SPIP, a publishing system

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Wednesday 28 June 2017

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What is SPIP?

SPIP is a publishing system for the Internet.

It consists of a collection of files installed on a web server which allow you to take advantage of a number of automated tasks: multi-user management, laying out your articles without the need to use HTML, easily modifying the structure of your site, etc. Using the very same application as used to browse a site (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari...), SPIP enables you to build and update your site thanks to a very simple user interface.

There are other content management systems; and each one has its own characteristics. SPIP, on the other hand, is more flexible and mainly orientated towards the creation of a magazine structured site: i.e. with sections, sub-sections (and so on), where you can insert articles and news items which can then be supplemented with discussion forums.

Why SPIP?

SPIP is a free software distributed under the General Public License (GPL). SPIP’s requirements in terms of software and hardware are very modest indeed and they are even provided by some free hosting ISPs – or to be extremely brief: PHP + MySQL.

SPIP’s benefits consist of…

– managing a magazine type site, i.e. one made up chiefly of articles and news items inserted in a hierarchy of sections nested one within another. See the complete list of SPIP’s features for more details.

– completely separating and distributing three kinds of tasks amongst various contributors: the graphic design; the site editorial input through the submission of articles and news items; and the site editorial management (which includes organising sections, validating article submissions, etc.).

– relieves the webmaster and all site contributors from a number of tedious aspects of web publishing as well as the need to spend a long time learning special technical skills. The installation of SPIP is performed step by step through a simple interface and, when completed, allows you to start creating your own sections and articles straight away.