19 July 2007 - 22:53 - Submitted by deadpan110Introduction to whap

Initially started as a simple script to insert advertising banners onto all users websites while administrating a web hosting server, we soon realised the basic workings within the script could be altered and made more powerful.

Using original code from an early version of our CRIMP project, whap was born.

whap - web hosting administrator’s paradise - Filters, monitors and modifies all text/html content on a vhost or dynamic vhost web server. Based on early CRIMP code to enable the use of modules which can enable standard html pages appear dynamic for all!

Planned engine features

The whap engine has been written in perl and we hope to increase its functionality as this project evolves.

• Process forking enabled for use on SMP systems
• Built in Server Side Includes for post webserver rendering
• Expandable with the use of modules

Planned modules

Modules for whap are very easy to write and we encourage anyone using the whap engine to write their own, we hope to include some of our own.

• Forbidden words monitor - flags websites that have restricted textual content and emails the webhost administrator
• Web counter that can show single page hits, site hits for pages on a single vhost and even total hits for all pages on all vhosts

Other ideas for modules are being thought up faster than the engine is being written, whap should also be able to combine users pages with ease.

For instance, your vhost user has a single website with a Wiki and a WordPress blog, if the user creates a WordPress page containing just the sidebar, this can be inserted into the users Wiki just by including a simple tag or they can even include the same page heading design across every webapp they use - one design for their forum, wiki, blog etc.

This is not just limited to scripted pages like php, but can also be done to plain html just like a Server Side Include allowing your webhost users more ways to customise their sites

Further Reading

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Includes