Cyn.in
Encyclopedia
Cyn.in is an Open Source
enterprise collaborative software
built on top of Plone a content management system
written in the Python
programming language
which is a layer above Zope
. Cyn.in is developed by Cynapse
a company founded by Apurva Roy Choudhury and Dhiraj Gupta which is based in India
. Cyn.in enables its users to store, retrieve and organize files and rich content in a collaborative, multiuser environment.
Cyn.in comes in three flavors. Cyn.in Community Edition is released under the GNU General Public License
version 3 based on open standards and is completely "free" to use. Cyn.in Enterprise Editions are commercially supported, certified and tested by Cynapse. The On-Premise appliance is designed towards businesses who want to install the software on their infrastructure behind their firewall. With the On-Demand Service, Cynapse hosts the software for businesses to use, in secure cloud servers.
as a SaaS
offering by Cynapse. In 2008, June, Cynapse, the company behind Cyn.in, released a new version of Cyn.in and open sourced the project . This release was built on the popular open source Plone
- Zope
- Python
framework. With this release Cynapse's intention was to expand its focus into the enterprise collaboration domain. While the new release still supported Blogs and Wikis, Cyn.in had evolved to include enterprise collaboration tools including file repositories, event calendars, image galleries and more. The company decided to discontinue using the Bliki terminology and Cyn.in is called a Collaboration software
system attempts to bring together the core concepts of:
and functionality rules, for example, the Intranet Space of a cyn.in site may only be accessed by members of it, in contrast to the Web Space, where public Internet access is allowed.
advantages when compared to traditional folder based systems because they enable:
:
model at a flexible per user cost. cyn.in is a multi-tenant
system; each customer of cyn.in may purchase one or more cyn.in sites each of which are located at a user selectable subdomain
of the main cyn.in service. Each site allows a set of users to log in to it to access internal functionality; the service offers a central user authentication
system and thus allows the same users to be members of different cyn.in sites as well.
A free version is also available for individual professionals with some limitations in storage and the maximum number of users that are allowed.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
enterprise collaborative software
Collaborative software
Collaborative software is computer software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve goals...
built on top of Plone a content management system
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
written in the Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
which is a layer above Zope
Zope
Zope is a free and open-source, object-oriented Web application server written in the Python programming language. Zope stands for "Z Object Publishing Environment", and was the first system using the now common object publishing methodology for the Web...
. Cyn.in is developed by Cynapse
Cynapse
Cynapse is a private web software company that was incorporated in April 2001 in Mumbai, India and later in June 2006 in Delaware, USA.Although Cynapse is mostly a products company, it has also undertaken service projects for large software companies like Microsoft and institutions like...
a company founded by Apurva Roy Choudhury and Dhiraj Gupta which is based in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Cyn.in enables its users to store, retrieve and organize files and rich content in a collaborative, multiuser environment.
Cyn.in comes in three flavors. Cyn.in Community Edition is released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
version 3 based on open standards and is completely "free" to use. Cyn.in Enterprise Editions are commercially supported, certified and tested by Cynapse. The On-Premise appliance is designed towards businesses who want to install the software on their infrastructure behind their firewall. With the On-Demand Service, Cynapse hosts the software for businesses to use, in secure cloud servers.
History
Cyn.in was developed and released in late 2006 as a closed source Enterprise Bliki software, based on the .NET Framework.NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
as a SaaS
Saas
SAAS is an abbreviation for* Social Accountability Accreditation Services* Software as a service * Student Awards Agency for Scotland* Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences* South Australian Ambulance Service...
offering by Cynapse. In 2008, June, Cynapse, the company behind Cyn.in, released a new version of Cyn.in and open sourced the project . This release was built on the popular open source Plone
Plone
Plone can mean:* Plone , a British band* Plone , a content management system...
- Zope
Zope
Zope is a free and open-source, object-oriented Web application server written in the Python programming language. Zope stands for "Z Object Publishing Environment", and was the first system using the now common object publishing methodology for the Web...
- Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
framework. With this release Cynapse's intention was to expand its focus into the enterprise collaboration domain. While the new release still supported Blogs and Wikis, Cyn.in had evolved to include enterprise collaboration tools including file repositories, event calendars, image galleries and more. The company decided to discontinue using the Bliki terminology and Cyn.in is called a Collaboration software
Application Convergence
The cyn.in collaborative information managementInformation management
Information management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information...
system attempts to bring together the core concepts of:
- Personal information managementPersonal information managementPersonal information management refers to the practice and the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve and use information items such as documents , web pages and email messages for everyday use to complete tasks and fulfill a person’s various...
- Organization-wide knowledge and document management
- Information and file collaboration
- Knowledge transferKnowledge transferKnowledge transfer in the fields of organizational development and organizational learning is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another part of the organization. Like Knowledge Management, Knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or...
- Content publishingPublishingPublishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
Spaces
Information can be made available in four different location namespaces, called Personal Space, Shared Space, Intranet Space and Web Space within the cyn.in application. Each Space has distinct authorizationAuthorization
Authorization is the function of specifying access rights to resources, which is related to information security and computer security in general and to access control in particular. More formally, "to authorize" is to define access policy...
and functionality rules, for example, the Intranet Space of a cyn.in site may only be accessed by members of it, in contrast to the Web Space, where public Internet access is allowed.
Taxonomy and categorization
Notes can have one or more SlashTags. SlashTags is the name given to the hierarchical tagging system used in cyn.in to categorize Notes and is used for creation of navigation trees and dynamic pop-out menus. SlashTags offer taxonomicalTaxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
advantages when compared to traditional folder based systems because they enable:
- direct navigational access to each Note
- multiple presences of the same Note in the navigation system
Key Features
Due to the emergent nature of the open source and hosted service model, the exact feature specification of the cyn.in service is updated regularly. The following core features are currently visible:- WikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
support - BlogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
support - Calendaring
- MicrobloggingMicrobloggingMicroblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
- Bookmark Directories
- Discussion Boards
- Audio and Video Galleries
- File Repositories
- Image Galleries and slideshowSlideshowA slide show is a display of a series of chosen information or pictures, done for artistic or instructional purposes. Slide shows are conducted by a presenter using an apparatus, such as a carousel slide projector, an overhead projector or in more recent years, a computer running presentation...
views of images - Collaboration Spaces
- Customizable Permissions and Access control
- Integrated WYSIWYGWYSIWYGWYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
Word Processor - WYSIWYG creation and editing of HTML content tables
- Content Ratings
- Content Tagging support
- People Directory
- Working Copy support
- Link and reference integrity maintenance
- Automatic locking and unlocking
- Complete revision history of all content and files
- WorkflowWorkflowA workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
capabilities - Integrated Full Text indexing of (WordMicrosoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, ExcelMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
, PowerpointMicrosoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
, PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
, HTML, Text and other file formats) - Rules engine for content
- Auto-generated tables of contents
- Multi-file uploads
- Live Search
- Faceted Search
- i18n support
- AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity...
compliant - Time-based publishing and expiry of content
- Standards-compliant XHTMLXHTMLXHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
and CSSCSS-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code... - RSSRSS-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
syndication of content and files - Automatic image scaling and thumbnail generation
- Cross-platformCross-platformIn computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...
- Comment capabilities on any content
- WebDAVWebDAVWeb-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers...
support - BackupBackupIn information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....
support - Cut/copy/paste operations on content
- Email notifications
- Desktop Client
- Automatic Backlinking
- Granular rights based content editing and user-to-user collaboration
- Access rights based AJAXAjax (programming)Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
user interface - Co - author rich content, files and documents
- Selectively move content from private to public spaces
- Sensible, easy-to-remember URLUniform Resource LocatorIn computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
s - Server based image resizing for preview and download
Applications
Designed to be used generically, the cyn.in bliki service can be applied in the following business applicationsBusiness software
This article is about software made for business, if you were looking for the business of selling software, see Software business.Business software is generally any software program that helps a business increase productivity or measure their productivity...
:
- Knowledge ManagementKnowledge managementKnowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences...
- Document Management
- Enterprise Content ManagementEnterprise content managementEnterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes...
- Digital Asset ManagementDigital asset managementDigital asset management consists of management tasks and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets...
- Online File SystemFile systemA file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
- Version Control System
- Group Collaboration
Pricing Model
The cyn.in service is made available for purchase by businesses in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)Software as a Service
Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
model at a flexible per user cost. cyn.in is a multi-tenant
Multitenant
Multitenancy refers to a principle in software architecture where a single instance of the software runs on a server, serving multiple client organizations . Multitenancy is contrasted with a multi-instance architecture where separate software instances are set up for different client organizations...
system; each customer of cyn.in may purchase one or more cyn.in sites each of which are located at a user selectable subdomain
Subdomain
In the Domain Name System hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain.- Overview :The Domain Name System has a tree structure or hierarchy, with each node on the tree being a domain name. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain, the only domain that is not...
of the main cyn.in service. Each site allows a set of users to log in to it to access internal functionality; the service offers a central user authentication
Authentication
Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...
system and thus allows the same users to be members of different cyn.in sites as well.
A free version is also available for individual professionals with some limitations in storage and the maximum number of users that are allowed.
Awards
- 2009
- Les Tropées du Libre (nominee)
- SourceforgeSourceForgeSourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
Community Choice Awards - Finalist in 3 categories - Best New Project, Best Commercial Open Source Project & Best Visual Design
See also
- Open SourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
- Collaborative SoftwareCollaborative softwareCollaborative software is computer software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve goals...
- Enterprise social softwareEnterprise social softwareEnterprise social software , comprises social software as used in "enterprise" contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication...
- List of collaborative software
- List of content management systems