Potential new user, some questions

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Author	Message
Tom Dellaringa	Thursday 22 April 2004 1:54:47 pm Hi, I was playing with the demo. The system seems nice on the surface. I was editing the 'about' page and I noticed I can't put HTML code into the pages. How do you go about putting in headers and the like if you can only enter text into a module/page? I'm particularly looking for a CMS that generates clean code. I also noticed that the H1 on the pages had a <div> wrapped arond the <h1> which seems unnecesarry. I'm looking to suggest a CMS to our company for our corporate intranet as well as some of our brand sites. Some of our brands like to make changes on their sites. Right now it requires messy code pushes and we'd like to avoid that. We'd like Jane Doe to be able to make changes if she had to! Tom
Iain MacLean	Thursday 22 April 2004 4:48:20 pm Hi Tom The HTML in the pages is contained in the templates, of which there can be many, depending on how complicated you want to make things for yourself. This means that you have to roll your sleeves up and get under the bonnet (i.e. hood, not hat) to make any changes to the standard templates to customise headers, navigation, footers etc. A really good place to start is "The Scandinavian Check Mates" chess club site tutorial at http://ez.no/ez_publish/documentation/building_an_ez_publish_site. This gave me a great head start on using eZpublish. While the demo sites that come with the download have most of what you will need for a standard site, you cannot avoid doing some scripting and modifications to the templates. eZp is very powerful, but can require some modification to get it just how you want, even if you are using it pretty much out of the box. However, I suggest you try it a bit further. I have recently set up an extranet for an organisation of people who have no experience in publishing to the web. They are adding a lot of information to it and are finding it pretty easy. Of course, you need to guide them on what they can and cannot do, and make a few rules for them (e.g. "Do not change the labels on top-level navigation just because the chief executive doesn't like the wording.") Now they want us to redesign their public site using eZp because of the control it gives them and for the ease of maintenance. This will be based on the same design and database. eZp uses a lot of DIVs in the standard templates. You're right that some of them can be unnecessary, but they are used extensively in conjunction with the style sheets. CLASSes and SPANs could be used just as easily, or avoided by using child or descendant selectors in the style sheets. If you are doing a comprehensive review of CMS systems you will need to download eZpublish and get it going in a development area. But once you have it working (and you can strike problems with this, although they are not insurmountable) you will have an application that can power all of your sites. I think it could be well worth trying for your situation. Cheers Iain
Alex Jones	Friday 23 April 2004 11:23:04 am Tom, ultimately, the template system is as flexible as you want it to be. I just wrapped up an eZ publish site that validates as XHTML Strict... Well it did until I messed it up a couple of days ago - still need to fix that. ;) For that matter, you could pump out XML or plain ol' text just as easily, should your heart so desire. Tags: eZ publish has a subset of tags that can be entered into the on-line editor, but it is really easy to create more should you need them. The on-line editor does have a few flaws which has sparked a couple of conversations among the community. Ultimately the question comes down to how much separation of content and styling is required. Check out this thread for a discussion of the matter: http://ez.no/community/forum/suggestions/online_editors It's a good system that is evolving pretty rapidly. Alex Alex [ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ] <i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>

Author

Message

Thursday 22 April 2004 1:54:47 pm

Hi,

I was playing with the demo. The system seems nice on the surface. I was editing the 'about' page and I noticed I can't put HTML code into the pages. How do you go about putting in headers and the like if you can only enter text into a module/page?

I'm particularly looking for a CMS that generates clean code. I also noticed that the H1 on the pages had a <div> wrapped arond the <h1> which seems unnecesarry.

I'm looking to suggest a CMS to our company for our corporate intranet as well as some of our brand sites. Some of our brands like to make changes on their sites. Right now it requires messy code pushes and we'd like to avoid that. We'd like Jane Doe to be able to make changes if she had to!

Tom

Iain MacLean

Thursday 22 April 2004 4:48:20 pm

Hi Tom

The HTML in the pages is contained in the templates, of which there can be many, depending on how complicated you want to make things for yourself. This means that you have to roll your sleeves up and get under the bonnet (i.e. hood, not hat) to make any changes to the standard templates to customise headers, navigation, footers etc. A really good place to start is "The Scandinavian Check Mates" chess club site tutorial at http://ez.no/ez_publish/documentation/building_an_ez_publish_site. This gave me a great head start on using eZpublish.

While the demo sites that come with the download have most of what you will need for a standard site, you cannot avoid doing some scripting and modifications to the templates. eZp is very powerful, but can require some modification to get it just how you want, even if you are using it pretty much out of the box.

However, I suggest you try it a bit further. I have recently set up an extranet for an organisation of people who have no experience in publishing to the web. They are adding a lot of information to it and are finding it pretty easy. Of course, you need to guide them on what they can and cannot do, and make a few rules for them (e.g. "Do not change the labels on top-level navigation just because the chief executive doesn't like the wording.") Now they want us to redesign their public site using eZp because of the control it gives them and for the ease of maintenance. This will be based on the same design and database.

eZp uses a lot of DIVs in the standard templates. You're right that some of them can be unnecessary, but they are used extensively in conjunction with the style sheets. CLASSes and SPANs could be used just as easily, or avoided by using child or descendant selectors in the style sheets.

If you are doing a comprehensive review of CMS systems you will need to download eZpublish and get it going in a development area. But once you have it working (and you can strike problems with this, although they are not insurmountable) you will have an application that can power all of your sites.

I think it could be well worth trying for your situation.

Cheers

Iain

Alex Jones

Friday 23 April 2004 11:23:04 am

Tom, ultimately, the template system is as flexible as you want it to be. I just wrapped up an eZ publish site that validates as XHTML Strict... Well it did until I messed it up a couple of days ago - still need to fix that. ;) For that matter, you could pump out XML or plain ol' text just as easily, should your heart so desire.

Tags: eZ publish has a subset of tags that can be entered into the on-line editor, but it is really easy to create more should you need them. The on-line editor does have a few flaws which has sparked a couple of conversations among the community. Ultimately the question comes down to how much separation of content and styling is required. Check out this thread for a discussion of the matter: http://ez.no/community/forum/suggestions/online_editors

It's a good system that is evolving pretty rapidly.

Alex

Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]

<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>