DeployCMS

Latest on Beta Program

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:19:11 +0100

We just wanted to keep people up to date with the beta program. In the last few days we have been overwhelmed with requests from interested parties wanting to be the first to try out DeployCMS. We promise we will get back to all that have applied in time, so please sit tight!

Thanks again to all that have applied, it’s great that DeployCMS has generated so much interest in such a short time!

Live at Last!

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:28:00 +0100

It’s been a long time coming but we are pleased to announce the launch of our brand new website! (or at least most of it!)

We are still in Beta and will be until the end of September when we will finally open our doors to everyone. In the interim we will be launching a host of new features and information on both the main site and the members area incrementally over the coming weeks, so check the blog (and the twitter feed) for announcements as they happen.

Thanks again to all our Beta testers who have helped so far, if you haven’t already received an email with your login details, you will shortly. We still have a few places left if you are interested in having a look at what DeployCMS has to offer, just drop us a line on our Beta Enquiry form.

We would love to hear feedback on the site, good or bad!, so feel free to leave a comment here on the blog or contact us directly.

Beta Testers...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:18:00 +0100

We would firstly like to thank all those that have come forward and expressed an interest in helping us test DeployCMS. We have been hard at work on Deploy for some months and it’s nice to see so much interest in it already!

We are rapidly approaching the launch of the first version and in the lead up will be recruiting people who are interested in testing Deploy. Whilst we are primarily looking for other developers and designers, we are happy to include people from non-Web backgrounds in the program. If you are interested, just drop us an email at beta@deploycms.com or fill in the Beta application form on the website (please note that we only have a limited number of places however - sorry!).

Thanks again to all that have been in touch - all your feedback is greatly appreciated.

More updates to come soon, but in the meantime please feel free to drop us a line, follow us or try the demos…

UI Changes

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:49:00 +0100

Currently I’m rewriting the DeployCMS User Interface (UI). The first and current attempt was hastily put in place to accommodate the first round of beta testing and has significant room for improvement. Here are some highlights from the next release.

Dockable toolbar/window

One of the first changes that we’ve made is the addition of a floating tool window when editing; an early version of this is in the current demo. Previously the page editing toolbar was fixed at the top of the page - without enough time to think about it we just followed the current conventions, but we soon discovered there are some real issues with a fixed toolbar, such as:

Lots of up and down motion
The floating tool window can be positioned next to what you’re editing.
Usually you’ve got more screen width than height
Modern monitors are typically widescreen, 16:9 display ratios are commonplace, but site designs tend to err on the side of caution and stick to 1240 pixels in width or less. The floating tool window allows you to keep the maximum amount of content on the screen whilst editing.
Poor ergonomic design
The most common complaint we got from users of the last release was how easy it was to accidentally trigger the menus above the toolbar when trying to select a tool icon - I have to admit it annoyed me at times too.

So the new UI has a ToolWindow class which supports for both a floating tool window, and a dockable toolbar, which can be docked to any side of the screen.

Preserved state modals

The modal environment has bothered me since the first release of Deploy. There were some really cool features, but mostly I felt that we’d made too many mistakes in the interaction design (not helped by the rush to release). “It feels clunky” is a phrase I’ve heard far too many times from early users. This time around, with almost 12 months of feedback, we’ve made big changes.

The lazy developer side of me (a significant portion) really appreciates the way modals can simplify my coding task. Using modals allows me to only worry about handling one interaction at a time - great!

But it’s a bit of a raw deal for users. I’m going to use a real world example (slightly exaggerated perhaps) to illustrate a key issue with modals.

When adding a product, our user - we’ll call him Joe, after entering several fields of data, comes to a category field and realises that he hasn’t yet added the category he needs to place the product within, so what are his options?

Worst case - Joe cancels the add product process, adds his category, and starts the add product process again.
Worst case (smarter user) - Joe puts the product into another category, finishes adding his product, adds the right category, and updates his product with the new category. This way at least he doesn’t lose any of the data he’s entered.
A solution in somecases - For simple cases we can give Joe the option to add a category or select an existing one; for example if the associated category record only needs a name and perhaps a publish flag which we can auto set.
An all cases solution (that’s a little clunky) - We can add a button to our form that allows Joe to open a new window in which he can add an associated category including lots of details such as an image, description, parent category, etc. On closing the window we update the add product form to include the new category as an option.
A better solution - we give Joe more options. The quick add solution is great if that’s all you need. If not, then Joe needs to be able to add a category in another window and return to the add form afterwards. On top of this, DeployCMS will now allow Joe to leave the Add Product form and do whatever he wants, safe in the knowledge that when he returns to add his product all his data will still be there.

Leading on from this, DeployCMS now uses tabbed modal windows, (a bit like what you see on the XBOX 360 dashboard when you bring up the settings dialog) to allow quick access to related admin tasks.

Quick modals

Quick modals replace the standard modals you currently see when inserting links, or performing a copy & paste. The problem with the current solution is that it halts the work flow, forcing you to wait for a form to show in the center of the screen, before you can then fill it in and click the OK or cancel button.

To solve this, we now have a mode called quick modal. Quick modals appear instantly and in context (e.g. next to the text you’re applying a link to). There’s no OK or Cancel button to click, you just press Return to apply your changes or Escape to cancel them. You can also cancel by clicking anywhere outside the modal itself.

Multiple column forms

Back on the Width Vs. Height issue, since we typically have more width, the new UI now allows developers to build multi-column forms for the admin (fieldsets are optionally assigned to columns). Dual/Triple column forms mean less scrolling which is definately a good thing, though if you do use multiple column forms it’s far better to avoid scroll bars altogether.

Drag’n'drop for editable elements

Sat, 08 May 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Development of the new client-side editable interface has moved on a big step this week, as a fully working prototype of the new drag’n’drop system reached completion. The prototype only allows for drag’n’drop integration between text, images, lists, and list items; but handles sufficiently complex interactions to prove that the new code base is a both capable and a big improvement.

Unlike the previous editable environment which only supported for the drag’n’drop placement of images and movies, the new environment, which was designed with drag’n’drop support in mind from the outset, allows any element to be dragged and dropped elsewhere on the page. Elements can even be moved into other editable collections (previously known as regions), ideal for web designs with multi-column layouts.

There are other improvements too, alignment of images and movies is now part of the drag’n’drop process, previously to align an image or movie you clicked a button to align it right, then you dragged it to it’s new position. The new environment allows you to determine the alignment based on where you drop the image or movie your dragging, so by dropping it on the right edge of a text element the image or movie will automatically align itself to the right of the text.

Finally, I just want to mention extensibility - it’s now much easier to develop your own editable elements and define how they interact with other elements. A new set of editable functions has been created which allow developers to define the behaviour of any editable element class when it is interacting with other elements. The functions are;

defineConverter(fromClass, toClass, behaviour)
defineDropper(dragClass, dropClass, dragBehaviour, dropBehaviour)
defineMerger(mergeClass, withClass, behaviour)

With these 3 functions it is now possible to implement even the most complex element interactions in a complete safe way.

Where the DeployCMS project started...

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Hi, my name is Anthony Blackshaw, I’m a director at Getme Web Solutions Ltd. in the UK, and one of the founding developers of DeployCMS.

My initial involvement in the DeployCMS project arose out of discussions I had with Nick Snell at Orpo (another founding developer) about a CMS framework I was developing early 2009 called Lupin. Nick worked with me on Lupin almost from the start, initially in a consultancy capacity and later on he developed some of the core Python libraries including the caching code.

In August 2009, Getme produced its first commercial website with Lupin. In the same month I attended a conference in Birmingham, UK with Nick. At a lunch break during the conference we went for a drink at a nearby bar, and on returning to the conference we found ourselves locked out with no one in sight of the entrance (not that it gave me a complex or anything). Finding ourselves in this predicament we returned to the bar and the topic of conversation turned to the little CMS framework Nick and myself were working on. We discussed what we liked about Lupin and what we didn’t like; even then it was obvious that Lupin wasn’t a complete system, it had lots of flaws that were inherent in its initial design. In particular it was too tightly coupled to one database wrapper, one template language, one Web server. But still, it was our preference over everything else we had access to, it had a small code base, was lightning fast, and most importantly was friendly to both developers and users.

So over a few drinks we ripped our own project, our 8 months of effort, to shreds in terms of what was wrong with it. When we were done there was still so much we liked about this little CMS framework, and so DeployCMS was born.

We decided to start from scratch; a complete re-write from the ground up, using Lupin as a guide to what needed to be changed and what already worked. Our roles changed a little; Nick became the lead Python developer, and for my sins I am now the lead JavaScript developer, though the roles aren’t strict of course.

So where are we 8 months later… well we’re behind or not quite finished which of course is the same thing, but we are close, and with over 30 commercial clients using the beta version of DeployCMS already we’re very happy with initial feedback. Over the next few weeks as we refine DeployCMS ready for launch we’ll be posting a lot more information about the project, its features, and progress.

Nick’s likely to post about the Deploy framework itself and the new DeployCMS website, as the Python code for DeployCMS is now at the final stages. I’m working on graphics for the default skin of the editor’s user interface and visuals for the DeployCMS website itself, and also currently finishing the page content editor so I’ll be posting some images and videos of the editing environment and discussing some of the cool features it offers.

So, what is DeployCMS?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

DeployCMS is the simple, easy to use Website builder. Choose your domain and have your own hosted website complete with a state-of-the-art content management system in minutes with no setup fees and all for a low monthly cost.

What you see IS what you get….

The unique Deploy Content Management system (CMS) is unlike traditional WYSIWYG; all content editing is done “in page”, using a familiar word processor like interface, so you can see how your changes look instantly.

Made to Last

The DeployCMS architecture is built to handle everything from the smallest ‘brochure website’ to E-Commerce sites to ‘Blogs’ to large, content-heavy websites. Built on top of Amazon’s AWS Cloud, DeployCMS can grow with your website.

Agencies & Designers

If you’re a web agency or a freelance designer, Deploy offers a “White-label” reseller option with discounts for bulk sales. Design your own DeployCMS theme for your sites and manage all your websites from one central location.

Developers

For those who like to get their hands dirty, Deploy offers an advanced plugin API to create your own features for your websites or extend the CMS to suit your own needs. You also have the option to sell your plugins to other Deploy users via our DeployCMS Marketplace.