managing content without dictating design
At edgeofmyseat.com we've been building bespoke Content Management Systems (CMS) for over 6 years. We've found that many of these systems needed a set core of features but also wanted the flexibility to do certain things "their way", making an off the shelf system difficult to use.
In response to this we have developed our own CMS product. Our aim is to continue to provide the same level of customisability that we can with bespoke systems, but to cut the overall time and cost of development by using our core CMS libraries and administration system.
Features
Template flexibility
We believe that your Content Management System should not dictate your design. We can implement most design and navigation elements into your site - and you may have one template or many. You can provide us with your own templates in XHTML and CSS or we can build these for you from your Photoshop or other design files as an additional service.
Designer friendly
We can configure the system in a way that gives you control over the design and information architecture. For example most sites have a fairly fixed main navigation so we would normally customise that so that the top level of pages can't be removed or added to - just the content may be changed. We can specify which templates may be used when creating a subpage in part of the site and if there are areas that you don't want the client to be able to change or delete we can lock those down.
Multiple site functionality
We can create multiple sites - at the point of installation or in the future - all running from one administration system. This can be useful if:
- you have a separate domain to highlight a particular area of your business
- you wish to create micro-sites for a particular marketing campaign
Your additional sites may have different template styles and even different additional functionality.
Versioning
The publishing system allows you to create a new version of the page to work on in order that you can check everything is correct before publishing. You can save multiple versions - for example if you just want to change a page for a few days then roll back to the old version.
Custom publishing rights
We can configure the administration system to suit your business, for example:
- a site that has access to all areas by all administrators
- a site with publishers and content editors where content editors can make new versions and send them for review but only people in the publisher group can make them live
- a site where some users can only edit certain things - for example the HR department being able to update the vacancies only and not the rest of the content, or in the case of multiple sites, giving some users access to only one of the sites
Extensible
Our aim is not only to provide a cost effective and rapid way to create a content managed site, but also to make additional development of the special features specific to individual projects simpler. Therefore many additions will be able to be incorporated in a far shorter development time - and at a lower cost - than if we were starting from scratch.
No hosting tie-in
The CMS has a very basic list of requirements - PHP5, MySQL 4.1+ and the GD image library. Therefore you are not tied to our choice of hosting company and can have full control over your hosting account. We can of course recommend good, reliable hosting but the choice is always up to you.
Default install
A default install of the system will give you:
Administration section
We will customise your user groups and privileges and set up the site or sites required. The administration system can be customised with your logo or your clients logo. When creating pages you use different content types, some come as standard and additional ones may be created specific to your needs. The standard content types are:
- Text entry
- Image upload and resize to fit template
- File upload (for PDF downloads etc.)
- Address block - formatted with Microformats
- Event listing - formatted with Microformats
- News listing
These are the basic building blocks of page content and we will set up your templates so users may enter the right type of content into various areas - and images are resized correctly for the template used. News and event listings can be pulled out onto the homepage or other site pages if required - for example display last 3 news items or next event.
The website
The website uses the published content to create pages using your template designs, some of the features that are standard on content managed sites and will be included if required are:
- Search
- Navigation types - standard drilldown navigation, breadcrumbs
- Sitemap
- "Search Engine Friendly" URLs - for example /about/our-team rather than pageid=5&67
- Standards Compliant - the system outputs valid XHTML
- Support for Microformats
- Accessible - as standard the front-end and administration section are developed to be accessible to users. JavaScript is not required for site administration.
For the license cost we will install the system as above on your hosting, configure user security and privileges as required and implement up to three different templates in the system. Should you require templates created for you from your designs in XHTML and CSS, or any custom modules or content types we will quote for this work at our standard hourly rate.
Licensing
The system is offered under our standard terms and conditions. Once paid for you have the right to:
- Move the system to an alternate hosting provider
- Engage another developer to work on your site
- Use the system as any other bespoke development we might do for you
You do not have the right to:
- Make a copy of the application to create a different site
- Sell copies of the application or allow any developer working for you to do so
CSS Layout Development
Whether you have an existing site built using tables that you would like redesigned, or have a new concept mocked up as a Fireworks or Photoshop file, we can turn that into an HTML or XHTML document complete with a stylesheet that creates your CSS layout.