One step further into the  drag & drop AJAX cms adminstration we’re all looking for : Automne CMS, developped by french based WS Interactive company, implements block management via ext js library features, that come near to a full  drag and drop interface. The content is added in pages through a template based row system that  gives large flexibility over the final layout of the bloks within the page. Learning curve would typically require a few days work before a developer really gets into the multi template system.

http://www.automne.ws/web/fr/244-essayer-la-demo.php

See also

• JSP Based Riot CMS

Love going mobile but always worried about your servers? here comes iphone based linux monitoring, including SSH access ! The Server Remote Iphone (4$) application allows you to monitor multiple servers the easy way.

The expertise around Flash / Flex based CMS is building up a new area for content management. We haven’t had the pleasure to try out the software but the building of wysiwyg interfaces is a promising business, as long as the HTML and Search engine optimization features of pure text are guaranteed : this is where we’d like to know more about FlashMoto’s HTML publishing features, which uses the HTML version technique; meaning the flash based web site is also available as HTML for search engines and non flash browser. This technique is also used by Silex RIA, another Flash based CMS.

What distinguishes FlashMoto from a range of other flash content management systems is that it is the first Flash CMS based on ActionScript 3 and realized as RIA on Flex.   The websites powered by FlashMoto are controlled just like a standard CMS but with the extras that Flash offers.  FlashMoto provides a set of SEO tools what makes the Flash CMS website completely crawlable and seen by search engines.

Flash CMS from FlashMoto is characterized by a range of other features:
- ability to add unlimited number of pages;
- convenient WYSIWYG page and pop-up editor;
- rich media library;
- infomodule component;
- video and image gallery component;
- video and MP3 players component;
- deep linking and Google Analytics integration;
- comprehensive documentation and tutorials.

Fuzzle CMS is a promising Flash CMS delevoped by a group of Russian programmers. The system is claimed to be an extra easy way for creating Flash website thanks to visual content management. Note, Fuzzle’s website is also made with this CMS. Fuzzle brings you advantages of Flash and HTML in one system and affords you create and maintain your website’s content without knowing anything about programming. Flash web sites are differ from regular HTML sites mainly by their presentational abilities: Flash technology allows incorporating complex animations and reach multimedia content. However, Flash sites are considered to have such disadvantages as longer time of development (therefore more cost), harder updating, bad search engines ranking. Fuzzle is breaking these stereotypes!
Main Fuzzle features are: :
- multilinguality;
- simple management (convenient visual editing based on blocks placement and multiple selection of blocks );
- design integration from a draft within 5 minutes;;
- SEO support (HTML version auto generation, DeepLinking support);
- continuously replenished Widget Store availability;
- availability of an open simple API for external developers.

Making image galleries with Drupal is not an easy task : there a dozens of modules, views and block specifications out there. Here is a list of modules I’ve tested on 6.15

• Image tools
  • working with images in drupal is immediately enhanced with the imagecache module that allows administrators to predefine actions for uploaded images : crop, resize, grey, and can be extended

• Working with file upload
  • Content Construction Kit has the ability to load multiple files per content type, with the FileField type (can be extended to ImageField for imagecachje integration)
  • the fupload module does a good job but the interface is strange  : it requires you to go beyond the node editing form to update images titles for newly created image nodes.
  • itweak is a nice file attachment module that integrates attachments with all content types, using the core upload module
• Working with views
  • the views_cycle module uses views to format records to a jquery cycle plugin animation
• Displayin
  • LightBox
  • thickbox
• Other modules
  • Fast Gallery
  • Slide show Pro integration (flash)
• see also
  • revisiting galleries

I like gpEasy cms’ quick and easy interface : powered by jquery interactivity, gpeasy is full text cms that works without a database. It is in fact a set of includes that can be administered via privilege based backend that implements FCKEditor. Below is a sample of the drag and drop interface for pages ordering, a must.

Drupal’s new version (7) is in development and it features many improvements, most of them modules developped within the community. One of them is the Garland theme that allows customization of colors, enabling all theme variations including header shades. Another theme that works like that is the CTI flex theme, based on Zen, only available for drupal 6 as of now.

built as a small project, young but innovative, impress pages cms features inline editing with prototype powered drag and drop feature that allows easy building of pages with multiple components : rich text, simple text, html text, simple form builder, image gallery, amazing and promising ! Try it out on impresspages.org

The quote feature  is  an implementation of a shopping cart within prestashop framework, without the price : we have designed this feature for specific groups, for which we deactivate the price display on the shop.

• Deactivating price display for specific user group (below : group 2) is a long task that involves 2 different steps
  • in init.php : set the smarty variable around line 116
    1. $priceDisplayConfig = intval(Configuration::get(‘PS_PRICE_DISPLAY’));
    2. if($tmpCust->isMemberOfGroup(2)) $priceDisplayConfig = 3;

    And around line 155

    1. ‘priceDisplay’ => $priceDisplayConfig
  • use the smarty $priceDisplay variable in the templates to hide prices and change the “cart’ (panier in french) to “quote” (devis), example from homefeature.tpl
    1. {if $priceDisplay<3}{l s=‘Add to cart’ mod=‘homefeatured’}{else} Ajouter au devis {/if}
• Quote / Devis module and status :
  • Download and install the “devis” module Module Devis pour prestashop (279)
  • create the mails/devis.html and mail/devis.txt and change texts according to your business
  • create the order status “devis en cours” in BackOffice >> Orders >> statuses, check the created id (12 here) and add the following line to config.inc.php :
    1. define(‘_PS_OS_DEVIS_EN_COURS’, 12);
  • You can optionnally deactivate the order confirmation email in classes/PaymentModule.php, line 288-290, replace the send email to customer test by adding a new condition :
    1.         // Send an e-mail to customer
    2. if ($id_order_state != _PS_OS_ERROR_ AND $id_order_state != _PS_OS_CANCELED_ AND $customer->id
    3. AND $id_order_state != _PS_OS_DEVIS_EN_COURS)

Jquery §ui  and other libraries can allow you to build a modular web page. here is a list of interactive  layout solutions

• Jquery portlets
  http://host.sonspring.com/portlets/
• domnodes
  http://www.domnodes.org/wp/?p=9
• Jpolite
  http://www.trilancer.com/jpolite2/