About ↓markdown↓ the Simple Flat File CMS

↓markdown↓^® is a lightweight Content Management System (CMS) designed for quick and easy website publishing. It is written using the PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor language and runs on a HTTP server, also known as a web server. (HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol). You get access to a web server when you sign up for web hosting to run your website.

For the rest of this article ↓markdown↓ CMS will also be shortened to md-CMS.

Files and Folders are Content and Structure

↓markdown↓ CMS (md-CMS) provides a web publishing platform for your content. With md-CMS running on a web server your content can be accessed via a web browser over a network, usually the Internet. All the person or team publishing content needs to understand is how to create files and folders, edit text, and produce images and other media.

The web site structure mimics the file structure in which the content is stored. For example, take this web page you are now reading; the text content is stored in a file called about-markdown-cms.md in a directory (folder) called md_cms, producing the url http://tekeye.uk/md_cms/about-markdown-cms. This makes md-CMS a no database and flat file CMS. Such a file and folder structure supports remote and disconnected working via file synching. This means the web site can be kept in a cloud synched folder (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive) for automatic backups. In addition tools such as Git can be used to manage synchronisation and version control if required.

↓markdown↓ CMS was inspired by Pico CMS and by Singularity (which was also partly inspired by Pico). It uses Skeleton CSS as the basis of the style sheet and the Parsedown PHP module. Osano's open source Cookie Consent Manager, originally provided by Silktide, and the original version of sitemap-php are also used. A feedback form protected by Google's reCAPTCHA v3 can be used for gathering article comments, and Google Analytics support can be enabled.

↓markdown↓ CMS is Fast and Uncomplicated

There are no frameworks or complex libraries with md-CMS. It was designed to "keep it simple, stupid" (KISS) as an alternative to the increasingly bloated and complex popular CMSs such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and DNN. They are all great tools but have become over engineered for simple web sites with straightforward requirements. Thus md-CMS is a back to basics approach. The small code size and flat file content storage means it is fast and lean. Pushing content is a easy as typing text, and that can be done on any device, anywhere.

Create A Website Using Free Software

As with other popular platforms md-CMS is free. It is open source web publishing software. This means you have access to all the code and files and, if required, you can tweak, or get someone to tweak, the software for your own needs. This makes md-CMS good for quickly creating informational web sites for any type of organisation. It is aimed at those wanting to concentrate on publishing the content and not having to mess around with HTML mark up, page configuration, databases and web site management.

How to Make a Website with ↓markdown↓ CMS

The following two paragraphs are a quick overview of getting a md-CMS website going. For detailed information or to overcome any problems see the articles listed in Build a Website from Scratch with ↓markdown↓ CMS.

First you need a HTTP web server that is running PHP, which most hosting providers give you. You login to your web server and upload the ↓markdown↓ CMS zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file into the public web directory and your web site now runs and is ready to accept content. (If using the GitHub zip file extract everything in the markdown-CMS-master folder within the zip).

Upload a graphic file for the logo and create a text file in the root public folder (called index.md). Enter some content in this index file. Copy md/md-config.php to the public root folder as site-config.php. Edit site-config.php to set the values for the website name and website logo. Your web site is up and running. You can build upon this basic website and get it noticed by the search engines by adding some relevant articles. To learn more see the online articles.

See Also

• The list of features for ↓markdown↓ CMS in the introduction with the software.
• The README file.
• The licensing.
• The tutorials.