Mezzanine 0.3.3

A content management platform built using the Django framework.

========
Overview
========

Mezzanine is a content management platform built using the `Django`_
framework. It is BSD licensed and designed to provide both a consistent
interface for managing content, and a simple architecture that makes diving
in and hacking on the code as easy as possible.

Its goal is to resemble something like `Wordpress`_, with an intuitive
interface for managing pages and blog posts. Mezzanine takes a different
approach from other Django applications in this space like `Pinax`_ or
`Mingus`_ that glue together a lot of reusable apps, instead opting to
provide most of its functionality included with the project by default.

Features
========

On top of all the usual features provided by Django such as MVC architecture,
ORM, templating, caching and the automatic admin interface, Mezzanine
provides the following features.

* Hierarchical page navigation
* Save as draft and preview on site
* Scheduled publishing
* Drag-n-drop page ordering
* WYSIWYG editing
* API for custom content types
* SEO friendly URLs and meta data
* Mobile device detection and templates
* Blogging engine
* Tagging
* Built-in threaded comments, or:
* `Disqus`_ integration
* `Gravatar`_ integration
* `Google Analytics`_ integration
* `Twitter`_ feed integration
* `bit.ly`_ integration
* Sharing via Facebook or Twitter
* Custom templates per page or blog post
* Built-in test suite

The Mezzanine admin dashboard:

.. image:: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3su7jFBHM1qa0qji.png

Dependencies
============

Apart from `Django`_ itself, Mezzanine has no explicit dependencies but is
designed to be used most effectively in conjunction with the following
libraries.

* `setuptools`_
* `Python Imaging Library`_ (PIL)
* `django-grappelli`_ <= 2.0
* `django-filebrowser`_ <= 3.0

Installation
============

Assuming you have `setuptools`_ installed, the easiest method is to install
directly from pypi by running the following command, which will also attempt
to install the dependencies mentioned above::

$ easy_install -U mezzanine

Otherwise you can download Mezzanine and install it directly from source::

$ python setup.py install

Once installed, the command ``mezzanine-project`` should be available which
can be used for creating a new Mezzaine project in a similar fashion to
``django-admin.py``::

$ mezzanine-project project_name

You can then run your project with the usual Django steps::

$ cd project_name
$ ./manage.py syncdb
$ ./manage.py runserver

Contributing
============

Mezzanine is an open source project that is managed using both Git and
Mercurial version control systems. These repositories are hosted on both
`Github`_ and `Bitbucket`_ respectively, so contributing is as easy as
forking the project on either of these sites and committing back your
enhancements.

Support
=======

For general questions or comments, please join the
`mezzanine-users`_ mailing list. To report a bug or other type of issue,
please use the `Github issue tracker`_.

Sites Using Mezzanine
=====================

* `Citrus Agency`_

Quotes
======

* "Who came up with the name Mezzanine? I love it, like a platform between
the client's ideas and their published website. Very classy!" - `swhite`_

.. _`Django`: http://djangoproject.com/
.. _`Wordpress`: http://wordpress.org/
.. _`Pinax`: http://pinaxproject.com/
.. _`Mingus`: http://github.com/montylounge/django-mingus
.. _`setuptools`: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools
.. _`Python Imaging Library`: http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
.. _`django-grappelli`: http://code.google.com/p/django-grappelli/
.. _`django-filebrowser`: http://code.google.com/p/django-filebrowser/
.. _`Disqus`: http://disqus.com/
.. _`Gravatar`: http://gravatar.com/
.. _`Google Analytics`: http://www.google.com/analytics/
.. _`Twitter`: http://twitter.com/
.. _`bit.ly`: http://bit.ly/
.. _`Citrus Agency`: http://citrus.com.au/
.. _`swhite`: http://bitbucket.org/swhite/
.. _`Github`: http://github.com/stephenmcd/mezzanine/
.. _`Bitbucket`: http://bitbucket.org/stephenmcd/mezzanine/
.. _`mezzanine-users`: http://groups.google.com/group/mezzanine-users
.. _`Github issue tracker`: http://github.com/stephenmcd/mezzanine/issues