DME's Most Important Class . . . 260!

CMS Is Both Fun and Essential

I feel that taking a class that covers the foundation of Content Management Systems is essential to becoming a successful web designer. My feeling is that the more you learn, the more versatile you may become, thus making you an asset to your current/future employers.

As far as CMS systems go, usability can be equated with “ease of use”. Beyond this, usability also includes:

• How quickly and easily a system can be learned
• How efficient it is for regular users
• Whether users will remember how to use the system after a break
• How user errors are managed (and ideally prevented).

Usability is a major factor in whether staff will be able (and willing) to make use of a new technology, such as a content management system. So, in this very important case, less is definitely better.

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My Favorite CMS So Far

As far as content management systems go, I am partial to WebsiteBaker. Now I will admit that learning CMSimple (a nice CMS but it had its share of “learning curves”) first prepared me for WB. It is definitely easy for creating site structure and organizing content. Also, WebsiteBaker and the community are offering lots of extensions: Just download, install with two clicks and use them.

WebsiteBaker is the best choice for designers, developers and users - whether you are a beginner, advanced person or geek.

Important Features

• Easy to use interface
• WYSIWYG-editors in backend
• Support of multiple languages
• Management of files and media
• Adjustable due to its template system
• Infinite extensible because of add-ons
• Group based Access Privilege System

Give it a try and WebsiteBaker will convince you!

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Big T’s Class Review

Fortunately, I had an excellent class with an amazing instructor (wink, wink!!). Seriously, the class was great in the fact that it presented content management systems at a good pace. If I could have done anything differently about the course, perhaps it would be to introduce WordPress in the same way as WebsiteBaker, that way we can have more familiarity with an additional CMS.

Thanks to this course, I now have more to offer a competitive work force. Thanks for all the knowledge and Happy Coding!

Event Posters Made Easy!

The Best of the Best

There are tons of plug-ins available for Event Calendars online. WordPress provides some of them directly from their main website, but there are also a variety of outside resources as well. After evaluating multiple plug-ins, the two in this article are the most useful overall.

One of the plug-ins available is the Event Calendar Pro, but in order to get the full benefit of the plug-in, you’ll need to upgrade. If you download the Events Calendar Premium plug-in for WordPress, it will enable you to rapidly create and manage events using the post editor. Features include Google Maps integration as well as default templates such as a calendar grid and event list for streamlined one click installation.

Some of the features of the Premium plug-in include:

• Manage event details in the Events post type
• Upcoming Events Widget
• Provides full template to complement the 2010 theme out of the box (month and list view)
• Extensive template tags for customization
• Google Maps Integration
• Calendar Month view with tooltips
• Detailed List view
• In Depth Screencast and Documentation included just to be safe!
• Includes support for venue, cost, address, start and end time, Google maps link
• Support for international addresses, time and languages

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Event Espresso is the premiere events registration and management plug-in for WordPress. WordPress developers use Event Espresso as an event registration framework to create customized event registrations for their clients. This premium plug-in for WordPress allows you to turn your existing blog or website into a fully featured event management website.

Event Espresso events are created from within the WordPress admin. The plugin even creates registration forms so attendees can sign up right on your website.

Here are some of the features of Event Expresso:

• Easily manage attendees from within your WordPress website.
• Manage all aspects of your event from the WordPress interface.
• Event Espresso users save hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year.
• Event Espresso is fully integrated with WordPress.

Best of all, attendee information is stored right in the WordPress database, allowing you to have access at any time.

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The Winner Is . . .

While other plug-ins offer excellent calendars and easy-to-use interfaces, Event Expresso is the way to go. You can create as many events as you want. When you set one up you can add all of the information, including sign-up details, payment details and a Google map. You can also set time periods for registration, add custom email confirmations, limit the number of attendees as well as allow/prevent group registrations.

The Bonus: If you are running lots of different types of events, you can very easily put them all into different categories to a make them easier to manage. BIG smiley face!

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The User Friendliest One Is . . .

. . . Event Expresso, and here are the reasons why. For the most part, there are a variety of filter controls on the Event Overview page including category, month, as well as active/inactive. There’s also a live search feature which filters events by their content based on the text that you enter as you type to quickly locate whatever events you might be looking for.

In WordPress, it just goes to show life is as easy as you make it, even when selecting a calendar plug-in. Happy coding!

Reviewing Contact Forms for Wordpress

Exploring Built-In Form Features

This is a tip for everybody. If you’re not getting much contact from your site visitors then perhaps it’s time to spruce up your contact forms and make it more attractive and easy to read. Let’s face it; some contact forms look so bad you really don’t want to use them.

Some of these contact solutions exist as a built-in feature in WordPress. One of the best available options is to use TDO Mini Forms. This plug-in can add themed custom posting and editing forms to your website that allows your readers, including those who are not registered, to contribute.

Using this plug-in allows you to add highly customizable forms that work with your WordPress Theme to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (also configurable) to submit and edit posts and pages. New posts are kept in "draft" until an admin can publish them (also configurable).

Best of all, TDO Mini Forms has been used to turn WordPress into a Forum, Contact Manager.

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My Vote for the Best Plug-In

After doing some extensive research online, I have determined that the plug-in available is CformsII. CformsII is a highly customizable, flexible and powerful form builder WordPress plug-in, covering a variety of use cases and features from attachments to multi form management; you can even have multiple forms on the same page.

Here are some of the main features of the CformII plug-in:

• Customizable fields with optional checkboxes, radio buttons, . . .
• Several fancy “styles”, change the look of your form with a single click.
• Create multiple contact forms and display them on however many pages you want.
• Tell-a-friend form support.
• Backup and restore custom forms to other sites.
• Visitor verification questions, along with CAPTCHA support.

Overall, CformsII makes life easier on both the user and the developer.

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Choosing Easy Yet Effective Plug-Ins

Despite everything that I have read about WordPress, it is not any sort of magical content management system, although it does provide a slew of possibilities in the right hands. Even if the possibilities are there, I will not recommend installing massive quantities of plug-ins just to ramp up your site. In these cases, less is not only better overall, but also more effective.

One of the easiest plug-ins available for Wordpress is the Visitor Contact form. To use this plugin, you need to create a contact form at the home site for the plug-in (see above link). After that, just fill in your form ID to the plugin page and you are done. There are a lot of cool features, such as Geocoding, Captcha Spam Protection, Contact Manager, Skype Status and much more. The options are unlimited.

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But don’t just take my word for it. See for yourself. Selecting a plug-in for forms is all about discovering what fits your comfort level. Good luck and happy coding!

Developing WordPress Templates for the Web

A Template or Design Your Own Theme

Here’s the good news on using WordPress. You have options. In the world of web design that is the best news that we can get. Pre-made templates are boring and lack in originality.

Just to elaborate, here’s the list of features your finished theme will be able to boast of:

• All the search-engine optimization you’ll really need
• Including google-supported Microformat markup
• Valid and logical semantic markup structure than can be used to create ANY layout
• Smart default CSS layouts
• Dynamic Body, post and comment classes
• Separated trackbacks and threaded comments
• 2 widget areas coded to disappear when they’re empty
• And all the typical WordPress stuff you expect from a theme

I think that’s kind of impressive for any WordPress Theme.

Download Free Templates Online

In the case of WordPress, the templates online are unlimited. Courtesy of Smashing Magazine's website, 100 free high-quality WordPress themes are available for consumers. Together with hundreds of other designs, these themes have been manually selected, installed and tested over the last weeks. They all can be downloaded, customized and used for free in both personal and commercial projects. Links to demo-versions provide a direct preview of a theme. These templates can also be edited to fit your specific needs.

You can also go to WPDaddy, perhaps the internet's leading WordPress Themes gallery - where you are offered to browse various categories of the most visually stunning free WordPress templates. Its marvelous collections of professionally designed free WordPress skins will stun you by the diversity of styles and colors, high quality and fresh ideas.

Want more? Trust me, it's definite out there. Check out wptemplates.org for even more WordPress themes.

You CAN Design Your Owe Templates

I hate to plug a site shamelessly, but you have to check out seowebmeeting.com for this incredible step-by-step tutorial. In this 10 minute video, you’ll learn how to make your own custom WordPress Template from start to finish. If a student like myself can do it, anybody can. Using this method isn’t cheating – it’s using the same tricks the pros use! They just don’t spend the time making custom templates anymore. There’s no need to.

You can also check out smashingwebs.com for an excellent tutorial on template creation, but don't take my word for it . . . see for yourself!

Modifying an Existing Template From Scratch

After an hour of surfing and research, I have narrowed it down to one intriguing template. The results of my hunt is the fresh, clean, user-friendly and playful WordPress theme 'Dilectio," a smashing layout that I uncovered from Smashing Magazine. When you first open the template, all images are clickable and lead to the demo-version of the theme. You’ll find the preview- and download-links on the site. Needless to say, the template provides an awesome starting point for reconstruction.

This is a fairly clean template with a layout that can be modified to fit my overall needs. The key is to utilize the resources that the template currently provides and develop it from within. It's really that simple. Content Management Systems are your friend and, sometimes, the very best friend a web designer can have.

The Best CMS That Money Can't Buy!

CMS Systems Are Useful

Having worked with both CMSimple and Website Baker, I now have a better understanding as to how Content Management Systems work. I looked at CMS programs on the web. Despite the variety of options out there, my vote is still one of the first ones that I was introduced to: Website Baker.

Why is Website Baker So Cool

The main thing that has me sold is that Website Baker contains various tools for your website administration and content management. It also provides features for notification, registration and password recovery from users as well as supports Group based access system and unlimited users or user groups can be created at a time. From you admin panel you can control your complete Website Baker installation, plus it uses Captcha in the front end to avoid spamming with user comments. Best of all, Website Baker has a built-in WYSIWYG HTML editor for easy editing of your content while supporting multiple websites or instances on the same platform.

Designers Should Learn CMS

This is coming from someone who was skeptical of create website with anything other than hand-coding: Website Baker is a must learn for all designers. If anything, it is wonderful learning tool before stepping into the “beefier” CMS programs like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Also, Website Baker is growing in popularity, so more and more developers are using it to create websites. Clients can also edit pages without having to mess around with the code, a blessing for everyone involved. If you have tried it out yet, downloaded it and give it a go. You won’t be sorry.

CMSimple vs. Website Baker

Head-to-Head Comparision

CMSimple

First, let’s take a look at CMSimple. Overall, the interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. I like the ability to log in on any page by simply adding &login to the end of the URL. After doing this, the page is automatically brought up in a WYSIWYG editor, making changes to the website almost instant. Additionally, the CMS is available for free to anyone interested.

On the negative side of things, I find the way that CMSimple deals with page hierarchy quite odd. When publishing pages, h1s become a top-level page, h2s become secondary, and once more with h3s. After a while, it is clear why they would use this structure to their site, and it does allow for speedy page structuring, but it does take a bit of getting used to for individuals used to working in standard HTML.

Website Baker

From the first time I launched Website Baker in the control panel (once I got there) I immediately was pleased with the interface. It is laid out very cleanly and intuitively (more so than CMSimple, in my opinion), and makes it very simple to find what you are looking for.

There's nothing really negative to say about Website Baker. It is a refreshing change after battling CMSimple for a few hours.

Managing Installations

Let’s go over installing each content management system. CMSimple is fairly easy to install. Simply Download the ZIPfile onto your local machine, unzip it, and FTP all the folders and files to your webserver. As instructed, place the files into the 'html' files directory. This may be called htmldoc or something similar. Some ISPs may require you to use a a 'cgi' files directory, but that’s “simple” to get to.

As for Website Baker, there are a few things to look out for. First, change permissions for files and directories (chmod.) Here’s a helpful hint. Once the permissions are altered, refresh the install page to reflect the changes. It’s also extremely important to know your MySQL username and password. You’ll also need to create a new MySQL database or understand how to reuse an established database with a new prefix (include the “_” for prefix; for example “_wb”). Once installation is completed, remove the install directory (for security reasons) and you are ready to check out the admin area of the site. If you want to install in your root directory, it’s a good idea to move all the files and folders from inside the wb directory to the new location prior to installing Website Baker.

The biggest difference in the process is where the files and folders reside, so it’ very important to be organized inside your directories.

Which One is the Better Fit

After working with the two CMS platforms, I would have to choose Website Baker. Website Baker is available as an easy, one-click install on our web hosting, reseller hosting and dedicated server hosting plans with Softaculous. VPS Hosting customers subscribing to cPanel and Softaculous will experience the same simple install of Website Baker.

Additionally, every A2 Hosting account provides webmasters with the resources necessary to install a custom copy of Website Baker. Current versions of PHP, MySQL and Apache are listed as the server requirements to run this auction software solution. A2 Hosting currently supports PHP 5.2.9 and MySQL 5.1.x and Apache 2.2. Select A2 Hosting as your Website Baker web hosting provider.

My Final Thoughts

In a perfect world, I like for things to go smoothly and CMSimple, in my personal opinion, is NOT simple. Website Baker, on the other hand, creates an interface and installation process that is incredibly user-friendly. It also isn’t painful to map out in your HTML. Either way, Happy Coding!

A Content Management System Breakdown

Basic Features of CMS

First, they’re easy to install. In most case, just simply copy the files into a folder and it's ready to run. Simple file manager can upload and delete images or other documents. They also allow you to edit your pages on the fly with your web browser. A preview is shown on the same page as the edit screen and user have full control over the pages.

With content management systems, you can control the complete look and feel of your pages. Also, you are not "boxed-into" certain format or required to use a theme as in many other content management systems. Basic CMS is ready to be built into existing products to add content management functionality. Basic CMS is open-source released under the General Public License, referred to as GPL. (http://basic-cms.com/)

Some Non-Essential Features

With some CMS platforms, all sites would link to one phpbb forum, however each site would have a different link to go directly to the required sub forum. A page wrapper facility would be nice but it’s not essential. Also, account management, bandwidth tracking and billing are extra features that are nice but, again, not essential. Another feature such as image uploading + resizing (which could be replaced very easily by a Flickr plugin) would be nice, but is not essential in a content management system.

Also, Wordpress, (when selected) plugins make calls to databases, which will slow down the loading speed. As a rule, bloggers are encouraged to deactivate unnecessary plugins so that the number of database calls can be reduced.

Choices For Selecting a CMS

It is extremely important to evaluate your options for a source to create the custom CMS web design based on their quality and experience. For example, an amateur CMS web designer who says that "I can do web design" is probably correct. Creating an attractive custom CMS web design may seem easy, yet creating a website that performs well attracting business and search engines is different.

Here are a handful of CMS web design service options to consider. The first 3 could be free except for the time needed to setup, manage, and update your website. Other web designer options may involve cost.

1. Do It Yourself Web Design
2. Trust a Friend or Relative
3. Use a Free Standard Template
4. Purchase a Premium CMS Template
5. Hire a Freelance CMS Web Designer

If you lack experience, the first 4 options for free or nearly free web design involve climbing a steep learning curve to have a quality CMS website that performs well. With zero experience, it may take 200 or more hours just to research, evaluate, and select a good CMS software package, and then modify it to your unique look in preparation for installation and launch.

Plan B . . . and C

Hiring a freelance web designer might be the best choice, yet use due diligence to verify their quality and experience. Have them provide performance evidence for their website. Ask for links to customer CMS design projects that demonstrate quality and performance for their clients, too.

Subconsciously, inexperienced designers may exaggerate or overpromise. Many prefer to discuss what they will do for you without real evidence. This has been proven by catching the lies of firms begging for web design work as subcontractors, yet they cannot prove results for their site or their customers. If a person or company can truly provide a quality custom design solution that performs well, they will have evidence.

CMSs Help Clients with SEO

The Good

In order to get the best of both worlds (the convenience and management advantages of a CMS and the site promotion advantages of SEO), you need a search engine optimizing CMS. At a minimum, the CMS should not create URLs and content that engines refuse to index because it looks dynamic. The system should also allow you to create relevant, per-page meta-tags and titles. And, the system should present content using navigation menus that search engines will follow.

Now the Bad

Implementing a CMS can be a boon to SEO efforts, but it can be a disaster because many CMS systems were not designed with search engine marketing in mind. Some specific problems that content generated by this kind of CMS has in being indexed by search engines include:

1. Dynamic URLs. Search engines are programmed to limit the number of dynamic pages they index, and the primary way they determine pages are dynamic is through page URLs with special characters (%&=).
2. Bad meta tags. Meta tags are the HTML code components that search engines use to evaluate what a page is about. Many CMS systems do not allow users to assign unique, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION meta tags to content. These are important tools to help search engines understand your pages.
3. Keyword poor URLs. Even systems that do not use dynamic URLs often do not let you create URLs that include keywords. Keyword-rich URLs are an important step in optimizing your pages to rank well in search engines.
4. Search engine unfriendly design. If a page has the look and feel you want, does the underlying code matter? In a word, yes! Search engines can't see the page, so all they have to go on is the code.

How Designers Stay Informed

The most important theory that I’ve learned in my course is that CMS could help you build better and more maintainable website. But all designers should be aware that companies use all sorts of content management systems... so the concepts and theories are probably more important than the technical details.

The Blogger’s Advice

There are a ton of websites and tutorials online that can assist you in your individual education for utilizing CMSs. The best thing that a designer can do is keep your eyes and ears open and stay current with technology. It’s up to you to “keep up with the Jones’s.”