Using Dreamweaver w/ CMSmadesimple

[bigwhitedog]

You might as well have the thread because the answer to my question is that there is no way to maintain most of a site with dreamweaver while having the content maintained by the user using CMSMS, from what I can tell.  You can start in dreamweaver but then you have to switch entirely to CMSMS at some point.

I personally think a dreamweaver extension would be very valuable and even something that could be sold.  I know I purchased something similar for a client for $150, and it worked great, but the company no longer supports it.  But we can maintain the site with dreamweaver, DW templates, etc, and any areas we mark as editable can be edited in the products' CMS wysiwyg interface.  It was a great product and it is a shame they are no longer selling or supporting it.  It was here: http://www.interspire.com/content/categories/WebEdit/

This will be a prob for my boss and her assistant as well. I will have to do some more research here I guess.

[kendo451]

Experienced PHP coders will find CMS Made Simple very intuitive and easy to customize. But it really helps if they also have experience with SMARTY, or else plan to learn it.  (SMARTY is a templating engine based on PHP that allows separation of code from design and content.)

CMSMS has a fine permissions system.  This allows it to be set up so that clients can only edit certain pages (that they can't break).  In the newest version (1.7) I think you can also specify permissions for global content blocks, allowing clients to edit only the ones specified.

You can also control who can post news, use various modules, etc.

[kendo451]

the answer to my question is that there is no way to maintain most of a site with dreamweaver while having the content maintained by the user using CMSMS, from what I can tell.

I think you're way overstating the case there Hugh.  I use Dreamweaver and CMSMS together for all of my websites, period.

What I don't use are Dreamweaver's template tools and asset library.

With CMSMS a regular website has one or two templates and five global content blocks.

A complex site has maybe four page templates, and ten or twenty global content blocks.

The use of CMSMS page templates and GCB's pretty much eliminates the need for using Dreamweaver Templates.

[bigwhitedog]

Experienced PHP coders will find CMS Made Simple very intuitive and easy to customize. But it really helps if they also have experience with SMARTY, or else plan to learn it.  (SMARTY is a templating engine based on PHP that allows separation of code from design and content.)

I have heard about the SMARTY engine but know nothing about it and up 'til now we had no plans to learn it. How hard is it to pick up?

[kendo451]

SMARTY is extremely simple.  It allows you to call php routines in an HTML template using curly brackets like this:

{title} - calls a php routing the inserts the page title in the HTML.

more complex

{cms_module module='news'}  here passing a parameter (module='news').

You can also have variables in smarty which start with $

{$page_alias} outputs the value of the page_alias variable. 

It also handles objects with multiple methods and properties.

{$ccuser->loggedin()} calls the loggedin method of the $ccuser object.

You can also do foreach loops and if, else statements, which are used in a lot of the module templates.

If you already know PHP well, SMARTY is easy.

SMARTY documentation is here:
http://www.smarty.net/docs.php

[jmcgin51]

others have pretty much said it, but an experienced web developer should have no problems picking up CMSms, and will appreciate the degree of flexibility and customization it allows.

[_luki]

For me the biggest problem is that cmsms dont keep template and stylesheet infomation in regular files. Im used to work with joomla templates - I could change template files directly on server side via dreamweaver, click F5 on the site and see changes.
This way of work is not longer possible with cmsms, I need to make site template in dreamweaver, put some dummy text in html then change it to smarty tags {} copy, paste in stupid cmsms window for template and stylesheet then preview the site. Check what is wrong, go back to dreamweaver, change, copy, paste... not very convenient. 

[Dr.CSS]

Have you tried template externalizer module?...

I use Firefox with the Web Dev. tool bar to make changes to templates, css wise, and it works fine for me, just like a wysiwyg...

[AuctionHugh]

It is clear that CMSMS is a nice web dev tool.

However there is a HUGE NEW audience if you could adapt it so websites developed in dreamweaver could have the editable regions edited by end users using CMSMS. 

I'm not involved with the evolution of the code, but right now web dev's need to choose between developing a site using a limiting CMS so their end users can edit their own content, or using dreamweaver. 

A way to take the best of both would be very popular.

[_luki]

Have you tried template externalizer module?...

I knew that there is solution! Template externalizer is of course this what I need.
Thanks a lot !

[tyman00]

I'm gong to second what DrCss said. This whole discussion goes back to the TemplateExternalizer module.

It creates flat files that you can connect to on your local system (if you are developing locally) or with FTP, SSH, etc.

Then you open it in your favorite editor... Dreamweaver, PSPad, Notepad, Crimson Editor, etc.

Then when you save the file and upload it again (I set up my FTP program to automatically upload the file when I save it) and refresh the page your changes are visible on the website. Give it a shot I bet it will fit the bill for 90% of what you are looking for.

Plus the module works with quite a few module templates. The first two modules I install after installing a fresh CMSMS is TemplateExternalizer and EditArea (syntax highlighter for the admin area).

Please also remember, CMSMS publicly declares that this software package is for experienced developers. It isn't intended to be super easy for web dev rookies. I used Dreamweaver for years and years till I found CMSMS. I slowly migrated out of it and I honestly can't tell you the last time I opened the program.

[Deak]

TemplateExternalizer... genius. Why have I never heard of that before? Sadly, it's further proof that CMSMS' modules are poorly promoted to visitors of this website.

[tyman00]

Deak: I'll agree it can be tough to know about the "Goodies" of CMSMS.

However we aren't sure how else to promote these modules. There are hundreds of good and valid modules. All of which I am sure the developers would like to have "Featured." Do you have any suggestions? We are always open to suggestions, we just can't promise timely implementation or that they will be used. But the more ideas the better. We just then evaluate what's best for the situation.

[Deak]

@tyman00

Honestly, there's a few things that are incredibly common for website projects that require things beyond the Core:

- Blog with comments
- Site registration and members area
- Ecommerce

Under the Support tab, create a page for each of these with professionally written, and screen shotted, tutorials. Include links to the necessary modules.

This template externalizer module is quite niche, so it's not necessarily something I'd say should be "featured" but how about a sidebar widget on the homepage which randomly pulls a module, author(s), description, and a link?

Or how about an opportunity for module developers to submit articles to the CMSMS blog describing their work?

[tyman00]

Good suggestions. We've thought about doing a featured option where developers would submit their modules and we would display some of them. The problem is we don't have the man power to do proper Quality Assurance.

The sidebar widget is a good idea, but we also run the risk of dead/dormant modules being pulled in. We have discussed cleaning up the forge over and over. So that will obviously have to take place first when we find a solution that is efficient and makes most everyone happy.