A Brief Technical Overview of the 
Web Management Studio System

This article is intended for those with a technical interest in the Web Management Studio application and have a basic understanding of the browser/web server processes and technologies.

Please note, you do not need to read, or be able to understand, the following discussion to be able to use Web Management Studio effectively!

Web Management Studio is a web based application that is installed on your Microsoft ASP.net web server.

Web Management Studio is designed to help the owner/administrator(s) of the web site, even if they have no previous web authoring experience, to take control of all aspects of their web site's content, navigation and presentation.

There are two key aspects to the Web Management Studio framework:

1. The Web Site Administration Module, and ...
2. The Runtime Content Delivery Module.

Both of these working modules rely on the Web Management Studio Content Database, an enterprise level database (Microsoft SQL Server). This database is used by Web Management Studio to manage the individual components called Cms Objects, or simply Objects for brevity, that make up the web site. By using a powerful database to manage the web content, the application is able to achieve the following benefits:

• A fully managed environment for organising, creating, editing and deleting the files and components that constitute the web site
• The ability to quickly and safely restructure the web site - imperative when introducing new sections of content or removing obsolete ones!
• The ability to interrogate the underlying database to automatically generate common features and components such as menu systems, site maps and powerful user search facilities
• The ability to reference and re–use 'design components' across the web site to ensure consistency and effectiveness of design and presentation
• The ability to dynamically assemble XHTMLExtensible HyperText Markup Language page content using Web Management Studio's Master Page technology.

Whilst the database is responsible for the management of the data and components that make up the content of the web site, it is the Web Management Studio Master Page technology that enables users with little or no HTML design experience to consistently create accurate XHTMLExtensible HyperText Markup Language content for every page of their web site.

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The Web Site Administration Module

When Web Management Studio is installed on your web server, a number of web pages are also installed in a secure area of your site.  In effect, these pages represent the Web Management Studio web application and provide you with all the tools and facilities you need to manage your web site.

The only way this web application can be accessed is via a secure login mechanism.  This allows you to control just who can access your web site's administration area and update your web site (the Web Management Studio Administration Module provides a User Management component that allows you to grant/revoke user access rights).

Once logged in, the Web Site Administration Module will allow you to:

• Manage both Membership/Subscription and System Administration user rights and privileges
• Organise the data objects that are used to build your web site (content pages, images, links, menus etc.)
• Author new, or edit existing content
• Manage menu and navigation mechanisms used on your web site
• Perform 'system management' and 'housekeeping' functions (Search Engine submission, review file download logs, edit email response templates ...)
• And much, much more!  See Web Management Studio's Product Features section for more information.

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The Runtime Content Delivery Module

This module works in collaboration with your web server.  When a user requests a page from your web site, either by entering the address of a web page (i.e. the page's URLUniform Resource Locator) into their browser's address bar, or by clicking on a link or menu option from a page within the web site itself, the web server performs the following process:

1. It checks to see if the requested page physically exists.  If it does, it simply loads the page from the file, performs any required 'server-side' processing and 'serves' the page back to the requesting browser.  This replicates the action of any standard web server.
2. If the requested page does not exist as a file on the web server, then the request is passed to the Web Management Studio Runtime Content Delivery Module for further processing.
3. The Runtime Module parses the URLUniform Resource Locator of the requested page and attempts to match it to an object, in this case an HtmlPage, in its database.  If it finds a match, it builds a new URL based upon the Master Page specified by the HtmlPage.  The new URLUniform Resource Locator is passed back to the web server (as it does now represent a physical file) and is processed as in step #1.
4. When loaded, the Master Page 'assembles' the objects and data that make up the page content and builds the necessary XHTMLExtensible HyperText Markup Language script to render the page as its author intended.

Let us consider a working example ...

Demonstrating the Runtime Content Delivery Module Process

The process described above can appear a little confusing at first, so here we will consider this actual page and describe its rendering process.

Tip: you may find it useful to review the Constructing Links section in the documentation area before reading the following.

This page is defined with the following properties:

If we type http://www.WebManagementStudio.com/Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview.aspx  (the address of this page) into our browser's address bar, the browser will make a request to the Web Management Studio web server ...

1. The web server will check to see if the file:
   '/Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview.aspx'
   exists locally within its file system.  It does not exist, so ...
2. The local URLUniform Resource Locator (/Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview.aspx) will be passed to the Web Management Studio Runtime Content Delivery Module which, in turn, will rewrite the URLUniform Resource Locator to form a Virtual Url:
   
   /Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview.aspx
   will be rewritten as:
   //Root/Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview
   
   The Runtime Module will then query the Web Management Studio Content Database for an object with a matching Virtual Url property.
3. One of the properties of the object, an HtmlPage, will be the Master Page responsible for rendering the page.  Armed with this information, the Runtime Module then builds a new URLUniform Resource Locator that represents an instance of the requested page:
   
   http://www.WebManagementStudio.com/default.aspx?
   vurl=//Root/Content/Documentation/TechnicalOverview
   
   This URLUniform Resource Locator is then passed back to the web server for processing.
4. Since http://www.WebManagementStudio.com/default.aspx does exist (it's the default Master Page on the Web Management Studio web site), the web server loads the Master Page and, as part of its load process, the Page queries the Content Database to assemble the necessary data and components to create the XHTMLExtensible HyperText Markup Language script that will be returned to the browser for rendering.