CMS Launch

Have you ever found yourself trying to teach a client a little HTML so they can add and edit pages for the website you just created?

I’m guilty… or I used to be - before creating a better content management system.

It’s one of the things that really bothered me about other CMS apps:

• Clients shouldn’t have to learn html if they hire me and pay me big bucks…
• Clients don’t want to learn HTML and most can’t even if they tried - or they don’t have the time…
• Creating a link from one page to another should be friggin’ easy - but it’s not.

Obviously I wouldn’t be griping if I didn’t have a solution.

So here it is:

Quick 5 minute video

This is a 5 and a half minute video that shows you more of the admin, gives you an idea of where I am with the project (answer: damn close to asking for beta testers) and shows you what I’ve completed recently.

CMS Admin Tweak Video

In short, the feedback I received from my software clients (Ultimate Form Mail) indicated that it was very important to have the ability to restrict users to certain portions of the website.

For example, give Bob access to ‘Articles’, ‘News’, and ‘FAQs’. Give Jane access to ‘FAQs’ and the ‘Main’ category.

I already had a system in place for multiple users and multiple roles with different site-wide responsibilities, but this “tweak” increases the power and flexibility of the system without adding very much complexity for you, the Super Admin.

I’ve been promising this for a while… but I have a good excuse.

My dog ate my homework

No… that’s a flashback to a nightmare I had last night about college.

Posting Video Online Is A Pain

I could write a short course on what works and what doesn’t… and the growing pains of the video-sharing websites.

I spent way too much time researching different services that would allow me to post video online without burning a bunch of bandwidth. Some specifically prohibit commercial exploits. Others do not allow me to choose to keep my videos private.

One service I’ve been toying around with is VideoEgg. Problem with them is a very small display area for the video and spotty video quality.

Then there’s this strange little quirk with YouTube.

YouTube wouldn’t allow me to create an account for weeks. Then suddenly it dawned on me… “Could it be the fact that I’m born on leap year?” No. That would be… idiotic.

Sure enough… As soon as I put in a fake birthday, no problem.

So now I’m waiting for my account confirmation email to arrive and I’m thinking “Screw it… I need to get this video online.”

So Here It Is… Video Of the Easy Templating

With some of the background drama out of the way, I threw an AVI up on a server. The size of the screen isn’t huge, and in some areas I wish I had zoomed in, but this isn’t a George Lucas production… I’m trying to show you some of the behind the scenes workings of the admin.

Update — 10:58 AM June 8, I’ve reformatted the video into Flash, made it larger, and corrected the link.

Video of the easy templating

Please feel free to post your comments about what you see, or questions you have.