September, 2010

Kryn.cms is a CMS for those who love to build stuff from (almost) scratch.

Kryn is powered by PHP and MySQL, and doesn’t require anything more than, for example, WordPress does.

What you’ll like about Kryn:

• Although Kryn is die-hard customizable, it will also work for beginning users.
• It has an extensive documentation.
• Easy to template and add extensions
• Easy internationalization
• Stylish backend (see image)

What you won’t like:

• Commercial use requires paid license
• Few extensions (Kryn is still in the beta though)

Basically, the main reason as to why use this CMS, is the extensive support and translations available in German.

Kryn should also work for those who simply want a ‘different’ CMS.

Composite is a content management system written in Microsoft.NET.

Composite is a very serious project.

Microsoft even wrote an article about Composite. There is not doubt that Composite can easily compete with other content management systems.

What you’ll like about Composite:

• Huge docs - so huge you can easily get lost in them. :)
• Extending Composite isn’t easy, but you can extend it to the max.
• Designers will enjoy total design control
• A whole lot of features: from custom links to an image editor and a media archive

What you won’t like:

• You won’t like Composite if you aren’t a .NET developer
• Falls short on pre-made templates & extensions.

Composite comes with two licenses (the free license only lacks a warranty).

Composite is definitely more of a corporate solution than a personal one.

If you’re looking for a serious .NET CMS solution, Composite is for you.

jQuery Polaroid Gallery is a jQuery extension for creating a “Polaroid” Gallery with

Polaroid Gallery is compatible with most major browsers, and has “fallbacks” for functions not supported by IE.

Polaroid Gallery is very useful for portfolios of any kind; you can also choose it to spice up an existing image gallery.

However, it looks a little painful to mark up a lot of pictures with CSS.

What’s awesome is that the homepage houses an extensive tutorial about the use of this plugin.

ChillBox is a jQuery plugin, designed by Christopher Hill.

As one might guess, ChillBox has something to do with lightbox, perhaps the sole Javascript plugin which has a wikipedia entry.

Why should you prefer this lightbox instead of others?

Well, first of all, it’s really small (5kb).

It also has a really appealing, chilly design.

Vapor.js is a library that weighs some 0 kilobytes.

Vapor.js aims to be the most flexible and smaller JavaScript library there is.

It also works together with a number of other libraries like qooxdoo and Prototype.

There are, however, some known issues:

• The library tends to work a bit slower in IE6
• The docs are quite lacking
• No built-in SEO tools
• The library cannot divide by zero
• The British spelling feels better

I’d also like Thomas Fuchs to explain the pun a little more, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with everyone’s (most often, unnecessary) obsession with speed and “lightweightness”.

Or maybe the library is a publicity stunt for his initiative for bettering the JS documentation.

It’s pretty funny either way.

Panoscoper is a jQuery plugin that wraps elements, mostly images and videos, and makes them look like 360° environment (think StreetView).

Panoscoper is quite useful for designers, but could also find a place in an image gallery.

Panoscoper comes with several options: you can change the scrolling speed; frame width and height.

You can also opt to use a “compass“, which helps navigating and looks cool.

Altogether, Panoscoper is quite the witty extension.