At long last Conor’s Management System v0.0.5 is ready for testing. I faced many hurdles getting this up and I would like to thank Kae for all his help! Check the details below to try!

Try it out

*be sure to read the bugs list before you try!

url: http://macaoidh.name/work/cms/

username: guest

password: soeasytoguess

New functions - In my last post on the CMS I made a list of features that I would add before the next release. I am happy to say that all of those features have been added. It is not very feature-full at the moment and I don’t plan to add many features for v0.1.

Status - It is a very lightweight CMS designed for the use of the layman. It is far from ready for general release in this state but now that all the key functions are done I can concentrate on the visual and graphical aspect of it.

Bugs - Most of them are fixed but if you find any let me know.

1. There is one that I am working on a solution for. If you press the ‘Delete Current Page‘  button it sets the page for deletion. You then need to confirm and it gets deleted or deny and it gets un-set for deletion. The bug is if you press the ‘Delete Current Page’ button, the page is set for deletion and then if you press the back button in your browser it remains set. If you go to delete a page again it will delete all pages set for deletion. As say I am working on a fix and it will be included in the next release.
2. This one will be a bit more difficult to find a solution for. The method that I am using to edit and preview the text is done in JavaScript. I didn’t write this entirely myself because I can’t yet write JavaScript. The problem with it at the moment is it only edits a block of the page – so you can put some HTML in there! I have to do something about this but at the moment I don’t know what I am going to do….

The Future – v0.1

I am very optimistic about this project and I have big plans for the future. 0.1 will be the first stable version readyfor general release. I am still thinking about wether to open source it – at the moment it’s not worth it. If it is open sourced I will have an installer in the next release. This is what I want to complete for the 0.1:

1. Function to edit page order.
2. Function to edit page names and urls.
3. Fix all bugs! The edit text bug will be a hard one!
4. The entire visual and graphical side needs to be set up.
5. I will set up a sample website for the CMS to operate on to proove that it can co-operate with working sites.
6. It needs a new name. The current one isn’t great but i’m working on it.

Code-wise

1. Major re-structure of all functions. I have a funny feeling that i’m taking the long way around on a few things.
2. Create a define.php document to define all page variables in each page, such as url, name etc. This will prevent me from having to retreve the same information from the database again and again.
3. JavaScript, JavaScript and more JavaScript. I have been looking into some stuff – jQuery seems to be the most likely candidate. I have some great scripts in mind to smoothen the look and feel out a bit.
4. Possibly get rid of the current method of making pages as it has been pointed out to me that it could pose some security risks.

I know that I have laid out alot for the next version but i’m off school for the next few weeks so I will have some free time!Thats about it. I welcome any suggestions / feature requests / comments on the current release.

I started work on my first CMS last weekend. I came up with the idea of editing pages from the front end. Instead of having a big back end to the CMS i thought that it would be better to edit page content while looking at the page. This is useful when you want to see what you are editing. There is something similar available called the FCK Editor. Mine is different to it in a number of ways.

The easiest way for me to explain the functions is to show it to you. I have supplied a URL below and a username/password combination.
URL: http://macaoidh.name/work/cms
username: guest
password: guestpass

Take a look at the pages. Notice the difference between them when you are logged in and logged out. It is very simple at the moment, but I have created a model that I can expand on. Here is a list of current functions:

• When you are logged in you can see the editing panel at the bottom of the page, which displays the log out link.
• When you are logged in you can edit the text on the page. This is currently only a temporary fix because I haven’t set it to update the database yet!
• The page content is currently being called from the database.

By the time my CMS reaches version 1 I intend for it to be a fully functional Content Management System. These are the functions that I intend to implement in the future:

• Make the changes while logged in update to the database. I am finding this quite difficult. It’s easy to create a form and update but when you include all of the JavaScript that I have in order to make the changes editable and viewable in the same page, it becomes more difficult.
• Create more functions for the logged in person, such as add users and more complicated editing options.
• Add the possibility of creating new pages from the front end. This should be easy enough – I just haven’t had enough time to add it!

I’ll keep posting weekly updates on the status of the CMS. Hopefully I can get it up to a state where it is sellable in a couple of months. If it becomes successful i might open source it! At the moment there is no point because most people would be able to create something similar by just looking at it!

Suggestions and some criticism welcome!