Lots of questions...

[web_assist_mail157665]

Can power CMS...

1)
Change the main site menu order for content pages
ie Home, Solutions, Software, Company, Contact
to ie Home, Company, Solutions, Software, Contact

2)
Manage uploaded files (irite cannot delete files once uploaded??)

3)
Manage publication of pages ie turn on and off from public display

4)
Give pages - view/user levels related to their login

5)
Show all content areas related to a section ie software page may have 3 cols and a header - how does the CMS handle this?


Qs..
6)
How do you manage the order of content on a page?
ie a page has 20 (long) articles
the client want to rearrange them?
or do they all get placed in one content area (heavy!)?


7)
How does the user know the name of a content area?
Would it not be better to have a content area management page?
Then replace the text box with a dropdown.
This would allow the site admin to manage the content areas available

8)
can you insert template items without replacing the whole page?

9)
In the editor - how do you know what tags you have selected?


thanks for info

[Ray Borduin]

1) Since it really focuses on using iRite to control content, non-styled content that doesn't include html like link labels don't really fit that well. I imagine it would work, and it could be added to the framework in power cms, but currently it wouldn't lend itself to doing this well since it would allow such varied content when you only want a short label.

2) It is subject to the limitations of iRite including it's lack of ability to delete uploaded images. Images would have to be cleared through ftp if and when it was necessary, or an additional module could be created with digital file pro to delete.

3) No. This solution offers CMS without context. Which means that you can add it in context, but it doesn't have a concept of when and where it is displayed. This is more of the job for DataAssist to create a full fledged Data Management application.

4) The current version is a single level administration. It doesn't support user privilages and is designed for a single administrator or administrative group.

5) CMS would allow you to define content areas anywhere on the page, that then would be editable with the cms back end. In this case you would probably break it into 4 CMS entries and all three cols and header would be edited individually in the cms application.

6) You could break it out into as many content areas as you want, but quickly changing order would not be easy if it were broken into many areas, and it would be heavy if it were all manged in one.

7) The naming scheme is arbitrary and up to the developer. It can be whatever you want, but if you cannot come up with an intuative name as the developer, then some level of user training will be necessary.

8) Yes, as many as you want for as small or as large of an area as you want.

9) You have a source veiw in the editor just like DW if you have difficulty determining what you have selected you can look there.

[web_assist_mail157665]

2) It is subject to the limitations of iRite including it's lack of ability to delete uploaded images. Images would have to be cleared through ftp if and when it was necessary, or an additional module could be created with digital file pro to delete.

[/QUOTE]

So, to be fair, it's not a CMS System, as you can't manage the content of the website in the true sense of the words. Any app that can't DELETE content cannot be considered a full management solution. Having said that - I like the look of the product and you'd be onto a winner, but for the major hole in the product created by iRite and its lack of file manager.

[Ray Borduin]

You could easily implement something like:
http://kfm.verens.com/

which would plug right into powerCMS to add more image manipulation options.

It is a simple CMS system that does not have every feature including lots of file management options. It will grow to include more features over time since this is only the first version and has only been out for a few months.

[web_assist_mail157665]

Looking forward to the next version

suggest

Section editing
Order on page
User level control

File management

[Ray Borduin]

Please explain those features in detail and perhaps we will be able to meet your needs.

[web_assist_mail157665]

Please explain those features in detail and perhaps we will be able to meet your needs.

here goes...

I will use the word 'article' to refer to a database record containing HTML content

SECTION EDITING

A site usually is made up of sections - Home, About Us, Contact etc

You should be able to add, delete, reorder (apply unique sort order value), turn on and off (publish visibility), assign a user level (visibility) controlled by variable (session etc) and assign the section to be a master or sub section of another section.

How to - very generally....

Each section has its own ID
each section has a foreign key points to its parent section ID (if the value of this fk is 0 then it is a master (top level section)

For subsections - the parent FK will be that value of the parents database ID.
On selection of the parent menu value, the menu depth is calculated and added to the section information - useful for restricting the depth of menu creation

*Articles are assigned to a particular section by foreign key in the 'article' DB record (FK = Section ID value)

If Home ID=1
all items with a section ID of 1 appear on the Home page/section (filtered by recordset)


ORDER ON PAGE
Articles assigned to a particular section can be ordered (assuming more than one article can be assigned to a specific page content area)

Each Article is given a unique (incrementing) SORT value when it is created (much like an ID). - always incremented.
The article display order is sorted in the recordset.
re ordering is simply a case of swapping the sort value with the article you wish to swap order with.


For a new record its simply a case of finding the MAX value for the sort value (of all articles) and adding one.(no issues with getting last insert id)

your page contains articles with ID:SORT pairs
maybe a typical side column would contain articles as...

ID=1:SORTVALUE=1 Article about Golf
8:8 Article about Fishing
58:55 Article about Tennis
94:80 Article about Swimming

select and swap the sort values of ID 1 and 94 in the CMS and you reorder first and last articles in that column
do this as many times as you wish to create the desired list order
in this example you end up with ...
94:1 Article about Swimming
8:8 Article about Fishing
58:55 Article about Tennis
1:80 Article about Golf

The same sorting technique can be used for SECTIONS/NAV


POSITION ON A PAGE
Each article has its own page position identifier, indicating where it is on the page.

Page content recordset select the article(s) for each area based on this filter value


This value is up to the individual - but an example of 5 areas on a page....
1=primary content
2=secondary content
3=tertiary content
4=header content
5=footer content

assigning an article a position value of 2 means its on the secondary content
change that to 5 and its should automatically appear in the footer


USER LEVEL CONTROL
Each article is give a user level value
again the recordset displays articles by comparing this value with the current user level session value

(values are for example)
0 = Site visitor - default article level - if you don't login, you see this
10 = registered user free
100 = registered user paid
1000 = Admin

Users see articles based on their login user level (session) value

Either as SPECIFIC information to a specific user level: recordset filters/shows article if user level = article user level (less flexible but still an option)
OR
the user sees ALL articles at and below their user level: recordset filters/shows article if user level => article user level

The same can be applied to Sections/Nav

A nice option would be a messgage in the page that says
Log in for further information for (user level name) if you are not logged in
(PHP - do this by using an ELSE statement in the article display code)


To summarize
A SECTION knows its Parent level, sort order, publish visibility, user level visibility (+ who updated it and when. Section info could also contain Search Engine tag info - Page Title etc)
an ARTICLE knows its section, sort order, publish visibility, user level visibility, location in page (+ who updated it and when).


FILE MANAGEMENT
the whole gamut of file upload, download, renaming, resizing.

One constant problem is keeping images within a size range depending on where the image is placed in a page layout - would be interested in your suggestions

add this to your great interface and multiple revision system and you'll be onto a winner

well, hope that helps

[Ray Borduin]

I have logged these as feature requests for the next version. Thank you for your feedback.