PUBLISH - EDIT like Wordpress
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OK,
I am new to concrete5. I like the live editing functionality BUT I am looking for a way to see all stories/entries published... like the PUBLISH - EDIT and then filter in Wordpress...
Surely it is there somewhere?
cheers Lance
I am new to concrete5. I like the live editing functionality BUT I am looking for a way to see all stories/entries published... like the PUBLISH - EDIT and then filter in Wordpress...
Surely it is there somewhere?
cheers Lance
actually I use ExpressionEngine and am looking at Concrete5. I am interested in seeing all the content in one area like attached from my personal site in ExpressionEngine and Wordpress.
it seems weird to only edit content on the live page, not sortable. sure this is a sexy client feature but feels very static. and yeh I want an approval process.
I just wanna publish stories and send them to an area for display.
cheers Lance
it seems weird to only edit content on the live page, not sortable. sure this is a sexy client feature but feels very static. and yeh I want an approval process.
I just wanna publish stories and send them to an area for display.
cheers Lance
check concrete5s' dashboard->sitemap
or if like you said 'just wanna publish stories', you should have a look at blog add-on.
regards
or if like you said 'just wanna publish stories', you should have a look at blog add-on.
regards
sure.... but what is it is a news site... blog addon? i don't get it... in other cms,s drupal, joomla etc it is common place for a content admin area. actually i am doing a school site so lots of content feeding from a variety of areas within the site.
..and since I am here... what about custom fields for an entry? I have a story that has several different input types that I need to guide the editor/client through before pressing post. Drupal call theirs CCK - custom construction kit and Expression uses custom fields FYI.
..and since I am here... what about custom fields for an entry? I have a story that has several different input types that I need to guide the editor/client through before pressing post. Drupal call theirs CCK - custom construction kit and Expression uses custom fields FYI.
Okay a few thoughts here...
First just to get it out of the way check out custom attributes and your ability to assign them to page types, users, and other stuff as a comparison to CCK or EE's custom fields.
Now to the approval process/centralized content problem.
There are several answers here, not the least of which is these other systems have it wrong.
Most websites are living things. Sure they have functionality that you can describe with an application design process, but in the real world they tend to change in organic and hard to standardize ways.. The client wants a guestbook here, but not there.. they want an image gallery on this side of the page this time, that side another time... Using a strict iterative or watershed application development approach to solve these problems will give the client a complicated machine to manage their vision of the site at a fixed moment in time, and not a flexible framework to build and modify as you go.
working with concrete5 is more akin to working with with legos. You can build something new by playing around with pieces. Move it around. Take the parts that work, leave the parts that don't, etc.
In-context editing is more than a sexy afterthought as it may be in some other CMS that offer it, its really the primary mode anyone who isn't a developer uses to work. Look at word processing. If I'm reading a document, I can edit it. If I want to make a new document, I don't go to a separate interface than I would to make it. If I suggested that as a solution to word processing everyone would look at me as if I was insane. The web should be no different.
I've done a lot of consulting for big companies that had a strong request for workflow. I've led projects that use TeamSite which is kinda the end-all-be-all of workflow approach applied to the web. What I've found is that more often than not, this is one of those requests that sounds great on paper but is quickly abandoned as the client uses their site in the real world. All the roles created get abandoned as the one guy in the corner uses the admin account all the time to get stuff done. All those alert reports and approval RSS feeds become trash as the writers simply email their editors saying "I need you to approve such and such press release now!" I'm not saying there isn't a place for this type of solution in the largest of organizations, I'm just saying this is one of those cases where the technology is often solving a problem that doesn't exist.
So.. 1) Make your content where you want it. Use the advanced permissions system which you should turn on and check out to manage it.. Or just use the preview button instead of publish. Don't try to re-engineer concrete5 into drupal by having some central repository of content that gets "placed" later. When you're training a client with concrete5 and you DON'T start every answer with "okay so to do what you want here, you have to go over to the admin console and find your topic/section/post/article/etc.." you're going to instantly get why this approach is so much better.
2) Check out advanced permissions. If you're not already using them you really need to as it covers most of what you would need to do functionally...
3) Yes, in the big picture I'd like to see a report of all pages that have pending changes that need approval for convenience sake as part of the core. I do think there's the potential for someone to make a more complicated workflow approval add-on for larger organizations where one group gets alerted when another group does something... but again - there's so many apps that do this and they all end up being a barrier for good work more than a benefit...
No the blogging app isn't really that. Yes, the blogging app in my mind is really about adoption more than functionality.. A "blog" as a noun is easy to make with concrete5 if you just customize the page list block and build what you want.. "blogging" as a verb (making some drunken rant on a saturday night in an admin console that you can assume hasn't gone live) isn't what concrete5's core was designed to do.. thus the add-on. If you've got some CEO that wants to "blog" but doesn't feel comfortable putting a page in edit mode, or adding a page, okay the blogging app makes sense to me... But using it as a workflow tool because you're used to thinking that all cms's have to be centrally managed to be powerful is a mistake.
First just to get it out of the way check out custom attributes and your ability to assign them to page types, users, and other stuff as a comparison to CCK or EE's custom fields.
Now to the approval process/centralized content problem.
There are several answers here, not the least of which is these other systems have it wrong.
Most websites are living things. Sure they have functionality that you can describe with an application design process, but in the real world they tend to change in organic and hard to standardize ways.. The client wants a guestbook here, but not there.. they want an image gallery on this side of the page this time, that side another time... Using a strict iterative or watershed application development approach to solve these problems will give the client a complicated machine to manage their vision of the site at a fixed moment in time, and not a flexible framework to build and modify as you go.
working with concrete5 is more akin to working with with legos. You can build something new by playing around with pieces. Move it around. Take the parts that work, leave the parts that don't, etc.
In-context editing is more than a sexy afterthought as it may be in some other CMS that offer it, its really the primary mode anyone who isn't a developer uses to work. Look at word processing. If I'm reading a document, I can edit it. If I want to make a new document, I don't go to a separate interface than I would to make it. If I suggested that as a solution to word processing everyone would look at me as if I was insane. The web should be no different.
I've done a lot of consulting for big companies that had a strong request for workflow. I've led projects that use TeamSite which is kinda the end-all-be-all of workflow approach applied to the web. What I've found is that more often than not, this is one of those requests that sounds great on paper but is quickly abandoned as the client uses their site in the real world. All the roles created get abandoned as the one guy in the corner uses the admin account all the time to get stuff done. All those alert reports and approval RSS feeds become trash as the writers simply email their editors saying "I need you to approve such and such press release now!" I'm not saying there isn't a place for this type of solution in the largest of organizations, I'm just saying this is one of those cases where the technology is often solving a problem that doesn't exist.
So.. 1) Make your content where you want it. Use the advanced permissions system which you should turn on and check out to manage it.. Or just use the preview button instead of publish. Don't try to re-engineer concrete5 into drupal by having some central repository of content that gets "placed" later. When you're training a client with concrete5 and you DON'T start every answer with "okay so to do what you want here, you have to go over to the admin console and find your topic/section/post/article/etc.." you're going to instantly get why this approach is so much better.
2) Check out advanced permissions. If you're not already using them you really need to as it covers most of what you would need to do functionally...
3) Yes, in the big picture I'd like to see a report of all pages that have pending changes that need approval for convenience sake as part of the core. I do think there's the potential for someone to make a more complicated workflow approval add-on for larger organizations where one group gets alerted when another group does something... but again - there's so many apps that do this and they all end up being a barrier for good work more than a benefit...
No the blogging app isn't really that. Yes, the blogging app in my mind is really about adoption more than functionality.. A "blog" as a noun is easy to make with concrete5 if you just customize the page list block and build what you want.. "blogging" as a verb (making some drunken rant on a saturday night in an admin console that you can assume hasn't gone live) isn't what concrete5's core was designed to do.. thus the add-on. If you've got some CEO that wants to "blog" but doesn't feel comfortable putting a page in edit mode, or adding a page, okay the blogging app makes sense to me... But using it as a workflow tool because you're used to thinking that all cms's have to be centrally managed to be powerful is a mistake.
WOW that was a detailed reply, thank you.
1) I think what I am searching for is the ability to create custom blocks. I found a 'real estate' block with 2 fields.. a good start. Additionally I have found the tutorial 'making and building custom blocks' and will work through it later today. Skimming through it does seem overly complicated when compared to the aforementioned systems. Looking through the forums there is a guy posting help for a car site with 4 fields. He is going to have to pay some developer to do this. This is a 1 minute task in EE or CCK without touching PHP. Perhaps C5 needs a 'custom fields' block for modifying fields? You do it with forms why not custom fields?
2) I am completely on board with in-context editing and agree with your logic.I do think C5 is a wonderful system and very user friendly. This approach of live editing seems very static in nature, like a word document, once changes are make they are committed live. The page versions option reverts the entire page to an earlier state. I really think this should be block dependent.
The C5 site says a news site is possible so for example if I have time dependent content a) how do I limit it to appearing after a date/time. b)where does it go when it is not live any longer/old or archived. c) where is the pending/approval process? - advanced permissions seems only to show READ/WRITE/DELETE for individual blocks.
3) I get the block methodology and think it is a flexible system.
4) Have just installed advanced permissions... seems to have the ability to set permissions per block which is good.
5) New question... I have a really long story. How do I do pagination? I can't seem to find anything out about this.
6) I am happy to pay for the blogging app but I do think it needs to be part of the core to assist C5's market uptake. Out of the box C5 is great and this would be an excellent addition. You can not argue with Wordpress's popularity. People modify it to make it a CMS. You have a CMS that needs modification to make a blog. I think a lost opportunity given the growth of blogging.
Thank for the feedback and time so far.
1) I think what I am searching for is the ability to create custom blocks. I found a 'real estate' block with 2 fields.. a good start. Additionally I have found the tutorial 'making and building custom blocks' and will work through it later today. Skimming through it does seem overly complicated when compared to the aforementioned systems. Looking through the forums there is a guy posting help for a car site with 4 fields. He is going to have to pay some developer to do this. This is a 1 minute task in EE or CCK without touching PHP. Perhaps C5 needs a 'custom fields' block for modifying fields? You do it with forms why not custom fields?
2) I am completely on board with in-context editing and agree with your logic.I do think C5 is a wonderful system and very user friendly. This approach of live editing seems very static in nature, like a word document, once changes are make they are committed live. The page versions option reverts the entire page to an earlier state. I really think this should be block dependent.
The C5 site says a news site is possible so for example if I have time dependent content a) how do I limit it to appearing after a date/time. b)where does it go when it is not live any longer/old or archived. c) where is the pending/approval process? - advanced permissions seems only to show READ/WRITE/DELETE for individual blocks.
3) I get the block methodology and think it is a flexible system.
4) Have just installed advanced permissions... seems to have the ability to set permissions per block which is good.
5) New question... I have a really long story. How do I do pagination? I can't seem to find anything out about this.
6) I am happy to pay for the blogging app but I do think it needs to be part of the core to assist C5's market uptake. Out of the box C5 is great and this would be an excellent addition. You can not argue with Wordpress's popularity. People modify it to make it a CMS. You have a CMS that needs modification to make a blog. I think a lost opportunity given the growth of blogging.
Thank for the feedback and time so far.
Now there's a coincidence. I'm about to ask 6 novices/contributors to update pages, but at least initially I want to be able to approve before publication. Wasn't looking for anything overblown, just hoped I could avoid them having to ring me! Maybe an email to remind me I have pending approvals?
sewfan99, if that's really needed, it should be an easy job for PHP guy to make an email notifier (add-on) by using events.
http://www.concrete5.org/help/building_with_concrete5/developers/mv...
However, I try to train my clients to be confident and fearless with Concrete5. Encourage them to play with Concrete5 and show them that if something goes wrong, they or you can undo even published things by using versions. This is definately better than "Make your changes and press the preview button. DO NOT PUBLISH as you may do something wrong. Then I get email notification that you did an update and I correct it if needed and publish it".
I know this doesn't work for every case, but IMHO thats where you should aim.
http://www.concrete5.org/help/building_with_concrete5/developers/mv...
However, I try to train my clients to be confident and fearless with Concrete5. Encourage them to play with Concrete5 and show them that if something goes wrong, they or you can undo even published things by using versions. This is definately better than "Make your changes and press the preview button. DO NOT PUBLISH as you may do something wrong. Then I get email notification that you did an update and I correct it if needed and publish it".
I know this doesn't work for every case, but IMHO thats where you should aim.
I'm not against that approach at all, but in the early days of a new site you need to make the right impression I believe. For end readers I mean, in anycase I've walked into a different problem where contributors can't edit the blocks they've entered, so its a bit academic for the moment. Thanks for your comments though.
i was chatting with franz a couple of weeks ago about making a marketplace package along these lines, especially if i keep hearing about people needing something like this. i like the email notification idea too.
Let us filter at dashboard->sitemap for pages
that need approving.
that need approving.
well, i was thinking i'd make a new dashboard page actually, that listed pages in a table, sortable by status (like draft, awaiting review, published), or by publish/auto-publish date.
That sounds like a really good idea. Often our users get distracted when halfway through editing, close the browser and forget what pages they were working on. Being able to look those details on a single page would help in managing support requests when you have a bunch of users editing pages.
I am in the process of developing a site with thousands of pages. There will be 4-5 contributors and 1 publisher. Since contributors are not allowed to publish their work and the publisher can't sort the pages that are edited and pending to be published, this makes publisher's job challenging.
Tony, I think this is an excellent idea too. Is it something in the pipeline, or an abandoned idea?
I've also been asked a number of times about implementing a publishing workflow process and, although I agree with Franz that it can be more of a barrier than assisting the process of getting content up, it's not something many clients are willing to accept.
They want to control who publishes and who doesn't while letting staff create content first :$
I've also been asked a number of times about implementing a publishing workflow process and, although I agree with Franz that it can be more of a barrier than assisting the process of getting content up, it's not something many clients are willing to accept.
They want to control who publishes and who doesn't while letting staff create content first :$
FYI: There is a block that allows you to see pages that are pending approval / checked out.
It's not a full solution, but it might help someone manage a larger site until a workflow process is implemented in the core.
Here's the thread about the block:http://www.concrete5.org/private/features/approve-pages-task-on-das...
Here's the block that I use for now and a thread about workflow I created a while ago:
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/block_requests/workflow-a...
It's not a full solution, but it might help someone manage a larger site until a workflow process is implemented in the core.
Here's the thread about the block:http://www.concrete5.org/private/features/approve-pages-task-on-das...
Here's the block that I use for now and a thread about workflow I created a while ago:
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/block_requests/workflow-a...
BTW 5.4's page search lets you search by pages that have unapproved versions as well.
I had made a basic start on this, but Franz mentioned that they got an offer to develop something similar for Clear which might get released, so I just held off on developing it any further. Not sure where they are on it.
it sounds like you're looking more for an admin report of any page with pending edits that haven't been approved?