generic CMS system - Does it exist?

Question

I'm looking for the following... can anybody point me to anything that currently exists in this field? Trying not to reinvent the wheel.

Basically a CMS system where I can setup a Form type though an interface.

Basically say that this type of data has a text field called Name, a Date field called "Start Date" and an email field called "Owner". And that together is a Node type called "Project"

Then a data entry person can go and fill in multiple projects and perhaps save them into different categories.

And then I can export the results as XML or JSON.

Thats the wist list... does something like that exist? or am I going to have to program it fresh?

Answer 1

You could certainly take a look at the open source Hippo CMS - it allows you to create your own content types pretty much in the way you're describing (disclaimer: I'm CTO of the company).

A "document type" in Hippo CMS is both the type definition (which nodes go where, what are they called, what type are they) as well as the form to input the content into. The form is build up from different editing fields, and there are fields available for Date, String, HTML Field and so on. If you need a very specific kind of field, then you can create your own and add it to the installation as a plugin.

Hippo is based on the Java Content Repository specification (JCR), which deals with Nodes in a hierarchical structure. If you're looking for a Java solution - then this might be what you need. But from what you're writing, I think you won't even have the need to dive into the Java internals. You can use the XML Export from the Console web interface to get the content out, or add a REST API that exposes the content either as XML or as JSON. For this, you'll need to go a bit deeper. More info on this is available on the community website.

Feel free to try the online demo installation. After you've logged in as one of the 'admin' users, navigate to the "Browse" perspective and open up the "Configuration" accordeon (it's all the way in the bottom of the screen, right above "Taxonomies"). Here you can work with the Document Types.