clearweb/clearworks

A mashup framework featuring easy inter-widget communication.

ClearWorks

This is an attempt to make a framework which enables users to create websites using widget-based design. This framework features an easy way to implement inter-widget communication and AJAX., _(*1)

Why this initiative

As a webdesign agency, we build a lot of websites. Our standard frameworks for these websites are WordPress and Prestashop. WordPress is actually build for blogs and the biggest percentage of the websites we build are informational websites. As for Prestashop, it is as most other webshop software, very extensive. However when the user want to have a custom widget/module it is not trivial to change the standard behaviour without breaking/hacking into the core., _(*2)

Using PHP frameworks (mostly MVC)

Using a PHP framework for each standard informative website is not our favorite way to work as it is custom work each time. Additionally, a lot of customers ask for a CMS system. This is not trivial to build each time. Reusing code is not as we like to see in most of those frameworks as someone should add the controller, the model and the view in different directories. We long to a way to add a function, mostly represented in a ui block (widget) by just copying the code of it to the framework and using it., _(*3)

Mashup? Or just widget programming?

The style of the framework is inspired by existing mashup systems. However it is not really meant to be a classic mashup system which is actually a shopping system where you can buy mashups and place them on your website. Actually you could implement this using this framework, but its main purpose is for easily building AJAX websites and reusing already developed widgets., _(*4)