Responsive Web Design is without a doubt one of the Web's biggest buzzwords for 2012. A website should look good no matter how it is being displayed, whether that site is being viewed on a desktop, cell phone, tablet, or whatever new device the Ghost of Steve Jobs brings us. Understand the workflow involved in getting your site ready for the mobile era.
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CMS Expo: Introducing the Wondercode CMS
One of the benefits of conferences such as last week's CMS Expo are the opportunities to come across content management systems you know nothing about. Such was the case for me when I was introduced to Wondercode, a content management and e-commerce solution developed by a Norwegian company. My introduction to Wondercode was in a showcase session with Sven-Erik Knoff as the presenter.
Hundreds of corporate and commercial websites run Wondercode, each with their own unique twist and functionality. This panel will go in depth in showing you just how flexible, customizable and powerful Wondercode is
Showcase sessions are good, but they don't always give you a chance to see the backend where users and administrators of a CMS are likely to spend some of their time. Luckily for the audience, the presenter also had time at the end of the session to give us a brief tour of Wondercode's user interface and required workflow.
Quoting IT: Innovation
"Innovation is an art, but it is an art where “managerial” interventions can accelerate or retard the rate of progress. Much of this concerns the sources from which ideas originate, the speed by which ideas move through an organization, the invitations to participate, the attitudes of the key decision-makers and the sources of inspiration that they draw from."
- Bill Fischer, The Virtues of Having Strange People Close By, Forbes.com, May 17, 2012
CMS Expo: Telerik Sitefinity CMS Flyover
I finally got my introduction to Telerik Sitefinity! I was not only the moderator for a panel at last week's CMS Expo, but I also had a chance to attend a few of the many sessions being offered during the conference. One of the first sessions I attended was a presentation focused entirely on Telerik's Sitefinity CMS with Pat Harlow as the presenter for this flyover session.
Telerik Sitefinity CMS is a modern online business platform which adapts to any business requirement and works equally well for online marketers, developers and IT managers. This session will cover different capabilities of the system – Mobile Web, Form builder, and built-in Ecommerce. Pat Harlow will also highlight the Module Builder and Sitefinity Thunder, which makes developers more productive than Santa’s elves. Join this session to see what’s coming up for the next Sitefinity releases!
For busy people, these sessions are productive and valuable by giving attendees a great overview of a vendor's CMS within a one hour time frame. Despite Telerik being a sponsor here at CMS Report, I never before sat down with their sales people to go over Sitefinity's features. Below are some of notes I took during the presentation as well as my "first" impressions of the Sitefinity CMS.
SilverStripe helps win a presidential election; this time in France
François Hollande won the presidential election in France last week, with the help of an impressive campaign and content management system SilverStripe.
Hollande’s website http://francoishollande.fr was the web-based focal point of the door to door campaign and functioned as the main communication tool throughout the whole election period. In the month before the election, the site had three million unique visitors and ranked 15th most visited information site in France.
dotCMS 2.0 Improves Java-based Web Content Management
dotCMS, an open source, Java-based web content management system, is pleased to announce the release of v2.0. This latest release continues dotCMS’s pursuit of providing one the most scalable, powerful and easy-to-use web content management platforms in the marketplace today. No spin or catchy titles, just good, meaningful tools and functionality for both commercial-grade and multi-tenant content driven web applications.
“dotCMS 2.0 is our response to the on-the-ground, real needs of both business users and developers,” announced Will Ezell, CTO of dotCMS. “We have exciting plans for the 2 series, which will continue to rapidly improve upon our already robust enterprise content platform”.
MODX Revolution 2.2.2 Released
Jay Gilmore tweeted me this morning to be sure that I made a note of the latest version of MODX Revolution that was released a couple days ago. MODX Revolution 2.2.2 includes a number of important fixes, some performance improvements, and two new wizards to make it easier to create User and Resource Groups in the CMS.
If you're using MODX Revolution and have not upgraded to 2.2, you will find that it has been one of biggest releases for the MODX folks to date. There were also notable improvements and enhancements included in Revolution 2.2.1.
Some of the highlights in the MODX Revolution 2.2.2 release:
- New wizards for creating User and Resource Groups
- xPDO change to improve performance, specifically with getResources
- Upgrades from command line no longer require all settings in the config file
- Added User duplication for the easy creation of Users and to preserve settings
- New prompt to login to regain access to work in progress after timeout
- Improvement to URL handling
- Further performance enhancements via xPDO method changes.
For further details, please read the release announcement found at MODX.com. MODX Revolution can be downloaded via the MODX download page.
Upcoming Drupal in the Clouds panel at CMS Expo
Although, I like to consider myself unbiased when I blog about content management systems, it is no secret that Drupal holds a special place in my heart. Drupal was one of the first CMSs I used that didn't "dead-end" me on a project I was required to support. Over the years, the Drupal community has treated me well, even during those times when I was very wrong in my judgment of Drupal. If Drupal was not a part of my world, I'm not sure I would even be blogging about content management systems. Drupal is the open source standard for which I judge other CMSs.
So, it should come to no surprise to anyone that when John Coonen inquired if I would moderate a Drupal in the Clouds panel at CMS Expo, I jumped at the opportunity. I am excited about the high caliber people that will be on this Drupal in the Cloud panel. The panelists include Joni Klippert from Standing Cloud, Kieran Lal from Acquia, and Jeff Walpole from Phase2 Technology. If you're trying to figure out what is involved in getting your Drupal site, services, and support to the Cloud, these are the people you want to have in the room answering your questions.
Even if you have no interest in Drupal for your CMS, I encourage you to attend this panel to learn more about content management in the Cloud as well as SaaS and PaaS. Like many of you, I've had my concerns and doubts in the past about the Cloud. Is all this talk about the cloud and SaaS a marketing gimmick? Is there any real benefit for my business to putting content into the cloud? During last year's CMS Expo I got my initial answers to these questions after talking to the folks at Acquia, Accrisoft, and Agility. The move toward the Cloud and software-as-a-service for content management is the real thing. It wasn't just the people from these companies that convinced me but their customers too.
If you are at CMS Expo this year, be sure to attend this 3:30 PM Drupal in the Cloud session on Wednesday, May 9, 2012. If you're worried that you may not know enough about Drupal or the Cloud to enjoy this session, please attend anyway. CMS Expo is geared for the newbie as well as the expert and I think this will be a great session for everyone to attend.
Advantages and Drawbacks of Using WordPress as Your CMS
WordPress as a content management system is often debated among CMS enthusiasts due to it being known so much more as a fantastic blogging platform. However, with the right plug-ins, WordPress can be setup also as a great CMS too. This list is dedicated to those that love to make such lists that weigh the pros and cons of a particular CMS.
There are some definite advantages as well as drawbacks in using WordPress as a CMS platform. This list is dedicated to those that love to make such lists that weigh the pros and cons of a particular CMS.
Agility CMS updated with May 2012 Release
Agility recently announced an update to their Agility CMS which they've labeled under the "May 2012 Release" header. The Agility May 2012 Release offers a complete revamp of their digital asset management system, a whole new system for generating image galleries and thumbnails, and the ability to store and retrieve file and image assets in Agility's new Azure-based content delivery network.
In discussing the redesigned digital asset management system, Agility's Joey Varty blogged about the new features in this release and he highlighted what impressed him most.
You now have sections for Media (which matches the old "Documents" section), a new Image Galleries tab, and a Recycle Bin.
One of my favorite things is the new "Show As Grid" option, giving you thumbnails of all files and images in a folder. Take a look at the new media selection dialog:
You'll notice that the selection dialog looks almost exactly like the Media page. That's on purpose, of course, and your most recent folder and viewing styles are remembered by the system.
There is a lot of passion behind the development of this release of Agility CMS due to the new features that should be welcomed by authors and site administrators. For example, Agility CMS now includes an image editor that gives authors and administrators the ability to crop, resize, flip, rotate, add text. It's the little things like the automatic generation of thumbnails, drag and drop uploads, and movement of items in content that while minor on the feature list are of subtle importance to a good content management experience. This new release of Agility CMS brings all these features to the user.
CMS Report is impressed with ImpressPages CMS 2.1
ImpressPages CMS has been updated to version 2.1 and I have to say I'm blown away with the new features included in this open source PHP-based CMS. Last year, I told you that we all needed to keep an eye on this relatively new content management system. Almost from the start, ImpressPages contained some pretty impressive features including the ability to have most of its content administered directly in the website so you can see what the site looks like as you edit. ImpressPages calls this feature in-place editing. A year later and we continue to see some really cool stuff ImpressPages is doing with their CMS.
Some of the more significant changes and additions in ImpressPages CMS 2.1 include:
- Contact form widget (with lots of new options and possibilities)
- F.A.Q. widget
- File browser in Rich text widget (lots of requests)
- Automatic theme installation (one click and you're done; read further)
- Users module (registration and login widgets included)
Probably the best new feature in this version of ImpressPages is the automatic theme installation. In most CMSs that I've used, when you change the theme of your site you're usually only changing the style sheet and the layout of your site and you usually need to do a lot more tweaking with the rest of the stuff especially images. For instance, if you decide to decrease the width of your body you may then have to manually shrink the size of your images in the new body size. Apparently, this annoying task is taken care of for you in ImpressPages CMS 2.1.
When you switch a theme for ImpressPages CMS every piece of content adapts to new styles automatically. Even images are automatically recropped from original files to fit new defined sizes. Click "Install" for new theme and it's done. A whole lot of magic happens then.
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