Revenant CMX™ Content Management System

Version 1.1.0 Now Available!

Friday, November 23, 2007 - Version 1.2 is just about ready to roll. We'll post an announcement on Freshmeat as soon as it's available.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - If you thought Revenant CMX couldn't get any better, get a load of the goodies we've added this week!

We've added full session and user account support with login, change password, and retrieve lost password functions to support the new multi-user plugins scheduled for release in the next couple of weeks.
Your server doesn't have Sendmail, or your hosting company restricts script access to it? No problem! Revenant CMX now has a robust SMTP connector built right in so you can use any mail server you have an account on! And setup is as easy as setting up your Outlook Express e-mail account. No more mail configuration hassles ever!

Although officially slated for release with version 1.2 next week, you can take advantage of these new features and improvements today. Contact us to find out how!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - We've added a few drag-and-drop features that will make Revenant CMX even easier to use! For example:

A dialog for changing the order in which page links are listed in the sidebar and footer navigation. (See Fig. 14.)
Drag handles for resizing table columns in the control panel and plugin manager.

Plus: pursuant to our goal of helping users perform common tasks in the fewest steps possible, the image crop and resize dialogs have been completely rebuilt to take advantage of the latest user interface technologies!

Sunday, November 4, 2007 - Version 1.1.0 has been released, incorporating the following fixes and enhancements:

We've dropped implicit eAccelerator support* in favor of the PECL-standard APC byte-code caching extension. Moreover, Revenant CMX now transparently caches pre-built HTML pages in RAM on hosts that have APC enabled!
The media manager no longer requires PHP's fileinfo or mime_magic extensions to correctly identify video MIME types. We had too many hassles with these extensions on various platforms we tested Revenant CMX on and decided not to expose our customers to the same hassles. Therefore, version 1.1.0 has foolproof video MIME type validation built in!
The logo banners generated by Revenant CMX's theme manager are now GIFs instead of PNGs. We made this change because Internet Explorer continues to render PNG transparencies incorrectly.
Revenant CMX 1.1.0 includes a social bookmarking toolbar that can be turned on and off in the control panel.

Besides improvements to the product itself, we are continuing to work on a fully automated demo launcher. Visitors will soon be able to submit a form that will immediately start a free private demo of Revenant CMX 1.1.0!

* Note that eAccelerator will continue to cache scripts as usual on hosts that have it enabled. (This is a function of eAccelerator itself, not of Revenant CMX.) However, Revenant CMX does not utilize eAccelarator's user content caching mechanism at this time.

Friday, October 26, 2007 - Raindancer Resurrected are pleased to announce the release of our revolutionary new content management system (CMS), Revenant CMX. Until now, most CMSs have suffered from the same drawback: they involve the end user in the minutae of database management, URL processing rules, and the like, that the layman would just as soon avoid. In a nutshell, most such applications were designed for IT professionals, not for the general public.

All of that has now changed. What follows is a list of many of the powerful features that make Revenant CMX uniquely easy to use. You can click each of the accompanying screenshots to view a full-size image in a new window. Although you may have heard this a thousand times, we aren't exaggerating in the least when we say that Revenant CMX literally allows the typical Windows or Mac user to have a professional quality Web site up and running in minutes!

Image & Media Management

Let's face it: many users simply haven't mastered an FTP client, nor do they have the Photoshop skills needed to perform basic image cropping and resizing tasks. Now they don't have to. Revenant CMX provides easy-to-use upload forms and crop and resize dialogs right on the Web site! (See Figs. 1 - 3.)

The online image and media browsers make organizing photos, video clips, and Flash presentations a breeze. Mousing over an object in the browser window conveniently displays information about that object, such as width and height, file size, MIME type, video frame rate, and video duration in the sidebar. (See Figs. 4 & 5.)

Rich Text Editing with a Twist

Sure, every CMS on the market has a built-in rich text editor, but how often have you seen this? Revenant CMX's image and media catalogs are ingeniously integrated into the page editor's file chooser dialogs so that media can be selected by clicking on thumbnails rather than typing URLs or selecting them from a list. Thus, the user can embed a photo, video clip, or Flash presentation into a Web page in just two clicks! (See Figs. 6 & 7.)

Not to mention, Revenant CMX automatically avoids naming conflicts by appending a serial number to the URL of a new page that has the same title as an existing page. If you're starting to get the idea that this program is almost completely klutz-proof, you are 100% correct!

Search Engine Optimization

In addition, we've placed the all-important title, keywords, and description META tag fields directly into Revenant CMX's page editor so that the user may create a page and perform search engine optimization (SEO) tasks in one shot. Revenant CMX even creates robot-friendly URLs from your page titles automatically. For example, if you create a page with the title "What I Did on My Summer Vacation", the URL for that page will be:

http://yoursite.com/what_i_did_on_my_summer_vacation

The standard sitemap.xml file used by search engines to more easily find new URLs on your site is automatically kept up-to-date as well.

And speaking of search engines, Revenant CMX includes a built-in site search to help visitors find information fast!

Built-in Contact Form & Inbox

Here's an interesting take on contact forms. When a visitor to your Web site clicks "Contact Us" they'll see the standard contact form shown in Figure 8. When you log in as site administrator and click "Contact Us" you'll see your inbox containing the messages submitted with that form instead. (See Fig. 9.)

Themes & Settings

What CMS would be complete without the ability to change skins on the fly? Revenant CMX's theme manager lets you change the appearance of your Web site by simply selecting a theme from a drop-down list and clicking a button. You can preview each installed theme before you decide to change it. What's more, the theme manager automatically generates a matching logo banner image for each theme based on the site name you specify in the site configuration panel. When you change the name of your site, the banner is automatically updated as well! (See Figs. 10 & 11.)

Easy Plugin Expansion

Revenant CMX's plugin architecture allows you to expand your Web site as your needs evolve. Popular Web-based applications such as shopping carts, discussion boards, and photo albums can be installed in no time at all. Just run the installer, set your preferences, and you're good to go! And Revenant CMX gives you not one but two ways to install a plugin. You can either upload the plugin file from your computer or transload it directly from our Web site to yours. (See Figs. 12 & 13.)

Performance Features

That's it for the screenshots, but there's plenty of stuff under the hood we need to tell you about.

Ordinarily, when a visitor requests a page from your site, the Web server has to load one or more scripts and compile them into binary instructions before they can be executed. Although this all happens very quickly, the combined effect of many visitors requesting pages at the same time can noticeably affect server performance. The hosted version of Revenant CMX comes with the eAccelerator caching optimizer enabled, which bypasses loading and compiling code for every page request and allows every function on your Web site to be immediately executed from pre-compiled binaries stored in the server's RAM memory.

In addition to the foregoing, each script that the Web server runs will more often than not make one or more requests for data from a database server located on the same computer as the Web server. Unless the data has changed, there's no good reason for the server to incur all of this processing overhead (while you wait) each and every time a page is requested. And with Revenant CMX, it doesn't. As long as your pages remain unchanged and no new data has been sent to the server - for example, when a visitor submits a form - Revenant CMX skips the process of rebuilding the page altogether and simply delivers the previously generated HTML output from its own content cache. Together with eAccelerator, this virtually eliminates those frustrating waits that frequently accompany periods of heavy traffic on the Web server!

Multiple Instance Capability

Unlike most CMSs that take over your entire document root, you can install multiple copies of Revenant CMX in as many subfolders as you like without conflict. In fact, our custom services team can integrate several copies of Revenant CMX with other specialized applications to build a large-scale enterprise Web site.

How We Did It

As you may have surmised from the screenshots, our "just enough" design philosophy places emphasis on providing just the right tools to get the job done. In that respect, we have scrupulously avoided gilding the lily, as it were, by cluttering the interface with unnecessary bells and whistles which, besides being rarely or never used, more often than not bewilder and intimidate the end user with their complexity. We understand that there really is such a thing as too many options.

As a result of this perspective, we have built an application that is marvelously sophisticated where it needs to be - behind the scenes - while appearing deceptively simple - and therefore approachable - to the non-technical user.

Pick Your Flavor

Depending on your needs, there are several ways you can put Revenant CMX to work for you.

For the technically challenged, and for those who simply don't have time to configure a Web server, scripting engine, and database server, we offer a ready-to-go Revenant CMX hosted solution that has everything you need to get a complete Web site up and running in as little as thirty minutes.

For the hardcore computer enthusiast who doesn't mind installing the requisite Apache modules and PHP extensions, a single site license may be a good choice. System requirements are listed at the bottom of this page.

And for the Webmaster who wants to offer the same type of hosted solution to his or her own customers that we offer to ours, deep bulk discounts on Revenant CMX site licenses are available.

Regardless of which package you choose, you'll get free technical support, as well as a free subscription to all the new plugins and theme packs as they're released, for a full year!

Try It Before You Buy It

If you're still skeptical, perhaps a free private online demonstration will convince you. Upon request, we will install a fresh copy of Revenant CMX on one of of servers and give you exclusive access to it for one full hour - and believe us, it won't take you any longer than that to achieve fantastic results! If you decide to purchase Revenant CMX, we will save the site you've created so you can continue working where you left off. To schedule a private demo, send your name, phone number, and e-mail address, as well as the date and time (please indicate time zone) you'd like to test drive Revenant CMX, to applied.datamatics@yahoo.com. We will promptly confirm your reservation.