[thelist] Custom CMS

Warden, Matt mwarden at mattwarden.com
Wed Mar 27 20:11:05 CST 2002


On Mar 27, Ken Kogler had something to say about [thelist] Custom CMS

>
>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).

hmmm... well, how about this:

script:

template code
template code
template code

read in content from file on content edit mapped drive

template code
template code
tamplate code

the only disadvantage (well, the *main* one) is that you don't have
control over what they slap into their content files. furthermore, if
they're using a WYSIWYG editor, you'er gonna have to regexp out just the
stuff between <body></body>

>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...

eh... ya, that would work. but, i think it would fit better with your
situation to read in the app content into different templates:

freshman app template -> reads in ../editable/application.htm
transfer app template -> reads in ../editable/application.htm

>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>...

i got the impression that the university didn't think a web-based editor
would be ideal. i'd double-check that.

>Setting up a system like the
>article submission thingy on evolt should be more that sufficient.

except we don't have an html editor interface

>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.

i'm not sure it is. have you talked to the faculty and staff to get an
idea of which would be better for them? if not, that would be a good
idea. you may or may not be barking up the wrong tree.

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

yup. i've avoided the html-ized content issue, though.

hth,

--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com




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