REthink Wine Blog

Uh oh, the Inertia tech team is at it again - today we release our CMS platform to all as an opensource project. Why would we release a proprietary engine that can enable our competitors and others to use for making websites? Because we believe in a healthy ecosphere for people to help wineries sell direct even if they are not on our platform. We are firm believers in open source and take our lessons from http://bit.ly/3DMt5Z and http://bit.ly/wikinom - you have seen this displayed first with our free compliance tool, rethinkcompliance.com and now with Brix.

What is Brix?

BRIX is an Open Source Initiative sponsored by Inertia. Based on Wicket and JCR, it is the ONLY Wicket-based CMS framework available today. As such, BRIX was designed to aid our partners, designers and other organizations in accelerating development by allowing for easy integration of a powerful CMS into existing applications. BRIX was built on the idea of “Power versus Complexity”, providing for ease of use while at the same time allowing designers the highest degree of freedom in developing a rich user experience.

Web 2.0 has created a fundamental shift in end-user expectations, which in turn has resulted in a continually evolving set of business requirements as they relate to Content Management Systems. BRIX was designed to allow developers to meet those requirements, and delivers the tools you need to compete in the marketplace.
Brix can currently be found at http://code.google.com/p/brix-cms/ and eventually will be at brix-cms.net
BRIX TOOLS:

• The ONLY Wicket-based CMS framework: With a refreshing lack of XML being just one of its many benefits, Apache Wicket makes developing web-apps simple and enjoyable.
• Based on JCR (Java Content Repository):
• Based on Java: Use an enterprise-standard data repository.
• Extensible Plug-in Architecture: Create and publicly code extensions without having to roll those changes into the BRIX core providing a hack-free way of extending and customizing Brix to suit an extremely diverse set of needs of its user base.
• Tiles: Easily incorporate configurable, reusable blocks of dynamic content into your CMS.
  Templates: Easily create and reuse website skins.
• Prototypes: User-defined, clone-able site structures provide additional ease of use.
  Support for WebDAV: Allows for a collaborative approach to document creation, editing, and distribution. Also edit using your favorite desktop HTML editor.
• Site Snapshots: Provide support for version control and backup.
• Raw or Rich Content Editing: Incorporate rich text and the associated formatting.
  Ease of Use: Basic workflow/publishing support and flexible security infrastructure.

Delivery of BRIX via the open source community fosters innovation in Content Management.

At its deepest abstraction, BRIX is not a standalone CMS, but rather a CMS framework which allows for easy integration of CMS functionality into existing Wicket-based applications. This is its primary benefit and we are confident that it will become the CMS tool of choice for many organizations as a result.
BRIX is developed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Please enjoy our contribution and give us feedback, success stories, or challenges with Brix. Moreover, we hope that you will become contributors to this exciting project.

This entry was posted by Paul Mabray on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Inertia Products and Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.