Content Management Systems

CMS’s have failed me. Big time.

There is not a single good option for making a data driven website that a client can actually understand and use without training. Expression Engine is the closest to ideal, and the forthcoming update does look awesome, but so much of it is meant for blog like material, not sites where just about everything needs to be edited. There are so many options: Wordpress, TextPattern, SilverStripe, TYPOlight, Aquifer, CMSbox, BigAce, elxis, etomite, easyPortal, Joomla, Drupal, Symphony.

Why can I not just create any type of data set I want?

In EE one could create different blogs (I usually rename them sections in the admin), but why do they force a title on it? Why is there no easy way to just have one piece of content that is not a set of data, one individual separate thing of content editable?

Why not just let me pick and choose what types of data fields I want and then create an admin UI for me to fill in the details?

Again, EE does a pretty good job of letting me choose different kinds of database type fields, but I am thinking more abstractly at this point. A page may consist of the pieces of text, two of those with headings, a photo gallery, some custom data driven list of recent events, etc. I want data sets to be able to have properties like an email address, url, photo, photo gallery, other data sets, audio, video, RSS, etc.

Essentially, I should build a data set that has type of content, not mysql fields. Users understand different types content, they don’t understand varchar(64).

Why not just make page items editable in place?

I have not seen this very much in the standard CMS packages. A lot of site users just want to update a single paragraph of text, replace one photo, change the hours they are open, reprice a menu item, etc.

They don’t want to click Manage > Data Sets > About > Big freaking text field with tons of crap. They want to just change a small bit of text quickly. Heck, I even hate this.

Why not let me rearrange the pieces of my page? Why do I have to copy and paste html in some large text area to accomplish this? Is this 1999?

A user should not have to look through a huge scrolling text area so they can move some heading to the right spot, or move the company story above the history of the CEO, or move a photo from the left column to the right.

Why am I ranting about CMS’s?

Because I plan to change the situation. This is not an empty rant, this is me getting my ideas out of my head and onto a page. I am not just going to say that the state of CMS’s sucks and then be done.

I will be writing more about this as the project evolves.

Note: I have enabled comments again for a while. So feel free to start a dialogue about this.

This is awesome.

r.match("/:page_slug").defer_to do |request, params|
  page = Page.first(:slug => params[:page_slug])
  params.merge(
    :controller => 'pages', 
    :action => 'show', 
    :id => page.id) unless page.nil?
end

Photos from NY

The wife and I are recovering from a cold. Normal updates will continue soon.

I had a great time in NY.

Photos are coming.

If you want merb and autotest to work well with Leopard when you are using the Apple supplied Ruby, you must do this:

ln -s /usr/bin/spec /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/spec

(via Gluttonous)

Why a 64bit Photoshop Doesn't Matter:

Because you don’t need it.

If you do (you really have 3 gigapixel images?) then I suppose you will want to use windows or wait for CS5.