IMaGen is for people, who want to publish a web-magazine, i.e. a web-site that has constantly (and often) changing content while on the other hand a rather constant structure.

At the moment IMaGen is still under development and its state may be called 'Beta'.

Table of contents:

Who should deal with IMaGen?

Online editors who already have a running magazine and a content management system that suit their needs are hardly invited to go on reading here any further.

Instead people who are planning to edit a web-magazine or already do so but have no satisfactory solution for the periodical content management are likley to benefit from IMaGen, even in its early state of development.

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Basic Concepts:

IMaGen is a CMS, but by far not as universal as Zend or Typo3. On the other hand IMaGen is also by far less complex and it can be started right now from the OS/2-desktop (i.e. the client part of IMaGen is native OS/2-software, without any linux-wrapper or such things).

You need no special mySql-, Apache- or php-installation on your local PC. Of course these components are required, but you may use them as they are installed by your web-space-provider, All you need is the authority to administrate the mySQL-database remote, so you can use admin-tools such as mysqlAdmin or slqMate .

Thought to its extreme edge IMaGen may be used to produce a web magazine without any knowledge of php or html, by just defining the magazine's layout and writing articles into the rubrics of that layout, using an ordinary text-editor.

Of course, this is not the case in practice. You will need to some extent skills how to read a php-script in order to modify it in places, where the resulting html-output is determined to look different from the IMaGen's default. And you will need some understanding of html.

But you will need that skill primarily in the setup-phase of your magazine, definitely not in daily practice. Because with IMaGen you operate your online-magazine from a local OS/2-application, which lets you concentrate on your text. Even defining the magazine's layout has no requirement for any skills in web-techniques.

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What is a Layout?

To keep things simple a layout in IMaGen consists of rubrics, which are stacked in three levels:
  1. Chapters
  2. Sections
  3. Subsections
That seems quite a small degree of detailness, but it is my experience that a managed   structure of three levels is even more than most writers will need.

Each rubric-type may have as many child-rubrics as is requested. For example:
The chapter 'Sports' may have as child-rubric ('Sections') every sportive discipline that you can imagine.

The only restriction applies to the 'Chapter'-type: Because chapters are (by default) arranged as a horizontal tab bar in the main browser window it will result in bad readability if you have more chapters as the browser window has width. But at last this is a design issue and its implementation is up to you.

A sample screen of IMaGen Layout-Painter (Screen-Painter):
(Click to enlarge)


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Prerequisites:

What you need is what we call a "web-space" connected to a domain-name (URL, e.g.: "www.mypage.com"). Usually this is provided by a "provider" or "web-hoster".

There is one thing belonging to this web-space that is most important:
This condition must be set by your webspace-provider. That is to say: Your provider must set "document root" (the place where "index.html" is located) to this HTTP-dir, while FTP-requests still go to the root of your web-space.

Though this is not a technical requirement it is neccessary for security reasons: All private data, such as login-names and passwords, database-names and alike must not be in the scope of browser-requests (i.e. HTTP-requests).
To make it clear:
The HTTP-Dir is the "difference" between what FTP sees compared to what HTTP sees. The HTTP-Dir is only seen by FTP, while HTTP-requests (e.g. by the browser) are targeted against "below" the HTTP-Dir. Don't let yourself be confused: From the browser's point of view the HTTP-dir is the "root". 		 
Provided that this structure is installed at your server, you must upload the file containing all your private data to the web-spaces's root, while all other html- and php-stuff ist stored under the HTTP-dir.

The file containing all your private data is named "config.db". A skeleton of this file is included in the phpGUI.zip (together with skeletons of other neccessary files).

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How to install:

First of all:
Make sure the correct setting of your server's root-directory, as explained above. Keep in mind that you'll need a "HTTP-Dir", but not neccessarily a "Remote Subdir" (aka "Remote Path"). Don't mix them up! Interchanging them both would NOT lead to an error in file upload, which is the main function in phpGUI. But it would result in errors in IMaGen, if you erroneosly set your HTTP-dir as "Remote Subdir".

Install-1: Files For The Server

You need these files on the server, i.e. where you are hosting your web-magazine. Note that they are not included in the phpGUI-download.zip. Send an email to 'Lutz dot Wagner at zworks dot de' so I can send you server.zip.
 
Filename: what to do: Remarks:
config.php modify & upload  
IMagInit.php modify & upload  
main.php modify & upload  
Entry.php modify & upload  
cmnt.php modify & upload  
footing.php modify & upload  
Colors.inc [ modify & upload ]  
Constants.inc [ modify & upload ]  
Defaults.inc [ modify & upload ]  
ImgBlacklist.dat [ modify & upload ]  
auxwin.php -- upload --  
ax_deltart.php -- upload --  
feedback.php -- upload --  
pgui_ststuff.php4 -- upload --  
errcodes.inc -- upload --  
UniFunc.inc -- upload --  
sqlstuff.inc -- upload --  
SP_css.inc -- upload --  
Tmp14358_css.inc -- upload --  
png.php? -- upload --  
IMaGen.js -- upload --  
Graphic files:
Aktuelles.jpg -- upload --  
BG_Search.jpg -- upload --  
But*.png -- upload --  
but_top2.gif -- upload --  
Calen_*.gif -- upload --  
DirLink.gif -- upload --  
HeadlineBG.jpg modify & upload Totally new (individual) parts of the title-area (ZOut_PageHeader())
HeadlineLeft.gif modify & upload
HeadlineRght.gif modify & upload
go.gif -- upload --  
neu2.gif -- upload --  
OBALL?.gif -- upload --  
printer2.gif -- upload --  
spacer.gif -- upload --  
Webmaster.gif -- upload --  
WhatBeitr.jpg -- upload --  
Gallery files:
Arrow_Nxt.gif -- upload --  
Arrow_Prv.gif -- upload --  
galery.php -- upload --  
_Content/swfobject.js -- upload --  
_Content/viewer.swf -- upload --  
_Content/flash.jpg -- upload --  
_Content/zurgalery.jpg -- upload --  
Move these files from the phpGUI-directory into the project-directory of your web-magazine, modify where appropriate, then upload them using the "Direct Upload"-function from the phpGUI-context-menu over the Project-Dir's File-List.

Important:
For the php-scripts on your server to work it is essential to have the "Register_Globals" set to ON.

For detail refer to:
www.php.net/manual/en/security.globals.php

Install-2: Initialize The Database

After having modified and uploaded these files, start your browser and type in the URL-field:

http://www.your-domain.com/IMagInit.php?Mode=Browser&Table=ALL

This would create all the neccessary database-resources (tables, indexes, etc.).

Install-3: Setup your "index.html"

When a user (surfer) enters your web-site normally a file named "index.html" is invoked by the browser. You may design this file, aka "Entry Page" any way you like, but at least somewhere it must contain a link to the "main.php", that's where your web-magazine is being processed. E.g. you may use this html-code:


<html>
<body>
<h1 style="font-size:14pt;">Welcome to my xyz-web-magazine</h1>
<form action="main.php" method="POST">
<input type="submit" value="Enter">
</form>
</body>
</html>


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Define Your Magazine

Start phpGUI, click on the "Screen-Painter"-icon.
Specify at first a version-number.
Then define your chapters, sections and subsections. You must at least define 1 chapter .
Finally, click on "Save Layout" and in order to bring it onto your server: check the "upload"-checkbox.

For a more detailed description read here.

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Write Your Magazine

The steps described above should be executed only once in the lifetime of your magazine. Well, of course the previous step "Define Your Magazine" may be performed from time to time, whenever you want to change the layout, add a new rubric or such things.

But what is described here is your "daily work": writing articles for your magazine. Once you have set up the layout all you have to do is write text. For this task you use the "Article-Desk" (IMaGen-Editor). From the phpGUI-main-window click on this icon:

For a more detailed description read here.

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