How SiteCenter Works

1. Firstly, the end-user will login to the SiteCenter interface, where he/she can build, edit and publish their web site.
   
   
2. After the end-user has logged in, their details are authenticated against the SiteCenter MySQL database. Next, their user profile is loaded and a background connection to their web host is made using PHP's FTP library. This connection can be established across the Internet as a remote connection. It can also be established as a local connection, i.e. the website is hosted on the same web host as SiteCenter.
   
   
3. Once this connection is established, a list of files and folders are retrieved from the end-users starting directory (specified when the user account is created). These files and folders are then displayed in the SiteCenter file manager or as required.
   
   
4. When a user clicks on a specific file to edit, SiteCenter invokes PHP's FTP library and uses the ftp_fget command to retrieve and temporarily store the contents of the selected file on the local machine. In this explanation, the local machine refers to the web host where SiteCenter is installed.
   
   
5. From here, the temporary file is loaded into the SiteCenter WYSIWYG HTML editor, where the user is free to modify it. They can format text, insert images, tables, forms, etc. When they are done and click save, SiteCenter yet again invokes PHP's FTP library and uses the ftp_put command to transfer the contents of the file back to the users web host, replacing the previous instanse and creating a backup for rollback purposes.
   
   
6. For the web site builder and file operations such as copy, rename, delete, etc, SiteCenter invokes custom function handlers that perform these tasks via FTP. When an image is uploaded using the SiteCenter image manager, it is temporarily stored on the local machine and then sent to the users web host.
   
   
7. When the user has completed their session, they simply click on the "Logout" button at the top of the SiteCenter interface. Any connection to their web host via PHP's FTP library is dropped, and all database objects are destroyed. Web page updates are reflected in real-time, and no temporary data (such as HTML pages) is stored on the users web host.

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