Our CMF-CMS Demo (was RE: [Zope-CMF] RE: Re: [Zope] A Tale from IBM land...)

[Jon Edwards]

Great timing! I decided that the reason CMF 1.1 broke my skins/templates was
that the "Spirits of Zope" were trying to tell me it was time to do the
re-design I've been putting off for ages!

> One problem is that the CMF as is doesn't provide any out-of-the-box
> CMS capabilities.  By CMS, I mean primarily the ability to add pages
> based on a variety of templates (News, MultiPage with Images, etc),
> and automatically generate a navigational system.

Like the others you mentioned, that's what our product tries to achieve -
via a layer of skins & methods on top of the CMF.

If anyone wants to play with it, I've put a demo online here -
http://www.pricom.co.uk/southhumber

Warning : The design and layout is very simple and quite ugly! I've been
concentrating on functionality rather than presentation so far! :-)

Note : We're going to open-source this stuff soon (probably GPL), and we're
using this demo-site to show a few potential collaborators, so please don't
post anything rude! ...and please don't pass the URL on, outside the bounds
of this list. :-)

To get at the editing bits (and a quickly-hacked demo of some of the ideas I
had for a Member's page), click on "Member's Section" at the bottom of the
menu on the left, then login as -

User Name : Dave Holmes
Password : mariners

(Click My Stuff then View to see the Member's page demo)

I'm not sure what will happen if several people login as the same person at
the same time? If you see weird stuff happening, it probably means someone
else is playing simultaneously... well, that's my excuse! (though there is
the odd bit that's not fully-implemented, so be prepared for occasional
error-messages)

I won't clutter up the list by posting lots of details and instructions
here, unless people are interested? If it's considered generally useful by
the list, I'm happy to discuss it on here, but if not, email me off-list
(I'll try to hack some brief docs together!)

But, briefly, the things it tries to address are -

- Different organisations within the same CMF-instance, each with their own
layout/colour-scheme
- A Member's page that acts as their interface with the whole site
- Separation of editing from presentation - it doesn't look like a normal
CMF site until you go "behind the scenes"
- Layout - add a page, edit its colours and layout, then slot
content-methods (a bit like composite-docs, but much hackier!) into its
empty boxes
- Prettier UI - the WYSIWYG editor is the first step!


> I think the first step should be a consensus on the features and
> implementation of a CMF-based CMS.

Nodding vigorously! Rather than a lengthy explanation of how we're trying to
do it, I thought it was easier to post the demo above.

Being able to slot different CMS's into the CMF (in the same way you could
slot different workflow tools into it), or perhaps even, different parts of
different CMS's, will be a huge benefit IMHO.

I think one important factor is whether DC is planning a "CMS-tool", or
whether they're leaving that to the community?

As I'm about to start re-designing mine anyway, I'd like it to fit in with
this way of doing things, so please count me in on any discussions! :-)

> and a navigation service / tool, which I haven't seen
> discussed yet.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate?

Cheers, Jon