This is an application that I use to manage my website. The application communicates to a php script that sits on my webserver using HTTP. The PHP script allows me to create, read, update and delete XML files that without needing to FTP into the site and upload files manually. The application uses the remote web service to manage content; it automatically sucks down all files from the server and displays the websites files and folders and allows new ones to be created. It also has backup and restore functionality, which is the only thing that, at the time of this writing, is not completely finished.

The XML files are transformed using XSLT into HTML. When you browse my website, the index.php script opens the XML file and transforms it; all of the links within the site are generated such that they point back to the index.php script. A query string argument tells the script which XML file needs to be transformed. In the absence of a query string argument, the website will open the default home page.

This project contains several pieces. One piece is the windows application, which is written in .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. Another piece is the website itself. I have included two directories in the website folder that are critical to the workings of the project. The first is an XSLT directory, where I store the XSLT transforms. The second is the XML folder, where I store the management webservice, and where I keep the content files. The root folder has the index.php script, which shows how the transformation is seamlessly hidden from the users browsing the website.

At some point, I will have a tutorial up on my website that illustrates how this whole project works. You can subscribe to the RSS feed so that you can be notified of when that articles goes up.

Please send any comments you have to mikebraude@gmail.com.