I am currently writing a creative brief for the perfect CMS. Everything from SEO to Design flexibility. Name some things that you think the perfect CMS would have.
lol. Well so far I have almost every possible SEO setting for full control- much like ModX, a lot of the set up is similar to Joomla, then the blogging power/ease of Wordpress....I am going to create a uber hybrid CMS. I will give it away for free when it's done, so if anyone wants it - make a feature known now while im planning.
could the CMS have the feature of copyscape inbuilt in it? that way when we create the content itself we get to know if we are trespassing proprietory rights nywhere?
ahhh, nice touch, anything else? I was also thinking maybe something that would take advantadge of SEOmoz's new open site explorer and their API....
I think for now I will keep the CMS so that you can build on top of it as well...so if you wanted ecommerce you would only need to write a plugin/component/module...im leaning on making it with the power of joomla, the bloggin capability of wordpress and the flexibility of a static site...templating and everything as well
Agreed You'd want it to have multiple interfaces, so that you could tune the interface to match the competence of the user (from simple drag and drop, to HTML/script/CSS editing), and avoid freaking people out (or putting them off) by opening up too many possibilities/options/settings to those who don't necessarily need them.
OK, I have taken suggestions as well as my own needs and I plan on building this system....making it open source of course.... Overview: The CMS should be similar in function to Wordpress or Joomla, but it should be 100% custom. It should have the ability to use templates or plug different designs into it easily. It should be very SEO friendly and allow for complete customization of all parts of the site- everything from URL's to widget/module positions. The code should be clean and not bloated. The design should be very attractive. We should be able to upload the clients logo and have it display in the top left corner. In the top right corner should be a help button that they can click and go to an area with a help section. The CMS should have an installer so that all we have to do is upload the contents of the CMS, enter DB details and it will create all tables and whatever else. NOTE: The code to the CMS should be commented VERY WELL. It should also have a thorough documentation/manual. That way if we choose to have things added to it in the future any programmer would know how to do it. Design Requirements: Clean Design for the User Interface with use of Icons Example (just click login – you dont need a password or anything): http://www.webgurus.biz/adminskin2/dashboard.html# http://ponjoh.s3.amazonaws.com/HTML Templates/Simpla Admin/login.html The design will be based on the complete layout of the CMS. It should consist of these parts (detailed description below the list): Dash Board – Will contain an overview of all the sections and system messages Content – Should contain all things related to the articles, pages, posts, etc. Modules – Should contain areas that we can edit and insert widgets. Media – Will contain everything from images to videos. Like the way Joomla is set up. Analytics – Should contain all reporting information from traffic logs to Google Analytics and also the ability to track rankings (you can use this script to do that: http://www.darrinward.com/Ranking-Reporter/) News Letter – should contain the section to manage news letter and subscriptions Users – should control front end and backend users and priviledges. I would like to keep the all tables organized using flexigrid plugin for jquery- http://www.flexigrid.info/ Settings – all settings of the site, from the URL's to the design of the template Each tab should have a sub menu for each item under that section (example): I would prefer if that sub menu be a drop down menu instead of tabs. A WYSIWYG editor like Tiny MCE for the text editor for the content: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php Section for logging out and user details and a message icon, like this: Functionality (by section): Dash Board: Overview of the Analytics (Google Analytics & Quantcast) List of logged in users System Messages New comments awaiting approval Link Tool that shows new links and allows for competitive research of other sites links using SEOmoz's open site explorer API Overview of content (see image below) Content: Should list all posts and pages in order of last published, like these (see image below): Or like this: There should be a drop down menu from the article manager button for: Add New Posts Add New Pages Categories – add or edit Menu Manager (exactly like Joomla) Copyscape like plugin that tells you if your content is considered Each post/page should have individuals settings to control the URL, Meta Description, Page Title, Robots .TXT and status (published or draft). See the image below: It should also have a check box to include the page/post in the menu or not. Like Joomla. There should be a section for the canonical URL – see http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/canonical-link-tag/ Modules: This area will be like the widget section of wordpress with the added option to control what pages and posts the widgets appear on- similar to the way Joomla allows you to publish modules only on certain pages. Ability to add Widgets whenever we want. Stock widgets that come as part of the system like “text area widgetâ€, “calenderâ€, “search form widgetâ€, etc. Each widget will have it's own settings (see the image below) like Joomla: There should be a drop down menu for: Add New Widget Widget Manager/Module Manager Media: This area should contain everything for uploading and managing assets, like images, videos, etc. Analytics: This area should have all analytical information like Google Analytics & Quantcast. Pretty much set up the same way it would be if you went to google analytics and logged in. Newsletter: This area should be a separate area for managing the newsletter and emails. It should have a tab for templates. It should pretty much be identical in functionality to RSMail from RsJoomla.com (see image below): Users: This area should be used to add, delete, manage and set roles for all users. There should be an area for different roles, for example, if a admin logs in he can see everything, if a “subscriber†logs in he can only see certain things, which we will choose later. I would like to keep the all tables organized using flexigrid plugin for jquery- http://www.flexigrid.info/ Client Login: This area should be used for clients to check out the progress of their site, project, etc. It should also be used to pay invoices and submit support tickets. Settings: Every possible setting available for the CMS. Like, what kind of URL's will be created on default via htaccess. So, if we set it so that it went by the postname, the urls would be whatever.com/postname.html or if we set it so that the URLs go by category then postname, the default URL would be mysite.com/category/postname.html. These parameters will be able to be over ridden via the URL tab in the article/content section. Default Image settings Robots.txt control Template/design settings Comment Settings Template Area: This area should be used within the settings as a seperate tab, we can control the theme and its options through this section. I actually wrote this to our programmer/designer so if it seems a little odd, then that's why
for sure, see anything you would like it to include? or are you just trying to increase your posts? lol