Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
13 posts by 7 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: April 25, 2012 (RSS)
By Mel - July 18, 2010
Hi everyone,
I am looking into ways of improving the workflow pattern and time spent updating multiple sites and would appreciate comments and suggestions on how to move forward on this
So at the present time my client has 6 sites, one of which is due to start construction shortly, of the other five 3 use CMS to provide data and the other 2 use databases designed by myself before I discovered the joys of CMS
1. Most of the products are more or less identical in copy content
2. Most of the products appear across all sites
3. Most sites use the same pictures with a different copyright added via paintshop pro for each site
Whilst the product line is not vast, as you can imagine it is very time consuming for the following resons:
Each product has up to ten pictures which for the most part are replicated across all of the sites
Each product picture needs to be saved with the sites copyright on then uploaded individually to each site
For each product the information details need to be entered up to six times
For each product for each site the page keywords may vary depending what is being targeted
In an ideal world it would be great if you did not have to manually copyright 60 indivual pictures to end up with 10 pictures for each site
If there is a way of solving this time consuming exercise, I have not found it yet
Is there a way of only having to enter the product information once but be able to use it on all six sites
I have toyed with the idea of using once central database to pull information from although I am not sure if you could do this with CMS
Also if information were being pulled from one central area my other concern would be the search engines and how they would percieve it
From a hosting standpoint I have a dedicated server and presently host all sites on the same server using 6 different domain names
So any thoughts comments or suggestions on a way forward on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks Mel
I am looking into ways of improving the workflow pattern and time spent updating multiple sites and would appreciate comments and suggestions on how to move forward on this
So at the present time my client has 6 sites, one of which is due to start construction shortly, of the other five 3 use CMS to provide data and the other 2 use databases designed by myself before I discovered the joys of CMS
1. Most of the products are more or less identical in copy content
2. Most of the products appear across all sites
3. Most sites use the same pictures with a different copyright added via paintshop pro for each site
Whilst the product line is not vast, as you can imagine it is very time consuming for the following resons:
Each product has up to ten pictures which for the most part are replicated across all of the sites
Each product picture needs to be saved with the sites copyright on then uploaded individually to each site
For each product the information details need to be entered up to six times
For each product for each site the page keywords may vary depending what is being targeted
In an ideal world it would be great if you did not have to manually copyright 60 indivual pictures to end up with 10 pictures for each site
If there is a way of solving this time consuming exercise, I have not found it yet
Is there a way of only having to enter the product information once but be able to use it on all six sites
I have toyed with the idea of using once central database to pull information from although I am not sure if you could do this with CMS
Also if information were being pulled from one central area my other concern would be the search engines and how they would percieve it
From a hosting standpoint I have a dedicated server and presently host all sites on the same server using 6 different domain names
So any thoughts comments or suggestions on a way forward on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks Mel
Re: [mel] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Chris - July 19, 2010
Hi Mel,
We have an Watermarking Plugin in development which could save you all your Paintshop Pro work -- it can be configured to automatically add an image to a corner of uploaded images. Uploading the same image to each of your sites would result in separately watermarked images if you set it up properly. :)
I'll check to see what our plans are for this plugin.
That's the only simple solution I can think of, everything else gets much more complicated.
You could run multiple sites off the same CMS Builder (but you'd need one license for each site.) The trick here would be in figuring out how to store the information so that you can have some things the same across your sites while other things are different.
The simplest approach might be to keep your Products section, but add Keywords fields for each of your sites (i.e. Keywords Site 1, Keywords Site 2, Keywords Site 3, etc.) If every product isn't to display on every site, you could either have checkboxes for whether or not they show up OR take an empty keywords field to mean that the product shouldn't show up on that site.
Search engines wouldn't know whether you were serving all your sites from the same database or not. They only see the content.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
We have an Watermarking Plugin in development which could save you all your Paintshop Pro work -- it can be configured to automatically add an image to a corner of uploaded images. Uploading the same image to each of your sites would result in separately watermarked images if you set it up properly. :)
I'll check to see what our plans are for this plugin.
That's the only simple solution I can think of, everything else gets much more complicated.
You could run multiple sites off the same CMS Builder (but you'd need one license for each site.) The trick here would be in figuring out how to store the information so that you can have some things the same across your sites while other things are different.
The simplest approach might be to keep your Products section, but add Keywords fields for each of your sites (i.e. Keywords Site 1, Keywords Site 2, Keywords Site 3, etc.) If every product isn't to display on every site, you could either have checkboxes for whether or not they show up OR take an empty keywords field to mean that the product shouldn't show up on that site.
Search engines wouldn't know whether you were serving all your sites from the same database or not. They only see the content.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Mel - July 19, 2010 - edited: July 19, 2010
Hi Mel,
We have an Watermarking Plugin in development which could save you all your Paintshop Pro work -- it can be configured to automatically add an image to a corner of uploaded images. Uploading the same image to each of your sites would result in separately watermarked images if you set it up properly. :)
I'll check to see what our plans are for this plugin.
That's the only simple solution I can think of, everything else gets much more complicated.
You could run multiple sites off the same CMS Builder (but you'd need one license for each site.) The trick here would be in figuring out how to store the information so that you can have some things the same across your sites while other things are different.
The simplest approach might be to keep your Products section, but add Keywords fields for each of your sites (i.e. Keywords Site 1, Keywords Site 2, Keywords Site 3, etc.) If every product isn't to display on every site, you could either have checkboxes for whether or not they show up OR take an empty keywords field to mean that the product shouldn't show up on that site.
Search engines wouldn't know whether you were serving all your sites from the same database or not. They only see the content.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Hi Chris thanks for the reply, plenty of food for thought here
So you could have multiple sites accessing the same CMS Builder which could in fact be a domain soley used for storing the information? or I suppose it could be one of the actual sites
No problem in paying to license each site (that is only fair), but would CMS need to be installed on each site to access the master database?
I am guessing here but I assume that the full pathway to the master site would need to be used rather than just
<?php
require_once
"/home/mels/public_html/cmsAdmin/lib/viewer_functions.php";
?>
How would this require statement be written to access the Master CMS Builder
All sites have individual domains but are hosted on a dedicated server under my control
Perhaps some sort of config file could be set up for each domain to call in the requires and css styles etc
Take your point about search engines regarding just seeing content
If the multiple sites were pulling record details from a master CMS Builder how would I get the images to match with the individual records if they were not on the Master CMS Builder database
Because:
If you were uploading images to each site and then getting the plugin to watermark the images how would you tie in the images with a specific product?
I can grasp the theory behind mutiple sites being fed by a master CMS Builder which will need some planning and thought when setting up the fields, but cant see how the images would tie in with individual records if they were being uploaded to the individual sites
Thanks Mel
Re: [mel] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Chris - July 19, 2010
Hi Mel,
No, you wouldn't want to install CMS Builder on each of the sites.
If all your sites are on the same server and share the same directory structure, you could run a single copy of CMS Builder from one location and have the other sites all require_once the same viewer_functions.php from their other domain directories. You'd need to decide where you want to run the single copy of CMS Builder from: it could either be in one of the sites or on a separate domain if you wanted.
Regarding the watermarked images, if you want to run this all off one CMS Builder, I guess you'd need a custom solution: you could dynamically watermark images on the way out of the system and add some caching to avoid wasted work. Please let me know if you're interested in having something like this built for you through our consulting department and I can write you up a quote.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
No, you wouldn't want to install CMS Builder on each of the sites.
If all your sites are on the same server and share the same directory structure, you could run a single copy of CMS Builder from one location and have the other sites all require_once the same viewer_functions.php from their other domain directories. You'd need to decide where you want to run the single copy of CMS Builder from: it could either be in one of the sites or on a separate domain if you wanted.
Regarding the watermarked images, if you want to run this all off one CMS Builder, I guess you'd need a custom solution: you could dynamically watermark images on the way out of the system and add some caching to avoid wasted work. Please let me know if you're interested in having something like this built for you through our consulting department and I can write you up a quote.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Codee - July 20, 2010
We have an Watermarking Plugin in development which could save you all your Paintshop Pro work -- it can be configured to automatically add an image to a corner of uploaded images. Uploading the same image to each of your sites would result in separately watermarked images if you set it up properly. :)
Where are you at on this watermarking plugin. I have a client that could use it NOW as we will have to go through the struggle written about, so it would be a terrific addon immediately. Is it going to appear as a check box feature,kind of like title, caption, etc. - so it could be turned on/off for any upload field?
Re: [equinox69] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Chris - July 20, 2010
Hi equinox69,
Well, it's still in development, but it does work and could be very useful. It can be turned on and off for different upload fields, and is currently configurable via a list of "rules" written into the plugin code. They look like this:
As it stands, I believe watermarks are applied to the original-size image, which means that thumbnails can get differently sized watermarks. This is something we're still sorting out.
We certainly can't provide any support for this plugin until we've properly released it, but if you're eager to purchase it ahead of time, send me a PM or email and I'll see what I can wrangle.
Well, it's still in development, but it does work and could be very useful. It can be turned on and off for different upload fields, and is currently configurable via a list of "rules" written into the plugin code. They look like this:
// You can add multiple watermarking rules to apply different images to different upload fields. Only the first rule which matches a field will be applied.
watermark_addRule(array(
'tables' => '', # Comma-separated list of table names to be watermarked. To apply this rule to all tables, leave blank or comment out this line.
'fields' => '', # Comma-separated list of upload field names to be watermarked. To apply this rule to all upload fields, leave blank or comment out this line.
'image' => 'images/logo.png', # url or filepath to watermarking image
'alpha' => 1, # Translucency: 1 = opaque, 0.5 = half-transparent
'hAlign' => 'right', # Horizontal Alignment: left, center, right
'vAlign' => 'bottom', # Vertical Alignment: top, middle, bottom
'hMargin' => 5, # Horizontal Margin: pixels left between left/right edge of image and watermark (n/a when hAlign=center)
'vMargin' => 5, # Vertical Margin: pixels left between top/bottom edge of image and watermark (n/a when vAlign=middle)
));As it stands, I believe watermarks are applied to the original-size image, which means that thumbnails can get differently sized watermarks. This is something we're still sorting out.
We certainly can't provide any support for this plugin until we've properly released it, but if you're eager to purchase it ahead of time, send me a PM or email and I'll see what I can wrangle.
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Mel - July 21, 2010
Hi Mel,
No, you wouldn't want to install CMS Builder on each of the sites.
If all your sites are on the same server and share the same directory structure, you could run a single copy of CMS Builder from one location and have the other sites all require_once the same viewer_functions.php from their other domain directories. You'd need to decide where you want to run the single copy of CMS Builder from: it could either be in one of the sites or on a separate domain if you wanted.
Regarding the watermarked images, if you want to run this all off one CMS Builder, I guess you'd need a custom solution: you could dynamically watermark images on the way out of the system and add some caching to avoid wasted work. Please let me know if you're interested in having something like this built for you through our consulting department and I can write you up a quote.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Hi Chris,
Yes would be interested in a quote for dynamically watermarking the images
Could this be done by combining a png image with the incoming image or outgoing image from the master site
What I would need the custom solution to do is
1. Allow me to specify the position of the watermark on the images
2. Be able to use different watermarks for the different domains and be able to amend the design of these when I needed to, hence my question about png image
In order to implement all of this I need to be sure that I can get the master site to interact with the other sites ,below is the require_once code that I am using on of of the pages on lets say the master site. What do I need to add to this to get another site to to view the information, in other words what needs to go in front of /home/esc110/etc/etc
<?php
require_once "/home/esc110/public_html/cmsAdmin/lib/viewer_functions.php";
list($biosRecords, $biosDetails) = getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'bios',
'perPage' => '10',
'orderBy' => 'view_order',
));
?>
Both the master site and test second site have CMS Builder licenses
Mel
Re: [mel] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Chris - July 22, 2010
Hi Mel,
You're definitely going to want to make sure you can get this working before you commission any custom software. :)
I noticed above that you had a different filepath: /home/mels/public_html/cmsAdmin/lib/viewer_functions.php
Assuming that "mels" is your master site, you'd want all your other sites to use the filepath to the "mels" CMSB too. Try that out and make sure it works.
I'll send you the quote via email.
You're definitely going to want to make sure you can get this working before you commission any custom software. :)
I noticed above that you had a different filepath: /home/mels/public_html/cmsAdmin/lib/viewer_functions.php
Assuming that "mels" is your master site, you'd want all your other sites to use the filepath to the "mels" CMSB too. Try that out and make sure it works.
I'll send you the quote via email.
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Joseph - January 10, 2011
Hi Chris
are there any updates on the watermarking plug in?
Joseph
are there any updates on the watermarking plug in?
Joseph
Re: [socanews] Comments & Suggestions Wanted Please
By Damon - January 13, 2011
Hi Joseph,
Chris has been away this week.
No update on the watermark plugin. We will post in the forum and the newsletter any updates. No time line for that right now.
Other plugins that have been released in the last few of months:
Outgoing SMS
GeCoder
and a number of other User Submitted plugins.
Chris has been away this week.
No update on the watermark plugin. We will post in the forum and the newsletter any updates. No time line for that right now.
Other plugins that have been released in the last few of months:
Outgoing SMS
GeCoder
and a number of other User Submitted plugins.
Cheers,
Damon Edis - interactivetools.com
Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/
Damon Edis - interactivetools.com
Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/