Integrating CMS and Dreamweaver

[mikarmagsp]

Question: Is there CMS built into Dreamweaver CC or any Adobe CC programs? If not, suggestions?

A bit longer: I have a couple of clients that just want to do quick updates on their own and not have to submit website change requests to me. They have NO webdesign experience, which is why I built the sites. What they are looking for is a way to edit information quickly on their own and not have the pages negatively impact their SEO efforts.

Thanks in advance,

-Bill

[cdeatherage]

Explore something like CushyCMS, or Perch--there are one or two others whose names escape me at the moment. They allow you to create editable regions in your html that can be updated by others without breaking the code. Each gives the client something like a Word or WordPress interface that would be easy to use.

Chris

[BenPleysier]

This is the closest thing that Adobe comes to CMS Adobe Business Catalyst

Other possibilities are

• WordPress
• Drupal
• Joomla

or you could design your own

[B i r n o u]

nope DW doesn't integrate any CMS... (and that's really fine)... but you can work with DW and set

site > options du site > conseils de code spécifique au site as demonstrate in this video https://www.screencast.com/t/8DPQ6HL3

(sorry there is no sound)

and DW will autocomplete all the needed information concerning the CMS.

by default, DW integrate 3 type of predefine CMS (Joomla, Drupal and WordPress) but it's free to you to manually set any kind of CMS... The CMS Matrix - cmsmatrix.org - The Content Management Comparison Tool

concerning your clients needs and expectation... today you can use any page builder extension present in Wordpress (some are free, some needs a premium account)... but you can find piece as

• https://visualcomposer.io/
• Fusion Page Builder — Extensions WordPress
• https://wpbakery.com/
• and so on...

that is really helpfull because it allows your user to simply create well structured content, and respect your visual templates, fill up metadatas easly, staying accessible... well if the template is well done...

in the same way, you can also use different platform market, where you can also get (at a reasonable price) template with support... that way, your clients wont have to pay a higher price to get a great quality web site, being responsive, updated frequently, and easly maintainable

now back to DW, it become really easy for you to develop your own child template, personnal plug-in, and still let your clients play with the content

[Kratika Agarwal]

Hi,

You could log a Feature Request Go to  Help > Submit a bug/Feature request in DW.

Thanks

[pziecina]

My suggestion would probably be controversial to some, and would also depend on how many products or pages are involved.

If the site is for 5-10 products then you could use css regions, which would allow your clients to create the content for a page or list of products with only minimal understanding of html, (e.g the use of h1, p, and image file paths).

The way it works is that you create the page(s), and the content separately (different files), and css regions then flows the content into the position you the developer specify for it on the page.

Even though css regions is only supported by 2 browsers, a polyfill, (created by Adobe) does exist and works very well. For more info on css regions see -

https://webplatform.github.io/docs/tutorials/css-regions/

and

https://www.sarasoueidan.com/blog/css-regions-matter/

a demo of it being used with css grid layouts can be watched at -

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6r8YLaugyeo

[B i r n o u]

I agree and like your idea... I've made a tutorial on that one (I think I'd asked you to review it at that time, don't I ?)... but the only problem is that it imply that clients have an HTML editor , FTP settings, and as you said a basic (very basic) HTML knowledge... and that is not very often the case (compare to what WP workflows are)

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

... but the only problem is that it imply that clients have an HTML editor , FTP settings, and as you said a basic (very basic) HTML knowledge... and that is not very often the case (compare to what WP workflows are)

There is always a problem, but even with using cms solutions such as wordpress clients can very easily mess up a layout, making any solution a risk if they have no idea what they are doing.

css regions was to me one of Adobes better ideas, (along with css shapes) and i was sad at loosing the potential of its use when Chrome dropped it.

I think Googles decission was caused by their decission to drop support for the flash player on Android devices, and the subsequent disagreement with Adobe that that caused, (which became a very public disagreement at the time), another unfortunate consequence of that disagreement was Adobe becomming an inward looking company when it came too web development, and Dw was just one of it's web design/developer products that suffered from a lack of further development, (the Edge products and the Adobe web platform being others).

[B i r n o u]

well using visual composer (one from many others) is really usefull for helping non coders to add content in a template (so I mean the client of the developer)... have you ever use it ?

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

well using visual composer (one from many others) is really usefull for helping non coders to add content in a template (so I mean the client of the developer)... have you ever use it ?

Never tried it, the nature of the development i do often means that rtc and a forum like set-up for questions to be asked is more important than allowing someone to add content.

[B i r n o u]

the fact is that many client, ask you (at least my company) to set and develop a web site for them... then their appropriate services will fill up the content... until tools like visual composer, fusion, wp bakery and so on appears... (that are extension to WP), it was very complex for non initiate user to respect the structure, and the layout of the page... they was always entering new colors, new fonts, new anything that makes the web site quickly become unreadable... and far from the design concept.

now with those extensions... woaw... I just say woaw... at a minimum of training (2 hours)... person with a non coders profil... a non web creator... a non technical computer scientist... can respect a content strategy and write tons of articles/post/testimonials/gallery and son on... easly... and smoothly....

well... if the person has no feeling for composing... it will be harder ... but it is amazing how the result is really fast and correct...

you should give it a try... just to see how it is powerfull and so reall well think

[pziecina]

I don't want to give offence to doctors, nurses, engineers and technicians, but I've found after years of working with them, that if you tell them not to do something, sooner or later one of them will do it.

Maybe I should just set up a seperate 'play' site for them, so that they can do what they have been told not to do

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

I don't want to give offence to doctors, nurses, engineers and technicians, but I've found after years of working with them, that if you tell them not to do something, sooner or later one of them will do it.

Maybe I should just set up a seperate 'play' site for them, so that they can do what they have been told not to do

Bought a  stethoscope today and a 2 hours training video on open heart surgery..............starting new job tomorrow.

The whole concept of the web has evolved into complete madness these days.

[B i r n o u]

the metaphor you use, would rather compare to the work that is incumbent upon us and not that of our clients ...

today we do not ask our customers to create the templates, its structure and the architecture of the site .. we are here to help them and if we use wordpress as framework, they will then only fill the content ...

and to stay in the base of metaphor with a stethoscope ...

say we take a stethoscope and in two hours training we can learn to read the blood pressure, listen to the breath during a breathlessness, understand the cardiac rhythm ... but that's enought to assume a daily control without having to run to the medical center every day

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

the metaphor you use, would rather compare to the work that is incumbent upon us and not that of our clients ...

I prefer clients stick to what they are trained to do in a professional capacity.

If I wanted a house built I would most likely consult a qualified builder as a house with solid foundattions would be a priority. If I wanted a garden wall built I might well attempt to build that myself,  if it falls down, who really cares.

Personally I view a clients website as 'priority' if they are concerned about the image they convey to the users of their website. Unfortunatley a lot of clients don't view their website as a serious priority and as a concequence left in their hands it soon deteriorates, no matter how hard you try and bolt the input of content down.

For instance I create websites for companies that offer holidays. Each holiday is acommpanied by a set of images. I give access to the client to add these images to accompany the itinerary each time they add a new one, which creates a pleasing visual presentation for their users. As a fall-back I also have a selection of 'placeholder' generic images so if the client does not provide the images these are subsituted instead. These fall-back images are meant to be used sparingly, if no other images can be sourced. Initailly when the website was first launched it was me who inserted the itineraries, sourced, cropped the images and made sure the presentation was one which would provide a pleasing experience for the user. 6 months down the road and now soley in the hands of the client - guess what, the client can't be bothered to soucre any images, so now the website is full of repetative 'placeholder' images, not visually great for the users of the website, who are looking to buy a holiday.

Weeks of hard work on my part down the drain, because the client for whatever reason doesn't seems to care. Most clients, when push comes to shove have more important priorities than looking after their website. If you want to spend weeks or months investing your engergy into building a website only for the client to destroy it in a matter of minutes then you're either mad or desperate for the money. I think in most cases the latter of the two is highly applicable and accurate.

[B i r n o u]

Well I'm not sur to get all the real bottom line of all that... so if I'm besid... please... never mind... and it is also true that everything depends on the type and profile of our customers. There are no binary rules out there.

as far as we are concerned, we have two types of customers,

1 - those who take a turnkey service, where everything is included, it is a package including the creation, the daily / weekly update and the annual follow-up ... we are directly in touch with the various services, or the communication team, and we manage the completeness of the fills and update

2 - a certain category of experts (experts in their field) and who wish more autonomy in the filling of their articles. For this we put in place a working procedure to give them the greatest latitude of choice and decisions on their own choice without jeopardizing the perenniality of their project

we have no authority on their choice, just advice and guidance. and in general, most of our projects, to not say all, are still on line and experts users do a great job of entreing freely, and in an autonomous way their content.

in some fairly complex cases, we have set up automatic tools to control the proper implementation of certain processes. and again... visual composer, fusion, wp bakery... depending on the project... are very friendly and good assistance

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

2 - a certain category of experts (experts in their field) and who wish more autonomy in the filling of their articles

I have no issue with clients writing their artilces and uploading them - but even that's not easy to nail down, especially when they choose to start writing the article in all uppercase letters and believe me some of my clients do just that. Not sure what I'm meant to do apart from disable ALL uppercase text in the text editor.

Then should clients be left to upload images, not really in my opinion, as most won't take the time and trouble to crop the image to show it at its best. Goodness knows what is likely to happen if you allow them access to a full pallete of colors.

I've seen, watched and experienced reasonably well designed websites, not just my own, slowly deteriorate over a period of time left in the hands of inexprienced clients. I can bake a cake, of sorts, it's not going to be that good though.

Fortunety I dont have much time left in this business - I think that's a bonus the way its all developing or should I say rapidly declining.

[Nancy OShea]

How does it handle copied & pasted formatted text from MS Word or Excel?

[B i r n o u]

nativaly, WP allows to copy/paste formated microsoft word.... but I don't think that we should teach our clients to use it...

what is microsoft structured (or styled) document...???

how does MS handle article, section, figure, aside, and so on... that's why I'm more involved in asking my clients to corrrectly understand the template structure that we choice and set... and respect this structure and architecture....

now when it is question of pure blogging , so then the copy paste from MS is not the problem, the problem is to then structure (read style) and write the content in MS.

Generally we develop an MS style specific to the needs of our customers that way we do not introduce bad surprises (as can be the case with underlining which places extras <div> for example), and it also allows us to manage quotes, notes, footnotes and so on.

we also add some plug-ins (persos) that allow to parse and sort all this when necessary... and encapsultae keyword and metatag in external JSON-LD.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

A backend CMS is not typically something you slap onto an existing static website.   It needs to be described in detail at the beginning of your projects so you can set-up the best possible framework, program what's required and bill the client accordingly.

The type of CMS you choose will depend on:

• Budget
• Client's requirements
• Ease of use
• Your coding skills
• Databases and programming languages on the server.

Perch, Joomla, Drupal and WordPress all require some skills with PHP & MySQL.   Business Catalyst is hosted on Adobe's servers.

If you've never built sites with these frameworks before, there is a learning curve.

Nancy

.

[B i r n o u]

sorry, I did not understand the question correctly, because I thought that the author knew PHP, and that his question was whether DW integrated a CMS to offer its customers (the customers of the author) a more flexible solution for updating the data ... look at the video I made, I show the autocomplete aspect for the WP framework ...