Frequently Asked Questions

The following is a brief list of questions we've encountered while developing Odin Assemble.

Is Odin Assemble fast?

Yes! Odin Assemble performs well because it was designed to work in very low resource environments!. Using average hardware returns remarkable results using Odin Assemble.

To assemble pages as fast as possible, Odin Assemble uses the PEAR Cache_Lite class in two fashions. Page level caching while reducing the Odin Assemble dynamic capabilities can drastically improve performance. The single most time intensive event managed by Odin Assemble is the post evaluation process. Regardless of configuration, keyword frequency or contextual, post evaluation requires some machine cycles, caching here reduces the frequency of these calculations.

If I need speed and dynamic content what then?

To combine the best elements of both worlds, Odin Assemble allows you to easily specify which "pages" cannot be cached.

On this web-site we use the discuss element to provide a basic forum, with a forum caching becomes out of the question. So how do we handle this scenario?

	$_avoid_cache		= "discussion.html";

Adding that single line to config.inc.php prevents the discussion area from being cached. In fact the value of $_avoid_cache is actually a regular expression match, so if you need to block more then one file try:

	$_avoid_cache		= "(discussion|form)";

The above example blocks any matches with discussion or form in the filename from being cached.

Does Odin Assemble require a database?

Because Odin Assemble was designed to work in very low resource environments, a database is a luxury that isn't always guaranteed. For this simple fact Odin Assemble does not require a database to run. Instead of storing data in tables, Odin Assemble uses flat HTML and PHP documents for storage.

How big is Odin Assemble?

The core of Odin Assemble is made up of two files. The main handler (index.php) and the keyword parser (keywords.inc.php).

Supplementing the core we have the PEAR based Cache_Lite class.

For the sake of performance, PEAR Cache_Lite only creates an instance of PEAR for error handling. This prevents the additional loading of:

And finally Odin Assemble also uses the SourceForge based Snoopy class.

A major strength of Odin Assemble is that it can run in as little as 22k of storage. Even using all of the available configuration based supplements, unless an error occurs, Odin Assemble runs in 84k. In the case of an error, the usage of the PEAR based error handler raises the resource requirements to 114k.

If you opt to use the SourceForge based Web File Browser then you will add an additional:

Can more then one person author using Odin Assemble?

While the concept of "multiple authors" is generally found only in content management systems, by combining Odin Assemble with Web File Browser's HTML editing and user permission system you can simulate the "multiple author" concept.

Why is Odin Assemble compiled? (You can compile PHP?)

While Odin Assemble is a 100% free product an active decision was made to only offer it as a compiled application. Closed source applications are generally more secure, by limiting access to the original source we reduce the ability to have Odin Assemble exploited.

Why is Odin Assemble Free?

Odin Assemble is a free software package. You can find free documentation, general forum based support, developer forum support and even a wide array of free elements through OdinAssemble.com. While Odin Assemble is free, Odin Metatech, Inc compliments the free offering with the following commercial services:

• Managed Odin Assemble Hosting
• Economy Odin Assemble Hosting
• Odin Assemble Web-site Development/Deployment
• Odin Assemble Maintenance

Do I have to link back to OdinAssemble.com?

The Odin Assemble engine will automatically add a small text based link at the end of each assembled page, while we do appreciate each and every link we receive, no additional links are required.