Topic: Very nice CMS

Hi there!

First, I'd like to say that this cms looks very promising, it has a lot of good points:
-- one file framework
-- lightweight core and features as plugins
-- clear MVC structure
-- jquery as the javascript framework
Hope you the best with this fork!

Before I install it to test, I have a few questions:
-- does it support nice urls like:
    http://www.domain.tld/contact/
    http://www.domain.tld/products/screens/
    http://www.domain.tld/products/netbooks/
... and so on?
-- is it possible to add/remove/update what other CMSes call 'content elements' (Typo3, Typolight) or 'blocks' (Concrete5) on a page?
-- could we easily rename the admin folder? I prefer to have different admin url for each website I create.

Those three points are, in my opinion, necessary for modern CMSes.
Thank you for your replies, it will help me to have a better look at your project and to quickly see what I will be able to do with it when I'll begin to test it.

Regards,   Marisa

Last edited by marisa (2009-08-11 17:01)

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Re: Very nice CMS

Hi,
let me try to answer your questions:
1. It supports clean URLs (you just have to enable it in ".htaccess" file and config.php)
2. Don't know how blocks are working. Here you can do it with "page parts" (I don't know if that is same)
3. Yes, also in config.php (of course, you have to rename your admin folder first)

Wolf CMS Paper Guy
Wolf CMS related blog / journal at Project 79 | Wolf CMS Docs

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Re: Very nice CMS

marisa wrote:

-- is it possible to add/remove/update what other CMSes call 'content elements' (Typo3, Typolight) or 'blocks' (Concrete5) on a page?

Hi marisa - jackie already gave you the good news. ;) The only thing to add (I think!) is that the "content elements" or "blocks" are more like "snippets" in Wolf - small (or even large!) bits of code/content which can be called on any page, but edited in one single place. There are a couple snippets already created and in use when you install Wolf, so that gives you an idea of how they work. There's a bit more information in the wiki.

Hope that helps!

Re: Very nice CMS

Thanks guys for your answers, I'll have a look to this software and let you know for further questions.

@David: after reading the wiki page for snippets, this seems to be an easy way to insert content on a page but I can't ask to my clients to write such a thing, it will scare them. Is there a way to hide the php code and let them just insert the name of the snippet they choose?

@Dev team: do you know when the switch to jquery will be effective?

Marisa

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Re: Very nice CMS

marisa wrote:

@David: after reading the wiki page for snippets, this seems to be an easy way to insert content on a page but I can't ask to my clients to write such a thing, it will scare them. Is there a way to hide the php code and let them just insert the name of the snippet they choose?

It would help to do more clearly what you want to do. If there is an existing snippet which, let's say, you have written, they can put it anywhere they like using this call:

<?php $this->includeSnippet('the_name_of_the_snippet') ?>

as shown in the wiki page. Hopefully that would not be too frightening! Can you give us a specific example of what you are thinking of?

Re: Very nice CMS

marisa wrote:

@Dev team: do you know when the switch to jquery will be effective?

Hi Marisa, its currently scheduled for 0.6.0. If you want, you can track the issue in google to keep up-to-date with its current status.

Also see the Wolf CMS website homepage, specifically the header "Keeping track of issues or commits".

Last edited by mvdkleijn (2009-08-13 15:30)

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Re: Very nice CMS

Thanks both of you for your kind answers.

I had time to test WolfCMS and come back with clearer questions:
In my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) page parts are like sections on a page, like columns on a newspaper page. 'Content elements' or 'Blocks' are chunks stack one below the other on the main part of the page (and even in sections), they can be 'texts', 'single image', 'images gallery', 'form'... and plugins developpers can create new ones, share them with the community or develop them for a very specfic need. Those chunks can be added to a page by the end user and customized with a set of options. They also can be updated, removed or just disabled.

For instance, how would you let the end user add an image gallery to a page, let him or her select the images she/he wants to add to the gallery? (a image gallery like on this page: http://fancybox.net/example for example, since we'll have jQuery).

The incorpoated rich text editor is a good tool and I can easily explain to the end user how to use it, but I don't know if they can add something else than textual elements with it. Even with single images I don't understand how I can add one since the file manager is not prompted to me when I click the image icon in the toolbar.

I need maybe more testing.

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Re: Very nice CMS

That's also one thing I was thinking about ... martin wrote something for his tinymce plugin that lists all the images in the public folder (at least I think so, didn't have a closer look on that). It also has a built-in tool for inner-page-linking, which is very helpful .. I copied that for the WYSIWYM-Plugin by The M ...
But these are two issues that have to be adressed really: Image picking and in-site page picking ... I don't really have constructive ideas about that, because it will always depend on the editor you use. But these things are very important for a proper CMS which you really can work with. That's at least what I think ... and I would be glad to hear a second opinion on that!

Kind regards,
Alex

// The other thing whith the custom page parts is also one important thing ... there is a plugin by The M called "Custom Page Parts" that offers differnt types for page parts (not many, but some similar), but that's really a functionality for a core plugin, I think.

Last edited by a.renz (2009-08-13 21:49)

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Re: Very nice CMS

Alex raises some important issues! I thought this was worth its own thread in the plugins forum, since we are getting a bit of topic slippage. ;)

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Re: Very nice CMS

I think the CMS is a concept that is somewhat idyllic and doesn't really exist

'A system where anyone can add and manage content' just isn't going to happen...

To make any CMS look half decent and articles well composed and laid out requires a monster of a system and something you are unlikely to see as opensource.

To make the most of any framework you need a thorough knowledge of html and css to make it look half decent throughout the whole website.

However, if you sit down and think for a moment, it's unlikely that sections other than the news/blog pages are going to receive regular attention. you can create these with that in mind and ultimately they will need to be locked down to some extent to stop breakage of page structure (missing </div> for example because someone selected it by accident).

As for the adding images and galleries... you can install some clever gizmo that allows them to draw images from flickr into a formatted gallery. I have had a problem with the simplest of core modules (files ) and have had to resort to BDuploadR to get images onto the server... but it's only really suitable for use with textile editor as it doesn't create the image tag when you drag the item to the page. It would be great to see the Assets plugin brought into the default install at some point.

Last edited by Tony (2009-09-18 12:35)

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