The engine room of every Melis site
Invisible to end-users, Melis Engine owns all the website data — pages, sites, templates, languages, SEO — and the services, cache and plugin framework the whole platform runs on.
// Read a page through the engine — never the tables directly: $page = $sm->get('MelisEnginePage'); $published = $page->getDatasPage($idPage); // live $draft = $page->getDatasPage($idPage, 'saved'); // working draft // The tree: children, breadcrumb, canonical links — all cached: $tree = $sm->get('MelisEngineTree'); $url = $tree->getPageLink($idPage, true); // absolute URL
Package
Role
UI
Owns tables
Cache
License
Overview
The data foundation
Think of a Melis site as three layers: Melis CMS is the steering wheel (the back-office), Melis Front is the bodywork and wheels (what visitors see), and Melis Engine is the engine and fuel tank — it holds all the data and the machinery both rely on. You never click ‘Engine’, but it works under every page.
It keeps the published and saved (draft) versions of each page separate, models pages per language and per site, and caches rendered pages so they load fast — publishing clears the relevant cache so edits go live.
Key features
Everything the platform runs on
The data model, the services, the cache and the plugin base — the machinery every other module relies on.
Owns the CMS data model
Pages (published & saved), the page tree, sites, domains, templates, styles, SEO and languages.
Gateways & services
Every module reads and writes the model through cached services — never raw SQL.
Draft vs published
Keeps the live and working versions separate so editors never affect visitors by accident.
Multilingual & multi-site
Models pages per language and per site: one install can run many sites in many languages.
Page cache
Pre-rendered pages kept ready; publishing clears the relevant cache so edits go live.
Plugin base class
Defines MelisTemplatingPlugin — the base every content block (News, Slider, Categories…) extends.
See it in action
One API for the whole page model
The same data the back-office edits and the front renders — read through cached engine services.
// One API for the whole page model — used by BO and front alike: $tree = $sm->get('MelisEngineTree'); $kids = $tree->getPageChildren($idPage, 1); // 1 = published only $crumb = $tree->getPageBreadcrumb($idPage); // Template / site / SEO services, all cached: $tpl = $sm->get('MelisEngineTemplateService')->getTemplate($tplId); $site = $sm->get('MelisEngineSiteService')->getSiteById($siteId);
One API for the whole page model
Read pages, the tree, links and breadcrumbs through cached engine services — the same data the back-office edits and the front renders.
- getDatasPage — published or saved
- Tree, links & breadcrumb services
- All cached, all consistent
For developers
How it's wired
Single source of truth
Neither Melis CMS nor Melis Front owns tables — Engine is authoritative for the page & site model.
Cached everything
laminas-cache (filesystem + memory); a publish invalidates the page cache.
The plugin framework
MelisTemplatingPlugin: front() renders on the live site, back() renders the back-office edit container.
// Every content block extends the engine's base plugin: class MyBlockPlugin extends MelisTemplatingPlugin { public function front() { /* render on the live site */ } public function back() { /* render the BO edit container */ } }
Part of Melis Platform
Explore the rest of the platform
Melis Engine is the foundation — here are the modules built on top of it.
The engine behind every page
See how the platform’s data foundation fits together.
