- What is FirePublish?
FirePublish is a multi-platform publishing system designed for website administrators to easily manage the workflow of files between their developers and their production web servers. It integrates with your current environment and version control system, so you do not need to change your server configuration or security protocols.
- Who should use FirePublish?
The ideal user is a website administrator, a webmaster, a developer who works offsite, a team of developers who are committing files to the test server frequently, an IT manager, an online marketing manager, anyone who deals with multiple IT or web vendors.
- How many websites or web properties can I manage through this system?
As many as you need to manage. One of the key features of FirePublish is it’s ability to allow website administrators to manage multiple websites and web properties through a single system. FirePublish is an equal opportunity web file manager - classic corporate websites, intranets, extranets and/or web-based applications and tools, FirePublish manages them all.
- How long will it take to get me up and running on FirePublish?
FirePublish integrates with your existing infrastructure. Simply install the application, and you can begin using FirePublish immediately.
- Will all the users (or my developers) have access to publish all the files?
Only if you want them to. Administrators and web managers can grant or deny access rights and publish permissions to groups of files or entire websites.
- Does FirePublish only manage websites, or can I use it for an internal application, such as an intranet application my employees use?
FirePublish can be used for any web-based applications, whether they be a public-facing website, intranet, or custom application. Any time you have developers updating the code, you should use FirePublish.
- How do you handle licensing?
FirePublish is licensed on a per-user basis. Please see the pricing page for more information.
- Which operating system does FirePublish support?
FirePublish is built on PHP5, which must be installed to your Subversion server. However, your test and production website environments
can be either PHP5 or .NET 2.0, since the FirePublish Remote Transfer Agent is available for both platforms.
- What brands of version control software does FirePublish integrate with?
The current version of FirePublish integrates with Subversion. Subversion has been recognized as a superior, enterprise-level version control system. Future versions will include support for other version control repositories, such as Microsoft Visual Sourcesafe.
- Does FirePublish have an audit trail allowing me to see who is doing what with the files?
Yes. Everytime a developer makes a change to one of the files managed by FirePublish, or publishes one of those files to a production server, an audit trail is generated with the change that was made, the name of the developer, and the date and time of the change.
- Can I notify my users that new files and updates have been made to my website?
Yes, when files are published, an RSS feed is created and that can be used to inform either an internal development team or the general public of the pages, content, or website assets that have been published.
- How many versions of my website exist when I use FirePublish?
To use FirePublish, you must have the following environments configured:
- A local or development environment where code is written and development occurs.
- A test or staging environment where files are committed by developers for users to review and QA to test.
- A production or live environment - files are published to this environment for the end users to view and utilize.
However, it is possible that all 3 environments are on the same physical server. FirePublish supports a variety of environment configurations.
- Are there any data size limits or limits on the amount of files I can manage?
FirePublish is set to manage websites of all sizes. There is no limit on the amount, size or type of files that you manage through the application, other than the limits imposed by Subversion.
- Can I publish to multiple production servers?
Yes! Once files are checked-in to your version control repository, they can be easily published to serveral production servers at once.
- What are your minimum system requirements?
FirePublish is a PHP5 application, available for both Unix and Windows platforms. To publish files, you must have the .NET 2.0 framework, or PHP5 installed on your test server.