“e107, It’s a candy store (and you’re 8)” proclaims the web site of the open source CMS program e107. One of the older and more well-known open source content management systems around, e107 strives to be a community based program with a lot of input from its users.
Beginnings
What began as a web site related to the Windows shell replacement Litestep, quickly started gathering speed and evolved into e107 (the seventh project taken on by the owner of this content management system). Officially open to the public in July 2002, e107 was already a few months old and into its 2.1 version. As with most CMS programs, attempting to do it alone is never a good idea so the program owner brought on board a few seasoned developers. Several updates and revisions late and e107 has its current stable 0.7.16 release available to the public (the owner changed version numbering partway through its early production stages).
Plugins
Once e107 is installed and running, enhancing this content management program is a breeze. The site is affiliated with e107 Plugins (separate entity but tied in with the main web site) and this area is overflowing with downloadable files to add to the base core of e107. Administration tools, e-commerce, file and directory, and multimedia are a few of the categories covered in this plugin web site.
Themes
e107 has two design web sites affiliated with its main core program – e107 Themes and e107 Designs. This is where the one downfall with this CMS program may lay. While there are a number to of designs to choose from, the total number is limited to under 200. This makes the likelihood of having a unique e107 run web site fairly slim. However, the program is based on PHP and if the user of the program has a bit of experience with PHP coding, creating a unique web design for the program should be a fairly easy task.
Community
As e107 depends heavily on community input and feedback, the forum area of this open source program’s web site is extremely active. Covering topics such as third party coding, support, theme request and more, e107 keeps tabs on what users want, what they don’t like and what they have to offer to enhance the software overall.
Sites
e107 is proud to showcase the many web sites utilizing their open source software. Among the more diverse sites to be found on their webring are Waves of Faith, KISS 105 FM of Indonesia, and CuartoPoder.com.mx (touted as the first newspaper site powered by the CMS).
Conclusion
While not one of the top heavy hitters when it comes to open source content management systems, e107 is a great product with quite a lot to offer. If one is in need of a CMS that has more than a couple hundred designs to choose from, this program may not be the best choice. However, for those with a bit of PHP knowledge and some time on their hands to create their own design, e107 can be a great addition to help create and maintain a business web site.
