Can I use CMSMS with an existing website?

[Chargin]

I use a WYSIWYG program called Netobjects Fusion. Can I put a piece of HTML into that program that will call text from this CMS system
like this for example?

So I do all my design using an easy to use editor, publish the pages and where I want to have a client put their own info, just include these tags??

[reinhardmohr]

Hi,

that was my idea, too, when I started with CMSMS about four weeks ago. I cannot clearly answer your question with yes or no, but I can tell you what I found out by now.
The easiest thing I guess is to use a page with frames in your existing website. One of these frames would load a page that can easily be edited in CMSMS. So you avoid problems with navigation-menus.
Because if you don't work with frames you would have two sets of menus: One in Netfusion, the other one in CMSMS. And both sets would have to look identical to not confuse the visitor (that's where I am stuck right now: I have a sophisticated menu set up in Adobe Golive and I couldn't reproduce it by now in CMSMS). And you need to synchronize the links in the menus. That's where relative links and absolute links come into playing a role.
I found out that it could be done. But sometimes it‘s tricky.

Another problem: If you have a stylesheet for your existing site, you need to copy it to use it in CMSMS. Because there are wysiwig-page-editors to edit the content of pages. And they need to be able to habe a reference to your styles. An alternative would be to have your customer edit the content in just plain text and link the page to your existing stylesheet - but that‘s not very convenient.

All in all: I guess that‘s worth trying it. CMSMS is really easy to install and to setup (I tried it with several other CMS before and I either got stuck whith the installation or read a lot of manuals and didn't understand a word). But when you get deeper into it for special ideas maybe you have to do some trial and error. The basic structure of CMSMS can be understood after a couple of days. But special ideas may require some special efforts. Try it!

Good luck

Reinhard

[cyberman]

The easiest thing I guess is to use a page with frames in your existing website. One of these frames would load a page that can easily be edited in CMSMS.

I think so too. You can use iframes to include your old pages. There are existing 2 tags to do that - Piiframe and embed.

Piiframe - http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/piiframe/
embed - please look in admin panel in menu extensions -> Tags

[Chargin]

I really dont like frames... hate them in fact.
I guess Ill have to look for another type of CMS, I have heard of these "text includes" before but am still unsure of exactly where to go.

[reinhardmohr]

Hi,

I understand that you don't like frames. But I don't think that another CMS would make it easier. In fact I was looking around for a long time - and finally found CMSMS. Consider it, as you probably will always have to do some trial and error and some experimenting.
Have you heard of Macromedia Contribution? Maybe that application could be the right thing for you. I tried it once, it looked good. But it‘s not free and there probably is some other setback.

Good luck

Reinhard

[Chargin]

Bought Contribute3 sold it on Ebay, it didnt work with drop down menus that I make on Netobjects.

[Dr.CSS]

Have you thought about making the site in your WYSIWYG and then using the generated code to make a new template in CMSMS using copy/paste and inserting {content} tags where needed, and a new CSS style sheet, copy/paste, and attaching it to the template.

To reinhardmohr
I find the menu system to be very flexible (that's where I am stuck right now: I have a sophisticated menu set up in Adobe Golive and I couldn't reproduce it by now in CMSMS) what won't it do?

[reinhardmohr]

Hi Mark,

that's funny (or you‘re just everywhere to help?), but you already tried to help me today in another part of the forum (http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... icseen#new) where I described my problems with the menu.

I am still working on it. But for you guys who have been working on css and templates and such stuff it all looks easy and understandable - but I often try to figure out what you all mean. And often I do not understand where my problem lies: in the stylesheet? in the template? or somewhere else? I just mean: my learning curve is steep. And I am working on it. One day …

Thanks for your help

Reinhard