Content Fusion was one of the very first CMS systems to work on the principles of XML. XML is known for its advanced capability to accurately represent any hierarchical information.
XML has unlimited hierarchy unlike a relational database which is fundamentally flat. XML uses 'tags' to mark-up content in a similar way as those used by HTML. Where HTML is used to mark-up formatting and presentation (such as: bold, headings, table, rules, etc) XML is used to markup structure and meaning like a relational database (such as: product name, client name, regions, and release dates of press releases).
Content Fusion completely separates look and feel (including design and layout) from content. Content means text, images, Flash movies and general ‘settings’ within the website such as the modules required on the left and right hand menus for a given page. Content does NOT include, for instance, HTML mark up to set the position of an image on a page – that is part of the layout.
The rationale for this is twofold. One, our clients want to leverage their content - having the ability to render it and publish it across different platforms in different ways. If content is poisoned with layout and structural code it severely limits the re-use of the content. Secondly, content – especially well thought out content – should outlive design. Clients want to be able to apply a new layout, style or design with the minimum of fuss. If there is a trace of these elements within the content this becomes impossible, whereas when all of these elements are held entirely outside the content, it is completely possible.
A real world example is with images: many CMS systems allow the content manager to drag and drop content directly into a block of text and position it within the text. The great benefit of this is perceived flexibility. The downside, though, is that there will be a huge amount of HTML code now embedded within the content to set the absolute position of the image. The Content Fusion approach is to allow the creation of ‘content blocks’ and have an ‘image position’ element within each so that many blocks can be created and images can be positioned, say, above, below, to the left or to the right of each block. This achieves near same flexibility but ensures that the content remains pure.
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