The parser is the most important part of phpCMS. The parser creates of several elements like menu structure, layout and content the web sites. phpCMS does not require a database: all necessary data is saved in flat files.

The diagram on the right shows how the parser serves your site's pages (click the image to enlarge).

phpCMS works completely in the background. No visitor to your site will ever know it is working. Unlike many other CMS and portal systems, pages created by phpCMS are not plagued by ugly URLs like http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?name=news. The page can be called using a simple static URL - There is no indication that the page was dynamically created. A look at the address line of this web site shows this at work! You can also include completely static HTML-only pages in your phpCMS site.

phpCMS is intelligent and fast thanks to its multi-level caching.

The administrator of a phpCMS site can easily determine how long the site's pages should be cached for the user or in proxies. phpCMS also offers intelligent server-side caching: web sites are saved on the server as completely static HTML-sites or in a dynamic format. phpCMS automatically chooses the best method. Static pages are cached as pure HTML code and in are served directly to the user. For sites with dynamic content (such as embedded php scripts or php code in a template) phpCMS caches the static part of the web site (the header, footer, the menu) and adds the dynamically created content at runtime.

phpCMS reacts correctly to HTTP requests, and is able to send a "not modified" answer if there is a valid version of the page in the cache. This greatly reduces traffic and throughput on a site with many static pages.

phpCMS uses gzip compression during transfer, which substantially reduces a server's traffic and page loading time. phpCMS automatically detects if the user's browser can understand compressed traffic, and reacts accordingly.

Although the caching and compression are intelligent, they can also be fine-tuned by the phpCMS administrator to behave in any way necessary.

Using phpCMS, you can arrange the menu structure of your entire website with one single menu file. Even though the setup is simple, many complex menu styles are possible. Sometimes we are astonished how creative some users can be.

The layout of the menus can be defined individually with the help of our menu template system. You can present the same menu more than once, using different layouts, on the same page. It is also possible to implement graphical menus and JavaScript menus. phpCMS does not limit your creativity!

The advantage of a central menu system is that you only have to define a new menu item once in a menu file. After that it is shown every page on your site. You won't have to edit every single HTML page manually.

The menu module can also produce an effective and attractive sitemap. In fact, the sitemap can be freely styled too! With a sitemap, your visitors will aways be able to quickly find the information they need.

phpCMS has its own indexer and an efficient full text search. The phpCMS indexer handles both phpCMS content files and normal HTML pages. The indexer also has its own built-in HTTP client, meaning that you also can index other web sites or the output of dynamically embedded scripts.

Using a few special tags, you can define if a page or a part of it should be indexed. This makes it possible to ignore unimportant data. The phpCMS indexer can also use meta tags to decide whether to index a page.

In addition to the HTTP indexer, phpCMS also employs a file-based indexer. It is able to index the static contents of your site. As with all of phpCMS, a database is not needed for indexing.

Since the full text search uses indexing, it is extremely fast. Once an index is created, every search is performed against it. A website can consists of any number of indices. It is possible to update the indices manually, or regularly (with a cron job).

Using the online editor, you can administer your website anywhere you have an internet connection.

Using a template, simply define which parts of your page should be editable. Unlike other CMS software, the website will be shown in exactly as a visitor will see it. The parts you can edit are replaced by a text area or a text field.

phpCMS has its own statistics module. Sometimes you don't have access to the log files of your web server. In this case, the statistics module is the right choice for you. The statistics module can present many kinds of statistics when you can't access your logs.

With the integrated file manager you can easily edit every (write-enabled) file on your web server. You can also copy, move and delete files and directories.

With the spider module, you can grab a static copy of your website. Every absolute URL will be translated into a relative one. After that, you can copy these static files to your (public) web server or burn it to CD-ROM.

The Graphical User Interface is the connection between you and phpCMS. With this GUI you can change the configuration, index your sites, show and clear the cache, or use the file manager. Administration is clear and easy.

With the help of the Webgrab module you can include external content in your site. You can also use Webgrab to integrate a forum, a guestbook or anything else you like. With Webgrab you can integrate software written in any programming language: Perl, Java, Python - anything you need. Just imagine Yahoo in your own design - fantastic, isn't it?