[Pro] Easy CMS

Can anyone recommend an easy to follow CMS, so that the client can change news information and some wording, not forms or the rest of the site? It is for a not-for-profit and they want to be able to maintain the site without making any design changes or changing any of the functions such as forms.


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Hello Elizabeth
There are a few different CMS you could use.
Some have freeway specific actions some don’t.
The ones that do have actions an in no specific order are:

miniCMS
WebYep
Joomla

CMS systems that may be suited to want you want to do but don’t have freeway actions but do have a small amount of Freeway users that are going to recommend them are:

perch
pulse

Some like Joomla may be just to overkill on what you are trying to do
others may be to restrictive.

As far as recommendations, then all I can say is take everyones recommendation as purely that “As a recommendation based on there experience” I have tried dozens and dozens of CMS and all of the ones above and they ALL have flaws.
So it’s all down to if the flaws each cms has is going to make an impact on:

  1. how you build your site
  2. how long it will take to build your site
  3. how much extra cost it will take to build your site
  4. Learning curve
  5. how easy is it for the client (from past experience an unlock, click and adjust is the best approach for most clients). rather than go into a back-end page that is completely different from the original page.

Personally from what you have written then I would say all the cms’s would fit your requirement the only exception I would say is joomla which is probably to much of an overkill product for what you need.

All the best Max


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Hello Elizabeth
There are a few different CMS you could use.
Some have freeway specific actions some don’t.
The ones that do have actions an in no specific order are:

miniCMS
WebYep
Joomla

CMS systems that may be suited to want you want to do but don’t have freeway actions but do have a small amount of Freeway users that are going to recommend them are:

perch
pulse

Some like Joomla may be just to overkill on what you are trying to do
others may be to restrictive.

As far as recommendations, then all I can say is take everyones recommendation as purely that “As a recommendation based on there experience” I have tried dozens and dozens of CMS and all of the ones above and they ALL have flaws.
So it’s all down to if the flaws each cms has is going to make an impact on:

  1. how you build your site
  2. how long it will take to build your site
  3. how much extra cost it will take to build your site
  4. Learning curve
  5. how easy is it for the client (from past experience an unlock, click and adjust is the best approach for most clients). rather than go into a back-end page that is completely different from the original page.

Personally from what you have written then I would say all the cms’s would fit your requirement the only exception I would say is joomla which is probably to much of an overkill product for what you need.

All the best Max


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WebYep

Works with Freeway perfectly for small requirements - free of charge if you keep it branded as WebYep and there are loads of threads on this forum in relation to installation and functionality.


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And Pulse http://pulsecms.com/ - $25

Set up Pulse on the server, create an editable block in the Admin section via the Web interface (easy)

Paste 1 line of code into an Insert>Markup Item on your FW .php page

Upload

Done

David


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Thanks for your replies, I will be investigating all the suggestions. It would be so much easier if I could just make the updates, but I understand that the client wants to do it. I’m just hoping that there not too complex to set up!


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I use Webyep. Well recommended & although its not too complex to “set up” its pretty straight forward.

Perhaphs Max could post a short bulleted concise list of steps needed to have it up & running. Finding your way if often half the problem. But when someone shows you the route, it makes life so much simpler!

regards :wink:

Worm


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Hi
As requested this is the basic steps to get webyep CMS working on a server and a page constructed within freeway so it can be edited by a client.

Downloding the WebYep system and setting it up ready for your server

  1. download the latest webyep system from OBD
  2. inside the webyep-system folder is a config file which you can open up in a text editor and change the username and password to what ever you wish (in the next release of the freeway action you will be able to do this from within Freeway)
  3. upload the webyep-system folder (using a FTP program like fetch or transmit) to your server which should be running PHP (version 5 ideally)
  4. Using your FTP program set the data folder contained in the webyep-system folder to 777 so you can read and write to that folder

Construct the Page in Freeway

  1. create your freeway page and ad the ‘webyep page init code’ to the page using either the webyep action or by hand
  2. design your page then insert a webyep unlock item and one or as many webyep item you wish to see, using either the webyep actions or if you prefer by hand.
  3. change the file page extension from html to php within the inspector palette
  4. upload to the server and unlock the page and start to edit the page via a normal browser… yipppppeeee!!!

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Very Very Very helpful Max!!! Hope this helps others too & yourself Elizabeth!

Great stuff Max

Worm


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Thanks so much for your detailed explanation Max! I had a good look at WebYep and it looks pretty good. I will save your instructions as I won’t be doing this until later in the June (to suit the client - everything is done by committee decisions), but in the meantime I think I will try this out on one of my own sites on the weekend.


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Hi Max,

Thank you for your input on this post, most helpful. I purchased a copy of your action, very nice, love the documentation. Look forward to your next release.

After playing with WebYep I have one need that may be possible via a hack but need the advice of someone more experienced than myself.

I see that it is quite simple to upload files via the CMS and after reading the documentation on the web yep site it appears some work has gone into forcing those files to download. Would it be possible to disable this feature so we could upload MP3 files and when a visiter to the website clicks the file link the browsers would play back the MP3 on the site using its native method? Would still like to have the force download option for the file as well.

Would value your input.

Regards, Dave


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Hi Dave… there may be a few ways to do this any chance you can give me an idea on how the mp3 links are going to be presented e.g. is it in some sort of table or individual act… its just so I get an idea on how you plan to use the function

speak soon max


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Hi Max,

The idea would be one link per post or in terms of the WebYep Demo, one per event, i.e. the events page has several events each with their own file.

For something like this we would probably use a table for simplicity with a cell dedicated for download and another for the link that will cause the browser to play the audio.

Hope this helps,
Dave


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Hi MAx,

Did my response make any sense or do you need something further?

Regards, Dave


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Hi David
sorry for the rely but I have been up to my eyes

Anyway from what you have described I would have thought the rich text editor is the best route for you…
if you were to install the extra tinymce imagemanager plugin, I am pretty sure that it can be extended to upload other types of media files like mp3 files.
In a moment I am going to test it out but from what I recall I think this will do it
I will post back confirming either way the minute I have tested it
speak soon max


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Hi Max,

Thank you for the response. Did not consider the tinymce rout as I did not want to have all the rich text editing available. In a perfect would WebYep would provide a way to upload media files and allow for dedicated player i.e. the link below.

Totally OK if the link would simply not download and the browser would just play back the mp3 using whatever plugin it uses to play audio files. Not as elegant but functional

http://kolber.github.com/audiojs/

Regards, Dave


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Hi Dave,

already knowing that you anyway go different routes, I nonetheless double Max’s thoughts in using RichText and FileManager to handle the “media” stuff - cause this is in fact perfect.

If you want to keep the user out of styling and therefore not using any richtext on your pages, you could stripe down TinyMCE to a min setting (such as images and media and not more). So users don’t have to mind about all the rest.

If you use RichText, give a user a couple of predefined styles as his only choice to tackle text.

I did a quick test with that audio.js and it had been a just work. I implemented it within Browser and WebYep surrounding so there is even no need of using Freeway at all.

The RichText is by the way a common tool that nearly 99% of all CMS’s use to use. Users may break a “layout” but only then if they have the chance to do. Don’t restrict them - guide them.

The DenimWashed project I started a couple of months ago has currently the only purpose to “try to reach WYep’s end of line” and there is a natural end, for sure - but it is far-off from what a lot of people think.

http://www.test.q-ring.de/follower/pages.php?DOC_INST=9

Cheers

Thomas


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Hi Thomas,

Yes you are right about me and sometimes I can end up driving the bus right of the road. My goal is the best end result and uncovering a better way if it exists. My personal knowledge of markup and script is limited and while I continually push myself to know more in this area it is mainly so I can better collaborate with those who are truly gifted with this craft. Most of my questions aim towards an end result to provide the end user with increased features while making things super simple for them to use. Freeway and people like you on this forum have unlocked my ability to push closer towards that end goal . . . Thank you all.

Having said all that, I have a couple questions regarding your very intriguing WebYep example.

  1. Is the AudioJS player added in a simple and intuitive way for the user or do they have to upload, past a url path into a file location field and so on?

  2. Are you using the Audio JS player through tinymce?

  3. I have considered stripping down tinymce before, nice suggestion. How would one go about doing that?

  4. Can the player be a part of a page where multiples of it can be added, i.e. like the demo events page. The end result here is for a local church that is in no way web savvy to be able to post mp3 audio to a sermons page each week.

  5. First thank you for the link to your example. I see a lot of work has gone into it and it is beautiful. Would by any chance have an english version

Regards, Dave


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Sorry. . . just realized item 1 may of not been clear. Can you provide some guidance as to how the Audio JS player is installed and second what is the process of uploading the mp3 like for the end user?

Thank you for all your help thus far.

Regards, Dave


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Having said all that, I have a couple questions regarding your very intriguing WebYep example.

  1. Is the AudioJS player added in a simple and intuitive way for the user or do they have to upload, past a url path into a file location field and so on?

  2. Are you using the Audio JS player through tinymce?

Adding this script to a page is at least simple:

Add the following to the before end head tag of your FW page:

Adjust the path to the script. This example shows the “audiojs” folder placed in a general folder “js”.

In my example, I inserted this via WebYep:

Now the sad part of the story:

While I added the first mp3 simply by uploading via TinyMCE’s (by accident???) it failed in all following tries I did. It finally broke with an error 500.

So I definitely have to review my so optimistic opinion from above. I can’t see at the moment a good and recommendable way on doing this.

You’ll need anyway a FileManager for TinyMCE which can be a mess cause clients host need some specific allowance to run them (CHMOD 755, 757 or even 777).

  1. I have considered stripping down tinymce before, nice suggestion. How would one go about doing that?

The keyword here is the tinymce_init.php which controls the appearance of TinyMCE. Just remove from the buttons area the “unwanted” so the screenshot above is a result of button settings:

  1. Can the player be a part of a page where multiples of it can be added, i.e. like the demo events page. The end result here is for a local church that is in no way web savvy to be able to post mp3 audio to a sermons page each week.

After I just downloaded the mp3s I was able to add a couple of more of them on one single page - so yes. So if your customer is able to use an ftp-client, everything then is very easy.

  1. First thank you for the link to your example. I see a lot of work has gone into it and it is beautiful. Would by any chance have an english version

Basically I planned to wrap all infos in a huge series of screencasts (paid and free ones) covering the “boxmodel”, using Google WebFonts, Styles (class, ID, TAG), Turning this into a proper set WebYep page, Configuring WebYep, The opt folder …

This is a huge challenge (time and language) so I can’t promise when or if.

Cheers

Thomas


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