Thats right. Might feel like a really stupid idea, but I think the results are pretty impressive. I have brought it into action in my blog (have launched it only recently, the entries are not that good, and haven't publicized it much yet):- http://www.ajithr.tk In my blog, I had made a separate HTML file for each post, and auto-generated the Header and Footer and Sidebar content through simple javascript.I was recently thinking of a much wider idea, having a better scope. I would like to describe my idea as follows :- >> Wordpress and Joomla and other CMSs use databases to store posts and other content, but I intend to use .js files. A post can be easily stored in a variable! >> Server side requirements would be "NIL". You don't have to set up the files in any way. Just use them the way you prefer to. There's no confusion. >> A lot of people are capable of spending on server space and domain names, but I think a good js cms will truly be a boon for those who are not capable of doing that. As you may imagine, there are a few cons to this idea which I have tried to explain below, and I request ideas and suggestions from anyone to improve upon it:- >> javascript is server-side. A user will have to download the file completely to view the contents of a page. So I thought of breaking up the .js files, with a file containing 10 posts each. A good cure, right? >> javascript as far as I know, cannot modify files. So, the "admin" of my js cms will have to manually edit the files, and I cannot provide an interface to make things easy. Please help me with this!!! I know that the idea may sound "stupid" and "pointless" for those of you who can easily set up wordpress or drupal or joomla, I intend to support those who are NOT capable of doing that- those who depend on free hosting services. I would like to call my cms "poor man's cms" for that matter. The development of this project greatly depends on any responses you may have to offer. Kindly do tell me if you like this idea, clear any problems, or simply think that this idea is worthless!
Theres a big problem though. Even if this is a solution for people who cant install PHP or ASP and use premade CMS. A lot of people dont run Javascript and would encounter a lot of problems viewing your site. A site running PHP has no requirements for the end use as everything is executed serverside, you might also run in to some problems of vulnerability. Anyway, if you want to test your ability and design something like this then no one here has the right to stop you
True a post can be stored in a variable that would also take considerable memory in the visitor's browser after a while. Incorrect... how do you intend on actually saving the posts for later viewing by other visitors? Javascript can't write to a server nor perform FTP routines. And even Ajax to PHP would break your precious rule of not requiring a server-sided language. 99.99% of any hosting package you get today has at the very least PHP capabilities, and for those without MySQL there are plenty of file-based data storage solutions such as SQLite Javascript is client-side not server-sided, it runs on the clients browser. Users have to download the content of a page in order to view it even on PHP driven sites, otherwise nothing would be in the browser, and you can even specify in settings how many posts get downloaded per page. Not possible without a server sided language to do the saving. Many popular javascript based editors like the TinyMCE editor we all use to type these posts out rely on PHP and other languages on the server side to convert and store our posts. Your best bet would be a desktop application that would be like a WYSIWYG editor. Most Free hosting has php capabilities, wana show me one that does not? The problem is you're basically competing with over a decades worth of WYSIWYG editors in order to create a static website, the only way you make it sound anything different is labeling it as a "javascript cms". IF everything is having to be created and saved manually it is hardly a content management system. You would also be competing with all the "site builders" and other scripts (which are normally provided by the free hosts) that create the websites. Most of the people you target wouldn't understand how to get your stuff setup any more than wordpress (which is dead easy in itself).
My mistake, I should have written Client-side. @kblessinggr : Guess you're right in pointing out that this can hardly be called a 'cms' considering a lot of work has to be done manually. But I disagree that most free hosts provide php and sql along with their free packages. I have tried finding a perfect free host and found 110mb.com as the best, and they offer server side capabilities only for premium accounts. Ofcourse there are others doing this, but by a "perfect" host I mean no forced ads/banners/popups and easy-to-use file management interface, etc.
Depends on who you look for anyways I guess. But fact of the matter is, when hosting such as zensix.com is provided as cheap as 12$ a year for full php/mysql capabilities and over a gig of space, wordpress still seems to be the way to go. You gota pay for free somehow thus the ad, though I've gotten around godaddy's banner ad easily with a simple CSS line. However if you were to get into desktop development, I think there could be a market for creating a product that could create javascript-rich (ie: ajax, etc) static sites.
Well by free, i mean completely free... I'm saying this coz i myself totally depend on free hosts I think the idea of a management environment as a desktop app would be cool, I'll definitely try in that line. And please understand that one of my prime foci in such an approach is to avoid data redundancy. Atleast people can avoid duplicating and writing vast amounts of code- I think the code for a header for example can be stored in a js file and used in each page by simply calling a document.write() function whenever required. A problem with this idea would be that the initial downloading time of a site using the cms will be quite high.
A client-side JavaScript website would NOT be search-engine friendly - it would be search-engine hostile.
A javascript based website can actually be SEO friendly provided you actually code it correctly. Take karlblessing.com for example, I haven't updated it in ages but if you notice when you click links it loads the content dynamically via AJAX, well normally that would be a killer for SEO as it can't spider your content... well turn turning off javascript and trying again. The best rule of thumb is to code a website so that it can work without javascript, then when you add in javascript don't replace the base, simply intercept it's events (that way if javascript doesn't intercept, it continues to go about the normal non-javascript method).
Um, actually, your website isn't a pure JavaScript website - there is HTML content which makes it SEO friendly.
But the 'default' navigation is javascript. There's no such thing as a 'pure javascript' website as some html is required to even encase the javascript code. Point is, if you're gona use javascript pretty heavily, have a fall-back plan for bots, search engines, or paranoid people.