. More information is available here.

What about emerging standards for portals?

There are over a dozen major vendors of portal tools. Most of the major platforms now have direct portlet support in their frameworks and/or toolsets.

OASIS Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP)
WSRP standardizes web services at the presentation layer on top of the existing web services stack, and builds on the existing web services standards. WSRP interfaces are defined in the Web Services Description Language (WSDL). In addition, WSRP defines metadata for self-description for publishing and finding WSRP services in registries. All WSRP services are required to implement a SOAP binding and optionally may support additional bindings.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wsrp/

Java Portlet standards
Java Community Process's Java Specification Request 168
Portlets are web components (like Servlets) specifically designed to be aggregated in the context of a composite page. Usually, many Portlets are invoked to in the single request of a Portal page. Each Portlet produces a fragment of markup that it s combined with the markup of other Portlets, all within the Portal page markup.
http://jcp.org/jsr/detail/168.jsp

Comment:
This looks like an important standard to investigate further. Are portlets an enabling technology for WSRP? [MDR]

Web Services for Interactive Applications (WSIA)
[replaces OASIS Web Services Component Model (WSCM)]
WSIA is an XML and web services centric component model for interactive web applications.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wsia/

Comment:
This is supposed to be the next step beyond WSRP. The planning committee hasn't produced any design documents, white papers, or interface descriptions yet. [MDR]

WSXL (Web Services Experience Language -- IBM)
WSXL is a Web services centric component model for interactive Web applications, that is, for applications that provide a user experience across the Internet. WSXL is designed to achieve two main goals: enable businesses to deliver interactive Web applications through multiple distribution channels and enable new services or applications to be created by leveraging other interactive applications across the Web.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ws-wsxl2/

Comment:
Appears to be primarily backed by IBM. No significant sign-on from other vendors yet. Relationship between WSXL and WSRP appears to be as follows: (1) WSRP services must implement the basic WSXL interfaces. (2) WSRP services must implement the WSXL markup interfaces. (3) WSRP services should implement the WSXL property interfaces. [MDR]

Rich Site Summary (RSS)
RSS is a simple and well-established XML format used to syndicate headlines.
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/rss.html

Comment:
While this is an existing and accepted syndication standard, there seems to be a widespread sense that it has reached certain limits. The newer portal standards like WSRP appear to be intended to go beyond RSS. [MDR]

Where can I find articles that summarize the emerging standards?

Portal standards for Web services
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/2002/0902tech.html

Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP)
http://xml.coverpages.org/wsrp.html

META Group: The Emergence Of 'Portlets'
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/it_res/article/0,,3031_1146261,00.html

Portal Standards
http://www2.theserverside.com/resources/article.jsp?l=Portlet_API

Plug-and-play portlets
http://www2.idg.com.au/infoage1.nsf/04c52135f89305774a2568ac00109437/2585d23db1a9582bca256bd700136726!OpenDocument

APIs to Link Portals With Apps
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,3604,00.asp

Authoring Device Independent Portal Content
http://www.w3.org/2002/07/DIAT/posn/sun-portal.html

Best Practices for Building Portlets using BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0
http://eu.bea.com/events/eworld2002/presentations/documents/T_Davies_Carr.pdf http://www.documentum.com/products/collateral/partners/partner_beaportals.pdf

Build Plug-and-Play Web Portals
WSRP Chairman Thomas Schaeck talks about how Web services for remote portals will simplify Web development.
http://www.fawcette.com/vsm/2002_06/online/the/default_pf.asp

Standards to Drive Services
It would be problematic, however, if every portal vendor did these things differently. Understanding this, many of the top portal vendors, including Divine Inc., Epicentric Inc., IBM, Oracle Corp. and Plumtree Software Inc., have been very active in backing and proposing Web services standards that define Web services interfaces and how they deploy to remote portals.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1721,00.asp

Building Enterprise Portals
http://edocs.bea.com/platform/docs70/intro/intro4.html

Bowstreet Portlet Factory for WebSphere
Bowstreet offers full product support for the leading web service standards, such as WSDL, SOAP, XML schema, and UDDI. Bowstreet also actively participates in, monitors, and plans support for the emerging portlet standards, such as JSR-168, WSRP and WSIA.
http://www.bowstreet.com/products/portletfactory/standards.html

Portals: Enter the Future of Information
http://www.wohl.com/wa0157.htm

Portals, uPortal, and JA-SIG
http://www.nchelp.org/events/past_events/2001/Training_2001/TC%2001/portals.pdf

What about the market?

Portals Community Website
http://www.portalscommunity.com/

The Corporate Portal Market in 2003
Empty Portals, The Enterprise Web, Composite Applications
A Synthesis of New Original Survey Results
and Recent Analyst Research on the Portal Market
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com:8080/CincomSmalltalkWiki/DOWNLOAD/CMF/Corporate-Portal-Market-2003.pdf