Summary

The CMS allows a user to post entries in a database that are then used to bind together a consistent page with editable menu items and as many pages as required. The CMS is maintained via HTML template files that are use editable and WYSIWIG editing provided for those that would prefer it.

Using a CMS allows a website to be produced to professional design and layout specifications, and yet be user editable and maintained.

It is important to plan and maintain a schedule of updates to your site so that readers who enjoy your content can come back for more.

Updating the CMS

Updating can be achieved in one of three ways:

Maintaining a blog page - we recommend you use blogger.com

Set your ftp server to yoursite.co.nz (using your domain name). Set your user name and password to your assigned user name and password.
Enter the target url = yoursite.co.nz/cms.php?page=mypage and setup a link on a page/menu item url: News about cellphones

by Adding a Page to the site, and making appropriate Menu entries to point at it.
By the placement of %%links%% in your Page (this is called a template) and creating a paragraph page called (in this case) "links" that is suitable for the novice user, or general production use.

PDF and DOC file posting

New Features

PDF Upload

Select a PDF file, give it a name, and upload it from your hard disk or network. Now you can refer to your PDF file in your PAGE using this tag format: ##name##
Template Pages and User Paragraphs requiring NO HTML to edit content

Users of the CMS may ask sfsw to professionally create template pages. These are provided for a fee. Or the User familiar with HTML may wish to produce their template pages. PAGES and PARAGRAPHS to be included in your template page are tagged %%like this%%. The words between the double percent signs equate to the name field for the PAGE or PARAGRAPH.

Warning: for programmer convenience, PAGES are recursive. In other words they can refer to themselves or loop back to themselves. Be careful to avoid circular references or your generated page will cause a browser to time out after a long delay. If in doubt, ask us.
PDF Listings by name autoformatted in document

PDFs you upload to the CMS can be referred to using ##this format## where the name inside the double hashes is the name given to the PDF. To create a list of all PDFs uploaded for a particular page, using this tag: ##all_pdfs## or ##all_pdfs_ul## - for a numbered list use ##all_pdfs_ol##
Images arranged in tables for galleries

PAGES can contain images using this format for ((image tags)) where the name inside the double parenthesis equates to the name given to the image. Images also should always contain ALT text (the text that is displayed if the image can not be rendered by the browser for any reason).

CMS Open Development Plan

New Version

sfswCMS Version 1.2 is now available to CMS users.

Synopsis

Incorporated in this release is the ability to incorporate one display page in the body of another. This is a powerful feature as it allows you to write sub pages, for example, "header" and "footer" pages, you can incorporate advertisements by changing just one word on your page you could, for example, publish a fresh advert on your page.

Version 1.25 will make this an easy to use operation by separating out the user files from the template files.

You can now create template pages to simplify user content management and reduce reliance or user exposure to HTML code. This system is suitable for implementing a safe User-Paragraph editor.

EMail clicks to order your CMS or to upgrade your CMS.

Development Planning

Version 1.3 is in the works, incorporates selectable images.

Version 1.4 combines selectable images with templates should provide a powerful but really easy to use gallery manager.
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Version 1.5 may provide access to database objects and multiple style sheets

Version 1.6 to incorporate calendars and schedules

Version 1.7 unplanned

Version 1.8 unplanned

Verison 1.9 unplanned

Version 2 ideas phase

Posting Images

In version 1 you have an image directory and you can store (using FTP or our handy file upload) the image you want to refer to in your document. On the display page, there is a pull down that searches available images that match the tag name of the menu item.

For example, "Contact_Us" is the tag name of the menu item "Contact Us".

"Contact Us" is the display page name but when its entered you replace the space with an underline, thus: Contact_Us. Contact_Us can be used by programs to tag the menu data or other data including an image.

So the "Contact Us" screen is able ot have an image.

In the next version, a screen may have more than one image.

You can also include an image as <HTML> codes, thus:

<img src='/images/contact_us/image.jpg'>

Access to CMS

Access to your CMS is via your personalised management directory. You will be informed what this directory is called. For the sake of example ours is called "manager".

The manager directory is password protected so only you can alter your site content.

So you need three things - a manager directory, your login and password.

The manager works inside your website frame with its own menu. The table you maintain, for each menu item, is called the Display table. Each entry represents a single page of your website. When you update the table entry, your site is immediately updated with your new entry.

It is thus a good idea to use a tabbed browser like Mozilla or Opera, and have a page open to the website you are modifying. Make a change and then immediately check the site.

The CMS will accept tags as covered below.

Adding Pages

New pages are added to the site via the menu editor. This is a simple procedure of adding a new menu name tag (try and make this OneWord maximum of 9 letters), and description of the menu item.

Content items can then be attached to that menu item as it will appear in the content menu item selection box.

Posting Content

Once the content publishing system is in place, updates are instant, provided that you send text in an email (better than an attachment which may or may not work).


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Make Headings obvious



or use a tag:



HEADING: This is a Heading



It is best to set text really clearly, between top and bottom markers, like a row of equals signs often works.



Line breaks mark paragraphs otherwise let text flow without line breaks.  Spell check content and then cut and paste from word processor into email text.  Don't worry about format, font or colour.  It will be presented in the site's format.



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the cms editing machine

The CMS is an editing machine that gives you access to the text content of your website. This provides content for your site. If you look under the item called Price or Recommendations, you can see how simply it is formatted with tags.

We use a <P CLASS="heading"> to mark the start of a heading paragraph and close it with a </p<

The "class=heading" part identifies what a paragraph looks like. Valid classes may include:

heading
cheading
rheading
normal
large
small
bold
caption

Page structure may be logically defined using these components

title
header
footer
body

Images are placed with an image tag. See examples on the recommendations page.

It is best to get the content (and programming) right, and then place images as it will produce a stronger impact. Starting with too many images takes far longer to get right, and lacks the necessary attention to detail in the writing. The impact of the images can oversell writing that is not up to it. It is all to do with developing a message that works.

A few other html formating tags are allowed but not many.

You can only access the editor link with a user id and password (so others may not change your site!). This is adequate security. If a problem develops, a tough security (using encrypted pages) is available as an upgrade.

Each menu item is a page you can edit the components for the page. I will add in header and footer text (for every page) shortly. I add new pages to the site menu but you can Add content under a (single worded) menu item name.

CMS - How to

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