greg smart

As mentioned in The Conundrum of CMS our search for an adequate CMS has followed a long and bumpy path. I was hopeful when Scott, our ColdFusion programmer, pointed me toward the FarCry CMS. Although it looked promising the learning curve proved too great a hurdle. Although this may be a solid CMS I simply couldn’t see deploying it for our customer base. So, once again, we reluctantly started the CMS wild goose chase again.

What is Needed?

Having run this gauntlet before I have a pretty clear idea of what an acceptable CMS ought to entail:

• It must be user friendly against an audience with a very limited skill set. Our customers are not in the web business and don’t have the time or patience to learn a CMS with a complex set of processes.
• The client updates must be as divorced from the site shell as much as possible but also allow for updating of areas other than the primary content area.
• The WYSIWYG must produce solid, standards compliant code. I could create a laundry list of why this is important, but one of the more practical ones is due to the fact that as our sites become increasingly standards compliant (i.e. table-less) they also become more susceptible to a WYSIWYG generating poorly structured code. Throw in an unclosed div tag and the whole design goes to hell.
• It must support multiple users per site with a site admin designated to control CMS access
• It must be well documented, well supported and flexible

That’s all, pretty simple huh (sarcasm)?

A Ray of Hope? Again…

Last week I ran across MODx, CMS and PHP application framework. At first glance this is a complex piece of software, the admin UI actually has a lot in common with the FarCry system. Once I dove in I was pleasantly surprised at what I found. This appears to be a relatively mature system that has a lot of nice features. Over the course of a week I worked my way through most of the admin panel and have been pleased with what I have found. So pleased in fact that I have deployed it in 3 instances in which I was desperate to replace our current CMS with a solution.

The short-term reviews have been good. The end users have been utilizing the software with a minimum of instruction. I would estimate that they have updated their site content more in the last week than they have in the last 6 months. This has also occurred without having to go in and “fix” the site coding on our side.

Best I can tell this is truly a standards compliant CMS, meets all of the criteria outlined above and warrants a closer look by all of our staff.

Bookmarks:

At Pleth a small, but often frustrating component of our day-to-day business is the creation and sending of newsletter email campaigns. While there are many tools out there, like Interspire’s Send Studio, to manage these functions the lack of web standards for email clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, etc…) makes this a hit and miss activity at best.

This is especially frustrating since I consider myself a standards conscientious web developer. The lack of email client display consistency leaves me with no alternative but to follow less than acceptable coding practices when building an HTML email newsletter. This includes the use of tables for page layout and inline CSS statements. Although the value of the services is undeniable, I often feel the customer can be left scratching their head as they attempt to view poorly rendered emails that have been “professionally” developed for their company.

Prior to writing this article I came across the Email Standards Project which exists to improve web standards support and accessibility in email:

Our goal is to help designers understand why web standards are so important for email, while working with email client developers to ensure that emails render consistently. This is a community effort to improve the email experience for both designers and readers alike.

As I looked through this site I was pleasantly surprised as I found useful information like the Email Project Acid Test results and subsequent recommendations list. I was impressed enough that I actually signed up to be on the project mailing list, which is a rarity for me.

This is a project I am going to keep an eye on.

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