Jease 2.0: The Open Source Java CMS' 'Big Leap'
If you haven't been following the evolution of the Jease open-source content management system (CMS), you should. The now two-year-old project was conceived to solve some of the problems developers face when building database-driven Web applications with Java.
Jease (an abbreviation of "Java with Ease") started out as a basic CMS framework with no "system" pretentions. Back in early 2010, project founder Maik Jablonski declared his simple aim to create a framework that makes it easy for Web devs to create custom content structures (FAQs, special Web site content sections). And he built the framework on top of three open source technologies: the db4o object-oriented database, the Apache Lucene information retrieval library, and the ZK Ajax Web application framework. Jease now also supports McObject's Perst OO embedded database.
Since then, the project has bloomed with an expanded mission to create a full-blown CMS, while honoring its keep-it-simple roots. The project is evolving fast: Version 1.7 was released in February, and 1.8 was released in March.
Version 2.0, which was released this week, represents a "big leap" toward turning the Jease framework into a true CMS, Jablonski says.
"The main theme for the 2.0 release line is to continue the journey from a developer-oriented Content-Management-Framework to a user-friendly Content-Management-System which tries to make publishing in the Internet as easy as possible," he wrote in in a blog post announcing the release. "Nevertheless, Jease targets Java Web developers who want to things getting done without headaches."
The latest release adds a number of features and capabilities to the evolving CMS, including instant preview, a link checker, a redirect service, translation capabilities, and instant relocation handling of moved and/or renamed content. A full list of new features and bug fixes in Jease 2.0 is available on Jease.org.
Jease 2.0 is available under the GNU General Public License V3. There's a nice demo available here. Keep in mind that, though jease.org runs on the Apache Tomcat servlet container, this demo is runs on Jetty.
Posted on April 28, 2011