CMS Made simple and a large zeen site

[Clif]

Over the past few years I have off and on looked into SMS options for the Wolf Moon Journal web site. http://www.wolfmoonpress.com

My latest test in with CMS Made Simple. The Wolf Moon site has at any one time about 1200 articles in about 8 large categories. The current site is a conventional site without any database backend. The reason for considering a CMS is two fold, first to provide a processes to allow visitors to view the site both in a linear fashion and to provide a way to find articles by indexes such as Author, subject, and somewhat content. Secondly we are trying to find a way to let subscribers have full access on the web and guest have a more limited access.

My sample CMSMS site for WolfMoon is at http://cmstest.northstardb.com it is more a sketch of how I would like it, than a fully functioning CMS. Looking at the real WolfMoon site and the CMSMS demo site may answer more questions about what I am trying to do than a long posting. 

So here is the first big question. It seems that all the page classes are tied more or less directly to a menu. Thus if we have 500 articles in a category we have a very long pull down menu for that category. Is it possible to add a page that is not tied directly to a menu? Why would I want to do that? So that the listing of Articles would not all end up on the menu but be accessed by a search or simply looking at a page listing related articles. 

I have played with some CMS and some of the modules and have been impressed overall but have not seen how I would approach this. Any comments or hints on how to proceed?

[Dee]

When you edit or create new content, on the "Options" tab there's a "Show in Menu" checkbox.
Uncheck that to hide the content from the menu.

Regards,
D

[heatherfeuer]

I agree with Dee.  I think you could make it work by maybe putting categories in the menu, but have the articles on pages not in the menu.  Another option would be to use the news module for your articles.  Search should work fine with either option.  Also, be sure to incorporate breadcrumbs and the prev/next options on your articles pages.  That should help readers navigate through the articles without all the menus.

Another thought: Think about using User Defined Tags to create custom display of articles.  This would be great used with the news module.  Group the articles by date and/or by category or any other grouping that is appropriate.  Create a category (or whatever grouping you choose) page that would show in the menu and then have that page list the articles by title and summary with [more] links to the full article on a page not in the menu.  You could use the news templates and have a [return] link to the summary list and a next/previous option so that readers could page through the articles. 

I think the easy way that CMSms can be formatted makes it a very good choice for an e-zine!

[Clif]

Thanks, for the input. I will look for the "Show in Menu" checkbox. which I figured was there but somehow missed and see where it leads. Clif

[heatherfeuer]

When you are on the edit page screen, there are three tabs.  The middle one is labeled "options."  That is where you can deselect "show in menu" and assign a page alias insert custom metatags, etc.