FutureTense IPS is basically a web development tool that sits on top of Netscape Application Server, using the Applogic API. It is closely tied to NAS so you can't run one without the other (although for some reason the license for NAS with IPS is cheaper than NAS itself. Go Figure!) Like Vignette, IPS also requires a database, since it creates a handful of system tables that it needs to operate. IPS uses an XML-based programming language that closely resembles ColdFusion, if you've ever seen that, which makes it fairly easy to program. It has a <CFOUTPUT> equivalent called <REPLACE> where you specify what variables you want to replace with values(only needed for plain HTML tags). However, IPS is MUCH less feature-rich, or robust than ColdFusion, and it lacks the community and custom CF tags that Allaire has with Coldfusion. FutureTense also has a web-based administration tool called Xcelerate that is similar to the Zope management pages and sits atop and is written in the IPS Content server XML language. It has a lot of features that Zope has and others, including Editorial Workflow and Approval system, form-based content entry, Asset database (like an ODB), and various others. Its a little "prettier" than Zope, but not much different. The worst part of FutureTense is that there are like 3-4 different tools that you need to edit in order to add objects and templates. There is the IPS Content Server Admin, there is the Catalog Tool, which is basically a GUI tool that adds records to tables. There is also the Xcelerate admin tool and Xcelerate itself that must be contended with. Finally, there is this esoteric Properties editor that must be modified when new Assets are added, I have no clue what it is for, but you need it to create Assets. You've probably seen all the Vignette comparisons, but the biggest difference between Zope and Vignette is the language (Tcl versus DTML/Python) and the complete lack of a web-based administration tool (it comes with a set of Client/Server GUI development and administration tools). Some things that StoryServer has that are cool are the Observation and Personalization Servers which keeps track of user behavior and can be used to deliver personalized content (very cool!), a Syndication Server for broadcasting info around the web and a decent page caching system. Other than that, I am very put off by the Tcl language, so I never really pursued it. Hope this helps!! -- SyN ---- Message: 9 Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 15:55:56 +0200 From: Martin van Nijnatten <euroibc@solair1.inter.NL.net> To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] comparing Zope with Vignette, IPS and others Has anyone information about Zope versus other application servers/content managers. With much interest I've read the postings about the Zope/Vignette comparisons In particular I'm interesting in Zope versus IPS (see: futuretense.com) Martin