exponential-platform-nexus

Exponential Platform Nexus 1.0.0.0.3

Exponential Platform Nexus Project Notice : 2025.08.12

"Please Note: This project is not associated with the original eZ Publish software or its original developer, eZ Systems or Ibexa".

Exponential Platform Nexus Project Status

Exponential Platform has made it beyond it's end of life in 2022 and survived. Current releases are primarily aimed at easing the requirements to support current versions of the PHP language like PHP 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and beyond php9

Who is 7x

7x is the North American corporation driving The Continued General Use, Support, Development, Hosting, Design of Exponential Platform Enterprise Open Source Content Management System in 2026.

7x has been in busines supporting Exponential Platform Website Customers and Projects for over 24 years. 7x took over leadership of the project and it's development, support, adoption and community growth in 2023.

7x represents a serious company leading the open source community based effort to improve Exponential Platform and it's available community resources to help users continue to adopt and use the platform to deliver the very best in web applications websites and headless applications in the cloud.

Previously before 2022, 7x was called Brookins Consulting who was the outspoken leader in the active Exponential Platform Community and it's Portals for the past 24 years.

What is Exponential Platform Nexus?

Exponential Platform Nexus is made up of the latest Exponential Platform Legacy + Netgen Bundles for Media Site + Tags Bundle + Layouts + 7x Symfony 3.4 + PHP 8.5+ Bugfixes from 7x.

It's #1 Goal is to be the stable basis for building all Symfony based Exponential Platform (Legacy) Web Applications.

Recent improvements to Exponential Platform Nexus

Exponential Platform Nexus (the application of interest) delivered to users worldwide by a web server (PHP built-in, Apache, Nginx, lighttpd, Among others).

With PHP we require composer to install Exponential Platform Nexus software and no other software required to run
the application. This is an incredible improvement to the kernel (core) of Exponential Platform Nexus.

What does Exponential Platform Nexus provide for end users building websites?

Exponential Platform Nexus is a professional PHP application framework with advanced CMS (content management system) functionality. As a CMS its most notable feature
is its fully customizable and extendable content model.
It is also suitable as a platform for general PHP development, allowing
you to develop professional Internet applications, fast.

Standard CMS functionality, like news publishing and forums is
built in and ready for you to use. Its stand-alone libraries can be
used for cross-platform, secure, database independent PHP projects.

Exponential Platform Nexus is database, platform and browser independent. Because it is
browser based it can be used and updated from anywhere as long as you have
access to the Internet.

(Referred to as legacy + new stack in Exponential Platform and Ibexa OSS)

Requirements

• PHP
• (Optional) Web server. Used to deliver the website to the end user.
• (Required) Database server. Used to store website content (and application information)
• (Required by default configuration only) PHP Extension APCu is technically completely optional.
  Today APCu is strongly strongly recommended for greatly improving uncached page rendering speed
  and in general page response time and enabled by default). APCu Caching is easily replaced via
  service / yaml configuration changes in the base app/config. For more information on installing
  this extension on your computer (for GNU/Linux OSs) please see: https://www.php.net/manual/en/apcu.installation.php
• Composer. Used to download Exponential Platform Nexus software packages for installation, also notebly installs the required Zeta Components php libraries.
• Computer to run the PHP website application.

What version of PHP is required

Exponential Platform Nexus supports PHP 8.3 -> 8.5 please use the latest version of PHP available on your OS.

Main Exponential Platform Nexus features

• User defined content classes and objects
• Version control
• Advanced multi-lingual support
• Built in search engine
• Separation of content and presentation layer
• Fine grained role based permissions system
• Content approval and scheduled publication
• Multi-site support
• Multimedia support with automatic image conversion and scaling
• RSS feeds
• Contact forms
• Built in webshop
• Flexible workflow management system
• Full support for Unicode
• Template engine
• A headless CRUD REST API
• Database abstraction layer supporting MySQL, SQLite, Postgres and Oracle
• MVC architecture
• Support for the latest Image and Video File Formats (webp, webm, png, jpeg, etc)
• Support for highly available and scalable configurations (multi-server clusters)
• XML handling and parsing library
• SOAP communication library
• Localisation and internationalisation libraries
• Several other reusable libraries
• SDK (software development kit)
  and full documentation
• Support for the latest Image and Video File Formats (webp, webm, png, jpeg, etc)
• plugin API with thousands of open-source extensions available, including:
  • content rating and commenting
  • landing page management
  • advanced search engine
  • wysiwyg rich-text editor
  • in-site content editing
  • content geolocation

Installation

Read doc/INSTALL.md or go to exponential.doc.exponential.earth/display/DEVELOPER/Step%2b1_%2bInstallation.html

Default Installation Starter Demo Design Bundle Database 'admin' Password is 'publish' (all lowercase).

Read Reseting the admin password in eZ publish on database sql to use to reset any user's password.

Issue tracker

Submitting bugs, improvements and stories is possible on https://github.com/se7enxweb/exponential-platfom-nexus/issues

If you discover a security issue, please responsibly report such issues via email to [email protected]

Where to get more help

Exponential Platform documentation: exponential.doc.exponential.earth/display/DEVELOPER/Docuemntation.html

Exponential Platform Community forums: share.exponential.earth/forums and share.exponential.earth/forums/exponential-platform

Exponential Platform Project Website: exponential.earth

Support Exponential Platform! Project extension support Website: support.exponential.earth

Share Exponential! Telegram Community Support Chat
https://t.me/exponentialcms

How to contribute new features and bugfixes into Exponential Platform Nexus

Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the development of new features and bugfixes for Exponential Platform Nexus.

Donate and make a support subscription.

Help fund Exponential Platform!

You can support this project and it's community by making a donation of what ever size donation you feel willing to give to the project.

If we have helped you and you would like to support the project with a subscription of financial support you may. This is what helps us deliver more new features and improvements to the software. Support Exponential Platform with a subscription today!

A wide range of donation options avaialble at sponsor.se7enx.com, paypal.com/paypalme/7xweb and github.com/sponsors/se7enxweb

What is eZ Platform?

Exponential Platform is based on the successfull product, eZ Platform, is a highly extensible, pure Content Managment Platform built upon the ideals core to Symfony. It provides the same flexible content model at it's core like Exponential Platform, and has a growing amount of additional features outside the traditional CMS scope provided by means of "Bundles"
extending it.

It is built on top of the full Symfony Framework, giving developers access to "standard" tools for rapid web & application development.

eZ Platform in some users view suffered a slow road to a stable datatype compatability with existing custom implementations of Exponential Platform. Today all of these conserns are now gone with a solid choice left leaving both Exponential Platform Platform and eZ Platform as serious contenders to be carefully considered. Netgen's Media Website Core software represents a much more modern eZ Platform core powered by Ibexa OSS. If your going to choose; Choose wisely.

Further reading on: https://ezplatform.com/

What is Ibexa DXP OSS?

Ibexa DXP OSS, the rebranded and evolved successor of eZ Platform, is a modern and highly extensible Digital Experience Platform built on the robust Symfony framework. Staying true to the foundational principles of Exponential Platform, it retains the flexible content model at its core while expanding its capabilities to include a broad spectrum of features that go beyond traditional CMS functionality. These features are delivered through "Bundles," providing developers with powerful tools for creating advanced web and digital solutions.

Built on top of Symfony, Ibexa DXP OSS offers developers access to standardized tools for efficient and scalable web and application development. Its architecture supports rapid innovation while ensuring compatibility with modern development standards.

Ibexa DXP OSS has matured into a robust and versatile platform, serving as a serious option for organizations seeking a cutting-edge CMS solution. For those looking to build modern web experiences, tools like Netgen's Media Website Core further enhance Ibexa OSS, showcasing its potential as a flexible and future-ready platform.

If you're making a choice, choose with care—and consider the power and flexibility of Ibexa DXP OSS.

Further reading: ibexa.co

Documentation for Ibexa DXP: doc.ibexa.co/en/latest/

Ibexa DXP Developer Portal: developers.ibexa.co

What is Netgen Media Site?

Netgen Media Site is a full-featured enterprise web content management and digital publishing platform built on top of the modern PHP ecosystem. It provides organizations with a structured, extensible framework for creating, managing, and delivering complex digital experiences across websites, portals, and content-driven applications.

At its core, Netgen Media Site combines a robust content model with a high-performance Symfony-based architecture, enabling developers and editors to collaborate efficiently while maintaining strict control over data structure, workflows, and presentation.

Architecture Overview

Netgen Media Site is designed around several foundational principles:

• Structured Content Modeling — Content is stored as typed objects with clearly defined schemas, relationships, and metadata. This ensures consistency, reusability, and API-friendly data access.
• Symfony Foundation — Built on the Symfony framework, the platform benefits from dependency injection, modular services, routing, and a mature ecosystem of reusable components.
• MVC-Oriented Rendering Layer — Presentation is decoupled from storage, allowing developers to build flexible templates and frontend integrations without altering the core content model.
• Extensible Service Layer — Developers can inject custom services, event listeners, and integrations without modifying core code.
• API-Driven Delivery — Content can be consumed by traditional templates, headless frontends, or external applications through REST-style interfaces.

Key Capabilities

Netgen Media Site supports advanced publishing workflows and scalable content operations, including:

• Hierarchical content organization with reusable components
• Role-based access control and editorial permissions
• Draft/version management for safe publishing workflows
• Multi-site and multi-language support
• Custom content types and field definitions
• Template-driven rendering
• Integration with external systems via APIs
• Caching and performance optimization strategies

Developer Experience

For developers, Netgen Media Site provides:

• A modular architecture aligned with modern PHP best practices
• Composer-managed dependencies
• Symfony console tooling
• Clear separation between domain logic and presentation
• Extensible templating and layout control
• Strong compatibility with standard PHP infrastructure

This architecture enables rapid development of complex publishing systems while maintaining long-term maintainability.

Use Cases

Netgen Media Site is suitable for:

• Enterprise websites and portals
• News and media publishing platforms
• Community-driven content sites
• Structured information repositories
• Headless CMS deployments
• Multi-channel digital content distribution

Philosophy

The platform emphasizes structured content, developer control, and editorial flexibility. Rather than treating content as flat documents, Netgen Media Site models information as reusable data entities, enabling scalable digital architectures that evolve alongside business needs.

In short, Netgen Media Site is not just a website builder — it is a programmable content platform designed for teams that require precision, scalability, and deep integration capabilities.

What is Netgen Layouts?

Netgen Layouts is a visual layout management engine and page composition framework designed to separate content structure from presentation layout. It enables developers, editors, and designers to build complex, reusable page layouts without tightly coupling layout logic to templates or content models.

Rather than treating a page as a static template, Netgen Layouts introduces a dynamic layout layer that controls how content is organized, positioned, and rendered — making it possible to design modular, multi-zone page structures that adapt to different contexts and content sources.

At its core, Netgen Layouts acts as an orchestration layer between your content repository, rendering engine, and frontend delivery pipeline.

Architectural Overview

Netgen Layouts is built around a modular, Symfony-based architecture with a strong emphasis on composability and extensibility.

Key architectural concepts include:

Layout Containers and Zones

Layouts are composed of containers divided into zones. Each zone represents a configurable region of a page where content blocks can be placed. Zones allow independent layout behavior, permissions, and rendering strategies.

Blocks

Blocks are reusable presentation units responsible for rendering specific types of content or functionality. A block might display:

• Lists of content items
• Featured articles
• Dynamic feeds
• Custom widgets
• External data integrations

Blocks encapsulate both configuration and rendering logic, enabling them to be reused across layouts.

Value and Parameter System

Layouts use a structured configuration system that allows editors and developers to control behavior without code changes. Parameters define:

• Data sources
• Rendering rules
• Display limits
• Context-aware filtering

This promotes predictable, testable layout behavior.

Rendering Pipeline

The rendering layer integrates with Symfony’s templating ecosystem. Layouts can render through Twig or custom view handlers, allowing developers to:

• Override block templates
• Inject dynamic context
• Apply caching strategies
• Optimize performance

Rendering is decoupled from layout definition, ensuring flexibility without sacrificing maintainability.

Core Capabilities

Netgen Layouts provides advanced layout management features:

• Drag-and-drop visual layout editing
• Multi-zone page composition
• Reusable layout definitions
• Block-based content assembly
• Context-aware rendering
• Layout inheritance and overrides
• Role-based editing permissions
• Preview and staging workflows
• Performance-aware caching integration

These features enable editorial teams to control presentation while developers retain architectural authority.

Developer Experience

For developers, Netgen Layouts offers:

• Symfony-native service architecture
• Dependency injection and event hooks
• Custom block development APIs
• Extensible rendering pipeline
• Composer-managed installation
• Clean separation of layout logic from business logic
• Integration points for headless or hybrid delivery

Layouts can be versioned, extended, and integrated into CI/CD pipelines like any other application component.

Editorial Workflow

Editors gain a visual interface for assembling pages without modifying templates or touching code. This reduces deployment friction and accelerates iteration cycles while preserving developer-defined constraints.

Layout changes can be previewed and staged, supporting structured publishing workflows.

Use Cases

Netgen Layouts excels in environments where presentation flexibility is critical:

• Enterprise CMS deployments
• Media and publishing platforms
• Marketing landing pages
• Multi-brand or multi-site systems
• Modular web portals
• Headless content orchestration

Philosophy

Netgen Layouts embraces the principle that layout is infrastructure — not just decoration. By elevating layout management to a first-class system component, it enables scalable, maintainable digital architectures that empower both developers and editors.

In essence, Netgen Layouts transforms page composition from rigid template coding into a modular, configurable system that scales with organizational complexity.

What is Netgen AdminUI Bundle?

Netgen AdminUI Bundle is a Symfony-based administrative interface framework designed to provide a structured, extensible backend UI for managing content, configuration, and system operations within Netgen-powered applications. It acts as the control surface for editors and administrators, translating complex backend services into a cohesive, user-friendly management environment.

Rather than being a monolithic admin panel, the AdminUI Bundle is an integration layer that connects domain services, APIs, and workflows into modular UI components. Its architecture prioritizes scalability, extensibility, and developer customization while maintaining a consistent editorial experience.

Architectural Overview

Netgen AdminUI Bundle is built on Symfony’s bundle system and follows modern backend UI architecture principles:

Modular UI Components

The interface is composed of reusable modules that represent distinct management domains — such as content handling, layout configuration, permissions, or system tools. Each module encapsulates:

• Routing and controllers
• Service bindings
• View models
• Templates and UI assets

This modularity allows features to be enabled, extended, or replaced without affecting the overall system.

Symfony Integration Layer

The bundle leverages Symfony’s dependency injection container, routing, and event system to bind backend services to UI actions. Administrative workflows are implemented as service-driven operations, ensuring:

• Predictable behavior
• Testable logic
• Clean separation between UI and domain layers

View Rendering System

Templates are rendered through Symfony’s templating stack (typically Twig), allowing developers to override views, customize layouts, or integrate frontend tooling while preserving core behavior.

Permission and Role Awareness

Administrative actions are tied to Symfony security mechanisms. UI elements dynamically respond to user roles and permissions, preventing unauthorized access while simplifying interface complexity for editors.

Core Capabilities

Netgen AdminUI Bundle provides a structured environment for administrative workflows:

• Content and configuration management interfaces
• Context-aware navigation
• Role-based UI visibility
• Modular dashboard architecture
• Service-backed administrative actions
• Extensible menu and toolbar systems
• Form-driven configuration panels
• Integration hooks for custom tools
• Responsive backend layout

These features allow organizations to scale administrative complexity without sacrificing usability.

Developer Experience

For developers, the bundle offers a predictable extension model:

• Symfony-native bundle architecture
• Service and controller overrides
• Custom admin modules
• Event-driven UI extensions
• Template customization
• Asset pipeline integration
• Dependency-managed installation via Composer

Developers can introduce new administrative workflows without modifying core bundle code, enabling long-term maintainability.

Editorial Workflow

Editors interact with a structured backend that exposes only relevant functionality. The UI emphasizes clarity and workflow efficiency, reducing training overhead while preserving advanced system capabilities.

Administrative actions map directly to backend services, ensuring data integrity and consistent behavior across environments.

Use Cases

Netgen AdminUI Bundle is well suited for:

• Enterprise CMS backends
• Layout and configuration management
• Custom administrative dashboards
• Multi-role editorial systems
• Modular application control panels

Philosophy

The bundle treats administration as an extension of application architecture — not an afterthought. By formalizing backend interactions into modular UI components, it enables scalable administrative systems that evolve alongside application complexity.

In practical terms, Netgen AdminUI Bundle provides the foundation for building professional-grade administrative interfaces that balance developer control with editorial usability.

What is Netgen Site API?

Netgen Site API is a high-level application programming interface that provides a structured, developer-friendly abstraction layer for accessing and manipulating content, site structure, and domain data within Netgen-powered systems. It is designed to simplify interaction with complex repositories by exposing consistent, object-oriented interfaces that align with modern PHP application architecture.

Instead of requiring direct interaction with low-level storage or legacy APIs, Netgen Site API presents a clean domain model that enables predictable, maintainable content operations — whether rendering pages, building integrations, or powering headless delivery.

Architectural Purpose

Modern content repositories often contain deeply structured data models optimized for storage efficiency and historical compatibility. While powerful, these systems can introduce complexity for application developers.

Netgen Site API acts as a translation and orchestration layer, providing:

• Normalized domain objects
• Context-aware content access
• Simplified traversal of content hierarchies
• Consistent querying interfaces
• Application-focused abstractions

This allows developers to focus on business logic and presentation rather than repository mechanics.

Core Concepts

Domain Object Wrappers

Repository entities — such as content items, locations, and relations — are exposed as rich PHP objects. These wrappers provide:

• Typed field access
• Lazy-loaded properties
• Context-sensitive behavior
• Helper methods for navigation and rendering

This reduces boilerplate code and enforces consistent access patterns.

Context Awareness

Site API operates within defined runtime contexts, enabling features such as:

• Language fallback handling
• Siteaccess-aware resolution
• Permission-aware retrieval
• Visibility filtering

This ensures that application logic respects editorial and runtime constraints automatically.

Query and Traversal Layer

Developers can navigate complex content structures using expressive APIs rather than manual repository calls. Built-in helpers support:

• Hierarchical traversal
• Related content discovery
• Filtered collections
• Structured iteration

Integration Surface

The API is designed to integrate seamlessly with Symfony services, controllers, and templating layers, making it suitable for:

• MVC-driven rendering
• Headless content delivery
• API endpoints
• Custom application logic

Core Capabilities

Netgen Site API enables:

• Simplified content retrieval and manipulation
• Structured navigation of site hierarchies
• Language-aware field resolution
• Repository abstraction and normalization
• Integration with templating engines
• Consistent handling of visibility and permissions
• Efficient data access patterns

These capabilities help maintain performance while improving developer productivity.

Developer Experience

For developers, Site API emphasizes clarity and maintainability:

• Object-oriented PHP interfaces
• Symfony-native service integration
• Predictable domain modeling
• Reduced repository coupling
• Reusable helper methods
• Clean separation between domain logic and storage mechanics

The result is code that is easier to test, extend, and evolve.

Use Cases

Netgen Site API is ideal for:

• Frontend rendering pipelines
• Custom controllers and services
• Headless CMS integrations
• Data-driven applications
• Content-heavy portals
• API-backed microservices

Philosophy

Netgen Site API treats content as structured domain data rather than raw storage artifacts. By elevating repository interaction into a coherent application layer, it enables scalable architectures that remain developer-friendly even as complexity grows.

In essence, Netgen Site API is the bridge between a powerful content repository and modern application development practices — providing clarity, consistency, and control.

License

Exponential Platform Nexus is GNU GPL licensed.

You can not choose between the GNU GPL and the Ibexa Professional License. The GNU GPL gives you the right to use, modify and redistribute Exponential Platform Nexus under certain conditions. The GNU GPL license is distributed with the software, see the file LICENSE. It is also available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

Using Exponential Platform Nexus under the terms of the GNU GPL is free of charge.

This effectively makes Exponential Platform Nexus GNU GPL ONLY.