I am looking for a simple-to-use CMS for Freeway as a client of mine is totally non-technical and doesn’t want to pay me to do his updates each week. He wants to change photos and text on one page of his site only.
In the past, I have tinkered with Inlay, and although Walter was incredibly helpful, I did find it a bit fiddly and I know my client would not get on with it. (That was over a year ago, and things may have changed.)
I noticed that Pulse has a new Freeway action, and looking at the videos, it looks like it has quite a nice interface and more like what my client could handle.
Can you guys offer me any advice on this?
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Hi Iain,
I’ve not used Inlay but knowing it comes from the more than capable Walter tells me that it will not only cover the basic CMS features but the Freeway integration aspects too.
I tend to use Pulse for most of my simple CMS sites and find it both capable as well extendable should I need to add a feature it doesn’t offer. Pulse’s code is at a perfect level for me as I can still follow what it is doing (should I need to) without breaking out the PHP books.
The biggest question is just how comfortable is your client in using a CMS? Pulse comes in two versions; Classic (version 3 - https://www.pulsecms.com/pulse-classic) and the newer version 4. The difference is that version 4 can now create new pages in your site (based on your master/layout page) although it is requires a little more thought to set up. I’d recommend Pulse Classic as it can be easily set up to add in editable sections of your Freeway generated web site. Unfortunately you won’t be able to use the new Action for Pulse Classic but adding the editable areas is easy enough to do using a simple text editor; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBpUR5Fzhbg
Essentially your workflow would be;
Design and build your site in Freeway as normal
Change the page extensions to .php
Install Pulse Classic on your server (this is just a case of FTPing the files into the site)
Locate the areas on the page that you want the client to be able to edit
Log into Pulse and create a ‘block’ (an editable area) and paste in your code from step 5
Copy the ‘embed code’ that Pulse will give you for the block
Back in Freeway paste the include code into Source Code Snooper so it replaces the markup Freeway created
Upload the site into your server
Now when you view the page online Pulse should locate the block and pull the content into the page as expected. Your client will now be able to log in and edit the block and therefore update the section of the web page(s).
Pulse 4 is a great little CMS but I really think Classic would suit you better for this sort of job.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Tim.
On 1 Mar 2016, at 10:57, Iain Mackenzie email@hidden wrote:
Tim this is very interesting, I havent offered and used a cms for a while for many reasons,…
Two questions though.
How are the steps to let the user use the stiles in the editor I have created in FW? (external webfonts for instance) Can he use them? Can I provide a small selection? How do I connect them? I remember that it was very tricky in earlier times with the Tinymce editor.
You say that Pulse 4 can now create new pages in a site (based on themaster/layout page) although it requires a little more thought to set up. Is the set up easier, when I not like to let the client create new pages with Pulse4?
Thanks a lot!
Hanna
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Typically setting up custom styles is all about configuring the rich-text editor and has nothing to do with the CMS, at least that’s been my experience. Maybe Pulse does things differently.
Todd
Office (Chicago): 312.212.3955
How are the steps to let the user use the stiles in the editor I have created in FW?
On 1 Mar 2016, at 18:04, sonjanna email@hidden wrote:
How are the steps to let the user use the stiles in the editor I have created in FW? (external webfonts for instance) Can he use them? Can I provide a small selection? How do I connect them? I remember that it was very tricky in earlier times with the Tinymce editor.
As Todd mentioned the styles are all held in the stylesheet(s) for the site so the client can change the text and do basic text styling (add links, bold, italic, headers, block quotes etc) and the styles are applied accordingly. The Redactor editor in Pulse has the ability to set colours and font sizes but I tend to tell clients to steer clear of these and just let the defined styles flow into the text they are editing.
You say that Pulse 4 can now create new pages in a site (based on themaster/layout page) although it requires a little more thought to set up. Is the set up easier, when I not like to let the client create new pages with Pulse4?
The key difference is if you have a static site and want to make certain sections editable then choose Pulse Classic and convert some of the page parts into ‘blocks’. If, however, you want to create x number of pages from a single master page (template) then Pulse 4 will be the one to choose. Version 4 is a more site focused CMS whereas Classic (3 and below) dealt with each page as a separate entity.
Regards,
Tim.
Actually I just re-read Todd’s email and he didn’t say what I thought he said. Apologies for the misrepresentation Todd.
I think you can add styles to Redactor (the editor in Pulse) but as I mentioned I tend to leave the styling to the Freeway style sheets.
Define a core set of styles for the site and let the user add them using the basic styling options (headers, backquote etc)
Thanks,
Tim.
On 1 Mar 2016, at 21:08, Tim Plumb email@hidden wrote:
It is possible to add custom styles to Redactor, as with most RTE of my experience. But I agree with Tim about doing so sparingly.
Todd
Office (Chicago): 312.212.3955
Actually I just re-read Todd’s email and he didn’t say what I thought he said. Apologies for the misrepresentation Todd.
I think you can add styles to Redactor (the editor in Pulse) but as I mentioned I tend to leave the styling to the Freeway style sheets.
Define a core set of styles for the site and let the user add them using the basic styling options (headers, backquote etc)
Thanks,
Tim.
On 1 Mar 2016, at 21:08, Tim Plumb email@hidden wrote:
I’m being very stupid here, but I can’t even get to base one with this!
I can’t even see the Pulse interface that I see in the tutorial videos when I go to my domain.com/admin. I can log in, but then I see some horrible text screen that just has ‘Home’, ‘Blocks’, ‘Blog’, Media’, etc. in basic text at the left hand side.
Can someone please give this idiot an idiot’s guide to getting started with this?
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The interface in Pulse 4 is a lot simpler than Classic but contains most of the same features.
Regards,
Tim.
On 1 Mar 2016, at 22:45, Iain Mackenzie email@hidden wrote:
I’m being very stupid here, but I can’t even get to base one with this!
I can’t even see the Pulse interface that I see in the tutorial videos when I go to my domain.com/adminhttp://domain.com/admin. I can log in, but then I see some horrible text screen that just has ‘Home’, ‘Blocks’, ‘Blog’, Media’, etc. in basic text at the left hand side.
Can someone please give this idiot an idiot’s guide to getting started with this?
Thank you both for the explanations.
My intention was to define the stiles in FW and then to let use the user these stiles only.
I am uncertain to give another cms a try.
Max was always a great help with web yep and I still appreciate his efforts very deeply indeed.
But with my limited understanding, these complex and fragile techniques, it just took me to much time and efforts to set up cms webpages
in the way I liked it for my clients (only limited editionable parts, mainly text for instance) - I would not earn money at all. This is years ago now.
I cannot say how it is now with web yep.
I suspect the responsive surrounding is another important point.
Thanks, Hanna
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I am sorry Iain, I did not like to start a discussion in your thread concerning the pros and cons of cms (or my shortcomings I hope Pulse is what you are seeking for your client…
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It looks like the permissions were set incorrectly on some of the files so running the perm.php file sorted these out.
Regards,
Tim.
PS. Change your log in password.
On 2 Mar 2016, at 12:46, Iain Mackenzie email@hidden wrote:
I’ve now tried with Pulse Classic and have got no further.
I hope Pulse is what you are seeking for your client…