Understanding engenu
What is engenu? The simplest answer is that engenu is semi-automated software that builds web sites and web pages.
But: Sometimes simple is too simple. This is what engenu really does: It interprets folder hierarchies on Apache web-servers, creating the support files necessary to turn those folder hierarchies into web sites.
What's a folder? You might think of it as a directory. At a minimum, a folder is analogous to a file folder, a vessel for storing data files or other folders -- subfolders.
How does engenu work?
For engenu to work, a folder must contain... nothing. Seriously. engenu can operate on an empty folder.More commonly, a folder will contain image files, Adobe PDF files or sub-folders.
These sub-folders may themselves contain image files, Adobe PDF files or sub-sub-folders.
The whole thing taken together is a folder hierarchy. The hierarchy can consist of one empty folder or a huge tree of sub-folders containing thousands of files.
Either way, engenu can interpret that folder hierarchy, creating the files necessary to link the whole structure together into a web site -- which might be painfully simple or painstakingly complex.
How do you work with engenu?
You can work on that hierarchy in two ways. You can edit each page of the web site manually, creating the content as I am doing here. Or you can "inherit" the whole structure automatically, creating your web site in fractions of a second per page.There's more: If you are manually editing a site, different people can edit different pages at the same time. For a particularly huge site, the task could be split among teams of people, with each team handling a branch of sub-folders and each team member working on particular pages.
Either way, engenu is built for speed. If you can structure your work to inherit some or all of what you want automatically, that's great. But even if you are doing manual editing, engenu automates as much of that work as possible.
Do you have a need to communicate in photos?
engenu has a bias toward slide-shows. This particular site -- built with engenu -- is mostly pretty-ordinary HTML, but most engenu sites will be built around slide-shows of photos. Why? Because engenu was born in our real estate practice -- and the language of real estate is photography.But you don't have to be in real estate to use engenu. If you have a need to communicate in photos, engenu will make your life easier. Even if you just need to create web pages and web sites quickly, engenu can be a boon.
What about making big changes to engenu sites?
There's a lot more, but we're going to go through it step-by-step. But here's something to think about:Suppose you had built a huge, team-based engenu project -- promoting a huge condo complex, maybe. You had set up your hierarchies and sub-hierarchies so that each team had a big piece of the project to work on. And then, when you were all done, the boss came along and told you that that the Parks and Playgrounds sub-hierarchy should be combined with the Pools and Spas sub-hierarchy, all under a new hierarchy called Fun 'n' Games.
In the world of web site architecture before engenu, this would have been a weekend-eating disaster. But with engenu, all you need to do is create the Fun 'n' Games sub-folder, then drag the Parks and Playgrounds and Pools and Spas sub-folders into it. Then you run engenu and "inherit" the new structure into the old. You can do it in a few seconds, while the boss is watching.
engenu's declaration of independence
Every engenu site is built to be web-server- and appearance independent. In other words, you could take your new Fun 'n' Games sub-folder and move its contents onto another engenu-equipped server. Instead of being a sub-folder, it could be the top level of its own web site -- as is, with no editing. And if that new site has a different engenu "skin," the web pages would inherit that new appearance, again with no editing required.Still, simple is good
Is that too complicated? Let's get back to simple. For most people, for most uses, most of the time, engenu is just plain simple to use. Set up your folders and let it rip. You can manually tweak pages here and there or just take them the way engenu makes them. You'll be able to talk in web sites the way you talk now in email or weblog posts.You can pursue the links in the sidebar to learn more, but you might just upload some folders full of photos to see what engenu can do for you.