CMS Breakdown of Feature Tweaks that Really Need Implementing Before Gold
 

Over the last few days I went through the VB 4 Suggestions and Feedback forum looking over every little way to improve the CMS. In addition* I spoke to several webmaster I know who don’t regularly post here* looked around at how most CMS sites are structured* etc. Out of all of this* I spent a rather long time thinking about what is “necessary before gold”* “would be nice before gold”* and “can appear in a later 4.x version”. So* I’d like to run through that now :).

First right off the grill* the only absolutely necessary feature tweaks (yes* only tweaks) involve articles. Articles are* as is even plainly said in the admincp* primary content. As they are the only means of really producing content efficiently (and need to show up on every page whether we like it or not)* all the absolutely necessary before gold requests concern articles. I’ve done my best to ensure all the absolutely necessary items are actually feasible to put into place before Gold given the desire to get VB 4 into Gold ASAP. I worked very hard in picking only feature tweaks for the "must implement" that would actually heavily benefit everyone* not just me and my comrades..

Absolutely MUST be Implemented Before Gold Release:
1. Option to Hide Article Author and Creation Date: Again* as articles are the only means of producing content without having to create wacky layouts* static widgets* and even then still having articles appear anyway. We don’t all run news websites* and even for news sites it’s rather poor to say have your Terms of Service with “Written by Blah Blah” up.

2. Option to Display Full Article (in other words* disable preview): What if I want to have that above-mentioned “Terms of Service” page. Because it’s far too much work to make a static html widget to display on one page (having to change the layout) and articles still showing up anyway* I’d much rather just write the article* choose it as the only article to appear in the listing via the manual setting* and choose say “disable preview”. With this* an entire CMS page is created* and without the need to work long hours creating a static html page system (and if the preview was left on* all the images would be shrunken* text condensed* etc…not conducive to a good page). Another application* let’s say I have news on my homepage* but not all news is long enough to merit having a preview* so I’d rather just display the entire article without the preview formatting (without the shrunken picture* etc).

3. Option to NOT Pull Articles for display from Child Sections: Currently* a parent section will pull and display articles from all child sections without any simple means to turn it off. Currently* the only way to do so is to activate manual control for that section* and each time you create an article go in* run through your giant list of content* and manually place it in. For big sites* this just isn’t efficient or feasible. Let’s take everyone’s homepage for example* which is the parent of EVERY section on the CMS. If we just want to display* say site updates* this would require a huge amount of work just to get one article published. So* it’s really necessary to have the option to not pull articles from child sections; not all of us run news sites* and it’s just way too complicated to manually put an article in place (sorting through the giant list of your site content) EVERY TIME you post an update.

Tweaks that would be Nice in Gold* but DO NOT TAKE PRECEDENT over the Above Necessary Tweaks:
1. Article to Blog Post: Let's say someone posted an article* and they want to also put it in their blog. As of now* you can only transfer Blog to Article* and not Article to Blog. Would be nice to see this implemented.

2. Shared Asset Folders: Especially useful for the CMS. Say if I have media files I want to put it* but I want my staff to be able to manage them. Now* I was considering putting this in the later 4.x section* but I wasn't sure of how much coding would be involved (tweak or major overhaul). If it's too much* consider this a later 4.x feature :).

3. Option to remove View All Link: For sections where only one article is present (especially given the example in required features #2) would be nice to be able to remove that link.

Improvements More Suited for Later 4.x version:
1. Downloads Manager: Suggested by a large number of people* and it would actually be really useful. Some form of downloads database.

2. Form Builder: The ability to make custom forms to be filed out by end users* making use of radio boxes* checkboxes* required fields* etc. Form submissions should be given the option to be saved in the database* Emailed* or both.

Hopefully this is read* I know there are A LOT of suggestion threads flying around. I tried to condense the "required before gold" list to a few things I saw as absolutely necessary (as in* would benefit everyone* not just a handful of people) vs the few. The rest are fun suggestions.