What do you/your clients need out of a CMS?

[Fungus1487]

Ok short of re-inventing the wheel here i wanna know if there are any features you would like to see implemented in a CMS that perhaps you havent seen elsewhere. I have a final year project to undertake and aswell as this being useful for myself and my own clients i thought maybe there are developers out there who could benefit aswell. I was looking into something along the lines of cushy CMS if anyone has seen it. It appears to be a non destructive CMS using css classes to define areas of content editable to a given user. But asides from this are there any features no matter how estranged :D that anybody could find useful?

Thanks for anybody taking the time to give some feedback.

[ronniestamps]

I currently use Joomla 1.0.15 and have played with 1.5. One thing that I think might be beneficial would be a middle ground, if you will, between the front-end and back-end. Like a pseudo back-end. e.g. a back-end that is not only limited by permissions but actually limited by what is actually visible. I have a site that I am implementing that is getting more and more complex by the moment and am needing more help on all levels. However, one thing that is slowing progress is having to educate my help on what functions to use and what functions to ignore. So basically, a back-end user interface that is equal to the permissions of the actual user. I hope this makes sense and that it helps your challenge.

[Fungus1487]

so are we talking back end as in direct editing of the sites scripting language such as asp.net or such as you mention functions? or are we simply talking allowing permissions for specific editing of specific areas e.g. user 1 can edit news but user 2 cannot?

Thanks again for giving your ideas its really appreciated.

[ronniestamps]

Back-end as a user logs in to the admin section and has full access to all areas of the CMS... modules, components, bots, etc. I'm proposing to have users login to admin section and have visible access only to areas they have permission to modify. For example, one the users I have helping me with my site is doing database structure, but I don't want him to even see, let alone have access to installing/de-installing or modifying components that have nothing to do with database management. I taught him how to manage the database and a few other tasks, but I DO NOT want him to be confused by a bunch of other aspects that I do not want him to even have access to. As it stands right now, I trust him to work on the database, but am worried that he will inadvertently change an option or such that will cause me hours of headaches and wasted time. I'm thinking something along the lines of a super-administrator (me) that can select which areas of the CMS's back-end that other users can access. Like... various levels of selectable security clearance instead of just Owner/Group/Public style permissions.

[Fungus1487]

i see what you mean.

thanks its now on my list!

[effu]

Some basics that most clients request are...
- Add pages easily
- add/update parent menu/child menu/grandchild menu
- Edit page conent (flash and html) with WYSIWIG editor OR HTML
- Add/mange images easily
- Manage contact form submissions
- Mailing list management
- Product management (if e-commerce)
- descriptions
- including images
- pricing, shipping, etc...

- Easily upgradeable to add new features
- random testimonial on each page
- image gallery (random photos on each page)
- seasonal skin selector for the site
- video gallery
- audio/video testimonials
- use your imagination

[Fungus1487]

cheers daedal for the help. Hope more people can comment.

[ducdeeze]

I use Drupal, and although it does just about everything under the sun, even if it's through modules, some of it requires a lot of effort, or doesn't work very well. Some things I would like to see out of the box are:

• Mailing Lists
• File upload, as an attachment to a page/post, but also as an independent upload
• Simple Document Management (goes with file upload)

A good example of a really well done CMS is NearTime (http://www.near-time.net). It's not free, but they have a trial version if you want to check it out. I don't use it personally, but tried it to see what it was like. Very cool.