[thelist] Custom CMS

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Wed Mar 27 23:04:01 CST 2002


> From: Ken Kogler <ken.kogler at curf.edu>
[...]
> The University I work for is currently rolling it's old website over
> to a new one that was done by an outside firm. The problem we're
> running into is that we need to come up with some way of managing the
> content.

gotcha so far...

> Here's the university's requirements:
>  - set permissions on a page-by-page basis

authoring/editing/publishing permissions?

>  - allow fac/staff to use a client-side html editor (like FP or DW) -
>  all pages must fit into pre-developed template

would any WYSIWYG 'editor' do?

> This is going to be a nightmare to implement, and I want to find a
> better way. The university is basically saying "we want the fac/staff
> to be able to use FrontPage, but they can't be able to change the
> template" - short of writing some kind of upload script to parse out
> all the unnecessary code, I can't really come up with a way to do
> this. (The university is against that upload script idea, too... They
> just want people to map the live webspace to a drive letter and edit
> live).

it is possible to present them with a tool that does the WYSIWYG portion of
this *without* having to install/support FP or DW (or anything else, really)...

> The other issue we run into is that we have the same content in
> different spots. The undergraduate admissions application, for
> example. It's the same for Incoming Freshmen and Transfer Students.
> But the pages they reside on are different, since the university is
> really big on this breadcrumb trail idea they've got... And they want
> the breadcrumbs to accurately reflect where the user is ("Incoming
> Students > Transfer > App" as opposed to "Incoming Students > Freshmen
> > App"). So the logical solution to that mess is to simply put the
> content in a database (they're running SQL Server 7 here) and have the
> 2 separate physical pages pull out the same content, which ties in to
> my next point nicely...

so, one page can exist in multiple places, and you want the breadcrumb to
reflect this... not as difficult as is sounds depending on how you implement...

> If the content goes into a db, then I can simply build a web-based
> html editor (we're all using IE here, so I can force browser
> compatibility) to handle the basic requirements. All the fac/staff
> really needs to do is <p>, <a href>, <img>, and <ul>... Setting up a
> system like the article submission thingy on evolt should be more that
> sufficient.

evolt has no WYSIWYG... but you could create a Word-style editor that sits
on top of that and even allows advanced users to code instead...

> So how do I convince The Powers That Be that an online web-based
> editor is 1,000 times better than letting users use FP? I need ammo,
> people.

show them?  besides, why pay for, install, maintain, and upgrade FP when
you can get an online editor rolled into a larger package that handles *all* the
other goals you've cited, and offers a lot more that they're guaranteed to dig?

> Anyone out there ever had to custom build their own CMS before?

yes, and we sell it as a product... i don't want to pimp it here since i think
that's bad web karma, but i think you'd a) be impressed with the features and
price point, and b) even if you didn't want it, a demo of it would sell your boss-
men on the idea of an online web-based editor and the like...

email me offlist and i can do an online demo for you...




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