Razormedia CMS - Boardroom Project

[[-S|NiStEr_MiNd-]]

Why not just have the image files uploaded right into the MySQL database as a BLOB field. You can upload the binary code of the image and place it inside a field, so no actual image file exists on the server. Then you can call it back up using the database and a php file.

[RazoRmedia]

great idea guys, we have developed smaller scales of such systems for clients... but to be able to take something as broad as this and modify it for individual use would be great.
thats the plan mate. Hopefuly we can get something broad yet specialised for individual use

1. Have the main page (after first log in) display a list of the different "pages" to be edited... by recognizable names. Each page would then have the editing options already developed.
Hopefully, in a finished system, they would be able to add / edit and delete their own pages and link to each of them seperately.

2. Now addressing the picture problem... in the "add picture" section of editing, each picture on the page could be displayed with the option to "replace". That way, the user could see exactly where their new picture will go. I think if we, the designers, develop the initial layout, with original placement of pictures... that gives the clients enough room to change those pictures without messing up placement of content. (also set dimensions of the picture, so the user can't screw it up that way).
image and image placement is for a later date I think, at the moment, we need to concentrate on the basics. Your comments are noted for future reference though

If the user would like "additional" pictures, I think it would be suitable for them to contact us initially, have us add the picture to the layout the first time around. Then if they ever wanted to change the pic they could do it using the system.
theres no reason why they can't upload their own. I can limit the size of the image (both physically and in file size) so they're not uploading mammoth psd files or anything.

we've just started on this project and it will be template based rather than a broad multipurpose system but many of the same problems and solutions will apply.
excellent, you willing to lend a hand then ?

are you thinking of doing any text formatting within the input fields? I have spent today developing a rough system using javascript and CSS that emulates the sort of formatting you can do in posts at flashkit but utilising the IE only "document.selection.createRange().text" to allow the user to highlight portions of the text and apply formatting that way.
sounds good, I am very interested in this. If you are willing to share your work with us, I would love to incorporate some styling at this point. The IE only thing is a pain in the arse but I'm sure we can develop something similar with cross browser capabilities. Cheers av

I'm not big on the back end system, my partner takes care of that side of things, but I'm pretty good with the front end.
excellent, count you in then?

I've got an upload script I hashed together for a site a while back, if you'd like to see it. Rather than have clients use FTP, just use this upload script. It can't delete files, but it does check the file extension, type and file size
Already done mate, did you not check the example in the first post?

Why not just have the image files uploaded right into the MySQL database as a BLOB field. You can upload the binary code of the image and place it inside a field, so no actual image file exists on the server. Then you can call it back up using the database and a php file.
What benefits would this have rather than simply inserting an image from a directory?

Hopefully, in the end, you would be able to simply click 'insert image' and a popup will open the image library, clicking on an image then would insert the relevant code to display the image



There is a problem with the edit script enemem, my apologies, only a certain amount of chars can be passed using get therefore only the earlier edit boxes work, I'll sort this

[enemem]

razor, I'm going to be spending quite a few evenings next week working on my project (image gallery) that needs a CMS. Just wondered if we could join forces somehow so we can build on what's already there?

also: allowing rich-format text boxes, how about using Flash for that?

- n.

[Markp.com]

Woops! Didn't check the example propperly

Putting images in the database is a bad things, it will also bloat the database unnecessarily.

[RazoRmedia]

Originally posted by enemem
razor, I'm going to be spending quite a few evenings next week working on my project (image gallery) that needs a CMS. Just wondered if we could join forces somehow so we can build on what's already there?

also: allowing rich-format text boxes, how about using Flash for that?

- n.

no problem. I'm busy all weekend but I plan to do some next week. I'm in the UK and I'll pm you my email address and msn if you use it!?

We could use flash for rich text formatting, we'll have a discussion to find the best solution.

[aversion]

Originally posted by RazoRmedia
We could use flash for rich text formatting, we'll have a discussion to find the best solution.

following on from my earlier post, we have decided to use flash for content input, including limited text formatting (bold, italic, quote, list, etc), on our commercial project. It gets over that whole IE only thing and is, imho, a better solution than rich textboxes using DHTML.

we've been through a hundred ideas for this in the last 24 hours and flash seems to make the most sense. The ideal solution is to be able to use an export from MS word and parse it for all the crappy tags. This is the best solution for usability, you're not requiring the person entering content to have any knowledge of HTML or to have to reformat their content in a small text box in their browser. But it's simply not practical at the moment, parsing word content doesn't give you a consistent or stable result. Hence flash being the option chosen for our project.

I think there's a real gap in the market here, I know of large companies that are producing all their documents with CSS formatting and creating them in dreamweaver. This is ridiculous to me, dreamweaver is web development tool and using it for creating technical documents may work but it's certainly not what it was intended for and it's certain not an efficient use of resources.

if there was an application that allowed non web people to create documents and content in the fashion of word with CSS markup without all the bloat I think people would jump on it. Maybe this is what MM were trying to do with contribute, it comes closer but fails on several fronts. What people need is something that doesn't require web knowledge and doesn't generate crappy tags and structure like word, something that people could export files and simply upload them to a CMS system along with a style sheet. Something that people can use for general document creation, as these people are using dreamweaver for now, as well as for creating content intended for the web.

Ideally, and I'm sure companies like MS are looking at this right now, there should be an effective way of creating documents with logical stucture and formatting using CSS that can be used for internal, print and web use seamlessly.

anyhow, I think right now there is no reliable method of capturing formatting from external applications, so a limited system of formatting using a flash solution seems to be the best way for now.

?

[Markp.com]

Josh's text editor would/should be easy to use for an input program, or webpage.

I know he's real busy at the minute, so doubt he could help directly, I'm sure he could answer a few questions though

Have a play on his text editor though, its good. There's an FLA and MXP version at his site.

M

[enemem]

Originally posted by Markp.com
Josh's text editor would/should be easy to use for an input program, or webpage.

I know he's real busy at the minute, so doubt he could help directly, I'm sure he could answer a few questions though

Have a play on his text editor though, its good. There's an FLA and MXP version at his site.

M

Yeah, that does look like a great solution!

I am really wary of giving clients that much control over formatting of their content, after one of them decided to use the CMS to switch most of their homepage to 20pt bold italic text to give it 'more impact' (honestly)

More complicated idea: have a set of defined styles that they can choose from and that will apply a predefined format to the text (heading, bullets, etc)...

- n.

[RazoRmedia]

Originally posted by enemem
More complicated idea: have a set of defined styles that they can choose from and that will apply a predefined format to the text (heading, bullets, etc)...

- n.

I don't think that would be that complicated. the php could easily write 'class="largeBold"' when it generates the content pages.

If you have a style page the users can look at as a reference, values could easily be taken from the css

[aversion]

after further research it seems that a lot of people are using apps like this in their CMS. It has an advantage over flash or textboxes in that you can cut and paste text from word and retain the basic formatting.

you can knock your own together with simpler formatting if you want, but this seems to be the best idea, anything which means they can cut and paste from word has to be good.

they do only work in IE5.5+ though

[phantomflanflinger]

Richtextbox is very good but doesn't/(wouldn't?) have the server compatibility of Josh Dura's text editor. Simpler = compatible.

I was impressed that Josh Dura's little app can be dropped as a component straight into a swf. Just wondering: where does it store the content it creates if you're using it offline?

So, looks like that's the end of the Razormedia CMS. People will all just use an existing CMS insted of donating their time and effort. Not that mine would have been much use as I'm a designer/businessman and not a programmer.

[RazoRmedia]

Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
So, looks like that's the end of the Razormedia CMS. People will all just use an existing CMS insted of donating their time and effort. Not that mine would have been much use as I'm a designer/businessman and not a programmer.

not the end rob, this is a personal project and seems and I will still post here in case anyones interested in a free CMS.

[enemem]

Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
Richtextbox is very good but doesn't/(wouldn't?) have the server compatibility of Josh Dura's text editor. Simpler = compatible.

I was impressed that Josh Dura's little app can be dropped as a component straight into a swf. Just wondering: where does it store the content it creates if you're using it offline?

So, looks like that's the end of the Razormedia CMS. People will all just use an existing CMS insted of donating their time and effort. Not that mine would have been much use as I'm a designer/businessman and not a programmer.

not really dead - I don't think the rtf text input was part of the original plan. razor is still working on his + I on mine + discussing whether we can merge them somehow. Time is an issue + we haven't really worked out a scheme for collaborating but that's all. So I wouldn't give up hope just yet

As to using a CMS off-line, I still don't really see how that would work - and what would be the benefit over using it through a browser?

- n.

[phantomflanflinger]

Glad to hear you're still working on it Bruce.

If you download Josh's Dura's text editor fla and then export it to a swf on your computer, it remembers the text you have save into it, with no visible remote files.
Using more than one instance of the swf on your machine doesn't mean you have more than one set of files, hence they use a universal set. Just wondered.

[enemem]

Originally posted by phantomflanflinger
Glad to hear you're still working on it Bruce.

If you download Josh's Dura's text editor fla and then export it to a swf on your computer, it remembers the text you have save into it, with no visible remote files.
Using more than one instance of the swf on your machine doesn't mean you have more than one set of files, hence they use a universal set. Just wondered.

It probably uses a SharedObject to save data locally...

[phantomflanflinger]

It does. How can I get at this data, without using Flash?

[RazoRmedia]

check the fla or swf and see where its saving this shared object on your hard drive.

[phantomflanflinger]

Aw c'mon I've already tried that, I may not be Stewy from Family Guy, but I'm not that lame either.

The Save interface does:
saveFile = function () { if (saveFileTitle == undefined) {warningBox.setTitle("WARNING");warningBox.setMess age("No Save name defined, please type a value in.");warningBox.setActiveState(true);} else {var tmpArray = saveFileTitle.split(" ");saveFileTitleNoSpaces = tmpArray.join("");saveFileSO = SharedObject.getLocal(saveFileTitleNoSpaces, "/");saveFileSO.data.filename = saveFileTitleNoSpaces;saveFileSO.data.filedata = _parent.textIns_txt.htmlText;success = saveFileSO.flush();loadArray.push(saveFileTitleNoS paces);_parent.loadInterface.loadbox.setDataProvid er(loadArray);i = loadArray.join(",");loadArray.unique();loadBoxSO = SharedObject.getLocal("textEditorLoad", "/");loadBoxSO.data.loadData = i;success = loadBoxSO.flush();loadboxLength = _parent.loadInterface.loadbox.getLength()-1;_parent.loadInterface.loadbox.setSelectedIndex(l oadboxLength);_parent.organizeInterface.organizebo x.setDataProvider(loadArray);}};

It's a great component for putting text/HTML into Flash, but I wanted to do even more with it.

[RazoRmedia]

hmm, probably saves it somewhere in the program files/macromedia direcotry.

try saving some text saying something bizarre like 'rhrhrhrhrhrhx,jndjfnsdfjnhdjfhdjfbskjafweluifhyos difh' and then search for a file which contains that.

[phantomflanflinger]

Yep.

C:\Documents and Settings\Me\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\localhost
The files have a .sol extension. The 'advanced search' was ignoring the folder.

I've updated my profile, Bruce.