quirm.net
web design and development

SAXON

What is SAXON?

SAXON is an open source online news management system.

Some time ago, I needed a simple, PHP, news management system for a client of mine but I couldn’t find anything that suited. Whilst there are plenty of news management systems out there, most came with emoticons and other bits & pieces that I felt weren’t suitable for a small business web site. Others were overly heavy in features that, frankly, I didn’t need or want.

I wanted an application that was very easy to install and even easier to use. So I built my own.

As I was also looking at ways of generating XML news feeds for syndication, I decided to also build this into SAXON at the same time.

Why is SAXON ‘Accessible’?

I needed an ‘A’ to fit between the ‘S’ and the ‘X’.

Seriously, the interface for SAXON has been built to be as accessible and usable as possible. Providing you don’t go mad when (re)designing its news output template, it should also output highly accessible web pages too. I’ve used it to create compliant XHTML Strict pages that conform to W3C WAI Level ‘AA’ that should be relatively easy for visitors to access when using assistive technology (eg. screen readers, keyboard only navigation etc.). This can only be a Good Thing^tm.

Both SAXON’s output and user interface are currently CSS based – which means that they can be very easily re-configured to suit both authors and audience.

Features

• Run multiple instances of SAXON from the one database
• Multiple users allowed – each with their own username and password and, potentially, their own news page.
• Add, edit or delete news items
• Manage users
  • Two levels of users: Standard and Super Users (Admins)
  • Add or delete users
  • Amend an user’s status (Standard or Super User)
  • Protected default Admin – cannot be deleted or downgraded.
  • Change user passwords
• Configurable templates to define how you want your news displayed
• Display news items anywhere on your site
• Display news on a ‘per user’ basis
• Postdate news articles for later release

Requirements

• PHP 4.3.9 or higher
• MYSQL 3 or higher
• Some CSS/HTML/XHTML knowledge if you want to create your own news template or re-style the interface.

Support

Available via the Quirm.net forum.

Downloads

SAXON 7.0 (104.7 KiB, 900 downloads)

Screenshots

• 

  Delete a news item

• 

  Edit a news item

• 

  Add A News Item

• 

  Change a user password

You might also be interested in

• Access Key Class,
• eSPG Readme &
• eSPG Features.