Simple is a small Content Management System (CMS) under development by me, Matt Pierce, in my spare time. The goal of the project is to create a tool using some common systems (Apache, PHP, and MySQL) that allows several users to collaborate on a single website in a managed, controllable way. Furthermore, much like other CMS solutions, Simple allows the website administrator to maintain a consistent user experience from page to page.
CMS solutions are widespread and varied. Technically speaking, all a CMS does is help a user or group of users to quickly and efficiently edit and create online content. Although you wouldn't immediately consider it, a blog is a form of a CMS because it allows users to easily set up their own area and to create or edit online content. Any sort of online magazine runs on a CMS; the authors write articles, and the editors then use the CMS to arrange and manage all that content in a way that makes sense to the user. And while blogs, magazines, and traditional websites using CMS can be as different as night and day, they all share one major commonality: users are only concerned with providing content, not with the minutae of creating HTML files.
Simple is a tool for creating a traditional website within a CMS framework. While this means that it still follows the traditional page-by-page mentality of website construction, it also gives the website administrator the ability to manage the entire site at once.
You're looking at one right now. Paradoxically enough, the Simple site was developed and is presented using Simple. Obviously that means that I went back and edited some stuff in that couldn't have possibly been written directly (like the project start date). The whole point to Simple is that it should appear to be just like any other website out there, except maybe easier to use and more clearly organized (since it allows you to devote your time to the content and structure of the site, not the files and upkeep). A handy demonstration, if I do say so myself.
As it stands now, Simple is just my own personal pet project to see if I can pull it off on my own. I've never heard of a one-man CMS project and I thought it would be a sizeable challenge. I currently have no intention of releasing the source code to anybody, either for free or otherwise. While I have several reasons for doing this, the main one is that because it's a part-time personal coding project, I don't even remotely have the time to properly test it or to support it. This site doesn't exist to sell you on Simple; rather it exists so that I can blog and document the project in my own way. I plan on also putting up some general information about what CMS solutions are and what they're good for.