I’m putting together a quick MacUser feature on the growth of the CMS
as a mainstream way to build and manage web sites. I’d really
(really) appreciate it if people could sing out a suggestion or two
about their favourite CMS - ideally with a snippet of info about it,
why you like it, who it seems aimed at, and possibly where it falls
down.
Max, I’ll be mentioning WebYep and your actions, of course. But feel
free to chip in with info!
Joe, care to refresh my memory about your EE solution?
I would say that every new client we get wants to edit their web site in part or all. Its now a fact of life for a web designer.
We’ve been using WebYep, The clients love the simplicity (and us). And it just keeps getting better. Even in areas where we thought it would not work, like editing html code not in WebYep content area. Yes it will do it. By building an admin page, with shortText items to define parts of your site. You can use this code <?php webyep_shortText("Store_ID", true); ?> and knowledge of php to populate all kinds of code around a site. The client can then edit keywords, page titles, email addresses in payment buttons or web forms, or even have the client pick a style sheet to use, Yes its possible.
The biggest drawback with any CMS. The client. The sites where all text on the pages have been handed over usually suffer in the search engines. With use of poor search considered text. And on a visual side, poor layout. And even poorer copy writing. In the worst cases no copy writing at all!
On 21 Apr 2008, at 00:06, Keith Martin wrote:
I’d really
(really) appreciate it if people could sing out a suggestion or two
about their favourite CMS - ideally with a snippet of info about it,
why you like it, who it seems aimed at, and possibly where it falls
down.
David Owen
Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains ::
(Test Drive a web hosting account for Free)
Sometime around 21/4/08 (at 08:56 -0400) Joe Muscara said:
Yes. Um, it’s early here. What would you like to know?
Just a basic bit of info, something that’s potentially useful for
someone writing a general article about the growth of CMS tools,
their use and relative importance, and some examples, tips and
concepts people should know about. This isn’t really a how-to
article, but it is moderately practical in the sense of being a
concept-establishing document.
And hey, why not mention and perhaps show screengrab examples of
something like your EE actions in use, and/or Max’s WebYep actions in
use. (Hint hint Max…)
Imagine that I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve heard about these
actions. It probably won’t be far from the truth! And anyway, it’ll
be a useful thing to have posted into the Freewaytalk archive.
CMS is certainly becoming the buzz word at the moment for web development, and it is time for someone to clarify exactly what CMS does, and does not mean. I would say fundamentally you should point out the blurry lines between a blog and a CMS site. If this is to be from the “designers” perspective then I would point out the difference between the heavy code type CMS (Joomla or Drupal) and something more approachable (WebYep or TinyMCE maybe). I would also mention the free and paid variety of CMS packages.
There are lots of CMS choices available to the code friendly, but far fewer choices for those who cannot cope with code.
Very good points, and very useful. Anyone else fancy commenting while
I’m still working on this article? I really do need to finish it
tonight.
k
Sometime around 21/4/08 (at 17:32 -0400) chuckamuck said:
CMS is certainly becoming the buzz word at the moment for web
development, and it is time for someone to clarify exactly what CMS
does, and does not mean. I would say fundamentally you should point
out the blurry lines between a blog and a CMS site. If this is to be
from the “designers” perspective then I would point out the
difference between the heavy code type CMS (Joomla or Drupal) and
something more approachable (WebYep or TinyMCE maybe). I would also
mention the free and paid variety of CMS packages.
There are lots of CMS choices available to the code friendly, but
far fewer choices for those who cannot cope with code.
Some of the problems with a lot of the CMS solutions are that designer’s, who are starting out in web-design, either do not know what CMS stands for or do not really understand what its purpose is.
Some designer’s that do understand feel its beyond there capability because it is generally described as: ‘CMS is used for database driven site’.
That was WebYep’s biggest appeal for me. The fact that you did not need any knowledge of databases construction, made it an absolute perfect CMS system for Freeway.
The idea that you can publish, upload and then populate a site from within Freeway and a browser environment and then allow a client to change, add, or even create pages made this is a perfect starting point for any budding designer, or experienced Freeway user who just needs something without any fuss.
What’s really got me thinking recently, was seeing what else could be done with WebYep and with a little bit of CSS knowledge and freeway actions you can start to build on its capabilities.
When I first started out writing the actions I did see this system as a great basic solution but working with OBD (the developers of WebYep) and a few other enterprising individuals the boundaries of what can be done and what WebYep could be used for are being expanded constantly.
max
Keith I will send over some images manual that sort of thing so you can take what you want from that if that’s ok
Sometime around 22/4/08 (at 02:07 -0400) max said:
oops sorry I didnt realise it was for tonight… well last night…
Thanks Max, thanks Joe, don’t apologise - it was a bit of a crazy
deadline from the start! But sometimes the thing just needs to get
done despite not having enough time. Hey-ho.
I’ll be wrapping up the words over the next hour, but do send over
whatever seems worth pointing out when you get a chance. And thanks
for the comments so far.
And thanks in advance for any images - I can get those over later
today, so feel free to make a grab or two to help illustrate EE or
WebYep!
Thanks Roger - good suggestion. The article is done and dusted, and
it’ll be in the next issue of MacUser, out on a couple of weeks. But
it is good to have this one added to the thread here.
Thanks Roger - good suggestion. The article is done and dusted, and
it’ll be in the next issue of MacUser, out on a couple of weeks. But
it is good to have this one added to the thread here.
I have just seen the article about CMS in this months MacUser and
congrats, very nicely written…
Thanks Max, it is good to have feedback from someone who would know
if it was otherwise. I enjoyed writing it.
And thanks to you and Joe for the help, too.
Sorry I didn’t realize that and was going to wrote something up tomorrow AM my time.