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Feb 2, 2010, 10:08 AM
Post #50 of 52
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Re: [Dave] Notice: Announce your new Article Manager websites here!
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I'm not sure people are going to want to post portfolio pieces in a forum that begins with the phrased "Discontinued Products".
It seems that was no effort made by Interactive Tools to inform developers who've been using/promoting this software since the early 2000s that their CMS of choice was about to become abandonware.
I found out when coming to the site to see what AM2 was retailing for these days. And to find out that only previous customers were able to buy AM2 makes it clear that no further updates are planned for the product beyond the current version.
It also seems clear that CMS builder has less functionality than Article Manager in key areas one would expect from a CMS.
For example, let's say on a homepage there were 5 headlines from a category in an HTML box. After a couple of updates, which involved longer headlines than normal, the user may wish to reduce the number of headlines to 4, in order that the HTML box doesn't leave white space on the other side of the page.
Can this be done by changing a simple value somewhere in the backend? It doesn't seem like it. It seems as if the code on the page would have to be changed. This is not a user-friendly, non-technical content management feature. If a client can't change the number of headlines without messing with page code, then we're back on dependence on the designer.
The Template add-ons that come with CMS Builder are only industry based. Realty, Auto and Listings? What about News sites? What about Visual Portfolio sites?
Why are basic functions such as backup and low disk space alert sold as Add-ons?
I am not sure why Article Manager was abandoned. Drupal is a clunky CMS that has all kinds of weird bugs that make article management frustrating. Wordpress is slick but configuring categories to do different things is not easy. There is still a niche that remains unfilled.
Article Manager just needed a few more key features to get it to the level where it had no competition. Specifically:
1. Offering alternative field types in the MyPlaceholders section of Admin (so instead of pasting text/HTML, one could upload a file that appears where the placeholder is put).
2. Having slightly clearer/centralized/indexed help available to navigate some of the harder-to-grasp issues like placeholder conflicts in the Publishing section.
3. Having at least one set of sample templates configured to work with common multimedia 3rd party plugins such as Slideshow Pro, Lightbox, the JW Player to make setup of sites even faster. Having a Google News XML sitemap pre-configured.
4. Building backup-to-hard-drive features into the admin interface so developers are less at the mercy of bad hosts, of which there are no shortage.
Compared to Article Manager, CMS Builder seems to be aimed at making it easy for a client to update a very basic website, but this trade-off doesn't allow for as much configuration at the developer end and appears to leave the client dependent on the developer for simple issues such as changing the number of headlines in a list.
Don't get me wrong. There are many worthwhile things about CMS Builder. It seems clear however, that it does not have and does not appear to be heading towards the customization depth of Article Manager 2, which your company developed for an entire decade! :-)
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