Imagine that you are the webmaster of a web site representing information which changes periodically, e.g. an internet magazine. If the person supplying the information is unfamiliar with web design, what do you do? Traditionally, this person would hand the material to the web designer who would then convert it for web presentation and upload the pages to the server. What if this person wants to correct something after it has been converted to HTML? What if multiple authors are responsible for the content on a site and require individual corrections? Wouldn't it be nice if they could make the changes and/or create new content themselves?

With HTMPL it is possible. You design templates according to the needs of the author/ customer/ etc. Then you educate them on how to use the script. Once this is complete, pages can be created, edited, and even deleted without your participation!

So how does HTMPL work? The only requirement (besides a web server of course) is that Perl must be installed. Because HTMPL writes data directly to an HTML file, there is no need for databases or external structures. With HTMPL there are two types of files: templates and web pages. Templates are used to define editable content on web pages. HTMPL interprets these templates and provides appropriate prompts to the user. Using these templates a user can create any number of pages that are named automatically and editable in the future.

What should you do to let your users design their page without knowing of HTML?

1. Enumerate the types of pages of your site or some part of it.
2. Create template for each type.
3. Teach your user to run and use script.
   

What the user can do with it?

1. Manage arbitrary number of pages on any of templates. Create, update and delete them.
2. Use text, graphics (both plain and linked) and flash, use SSI to reduce multiple page editing.
3. Advanced user also can use HTML tags to make his page better looking.

How does the script works?

1. You must have Perl installed on your server.
2. No special requirments, no databases, no external structures. All data are placed directly in HTML.
3. Script reads the template and shows editing form for new or existing document, then it writes user information into HTML. New documents inherit properties of templates, so they can be edited again any number of times. Script automatically names all new documents and their graphics files. When user deletes document all it's graphics is deleted by script.

The divisions of vmeste.org are created and updated via HTMPL, for example, http://vmeste.org/kitchen, http://vmeste.org/memo, http://vmeste.org/tema.