http://kamik.ca/

This was a tight deadline, crazy build.   This site, which features the products made by the Canadian boot brand Kamik, uses PrestaShop and WordPress to power it.   I thankfully didn’t have to slice the templates myself, however I did have to wait for a 3rd party contractor to hand them over in HTML format.    Thankfully I had some great people on hand to enter the product catalogue.   I also knew there would be last minute revisions, so I decided to avoid PrestaShop’s built in template system (as I’d have to rewrite them), and roll my own.   In this was I managed to be able to drop in the HTML templates as is (or with very minimal modifications).

In order to pull in all the content that was being entered, I used PrestaShop’s RESTful API.   This allowed me to pull in all the products (minus a lot of garbage) into a leaner and better indexed copy of the database.   PrestaShop lacked the ability to filter and catalogue the site in the manner that was requested, so this was a must.

So first you might ask what is CouchDB and why would you want to build a CMS with it?

Well, If you haven’t heard of CouchDB, it’s a different kind of database then what you might be used to.   It’s not a RDMS (relational database management system).   It doesn’t use SQL.   CouchDB uses a RESTful interface and is created to handle, more then anything, content.   It’s ideal for many reasons for building the base for a CMS, and can (with some tweaking) even act as a CMS itself.   Rather then SQL, you can handle your content with JSON formatted data, which it will accept, no questions asked (with some very minor requirements).   For me, this is an ideal scenario.   A CMS should be able to handle data in a very flexible format.   Not all pages or templates are created equally.   Although the general look & feel of a site should stay consistent, there’s always special features (and therefor special bits of content) that you’ll want on certain pages.   There are of course others ‘NoSQL’ database systems out there, but I prefer this one – it’s made by Apache (whom I trust), and doesn’t require any special libraries or add-ons to start working with it.   It’s all done HTTP which I can get to from just about any system with a some kind of Net library, or even Curl.

I’m an Ubuntu guy these days, it’s popular and well supported.   I also like the easy to use package manager.   If you’re looking to give CouchDB a try, Apache has a great minimal tutorial on it.

http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Installing_on_Ubuntu

So, what can you do about it as a developer? Make sure you’ve got tons of time to test, test and test again – and don’t forget a single OS or browser in the process. Everything from differences between Windows XP to Windows 7 and OS X – you can’t expect IE, Firefox or Chrome to behave the same way on these operating systems.

As a client, make sure you’ve got all the features you’ll want sorted out before development begins. Talk it through with a experienced developer. There are many issues that can be avoided if things flow the right way. Keep in mind there are 2 ways for your app to appear on Facebook, on your wall page, and on the application page itself. The application page has more room to put content into, and fewer technical issues. If you have to keep your application on your wall, make sure you’ve got a lead in screen – an area where the user can accept the Facebook permissions, before you actually get to your app.

www.thegridto.com

A YEWP site.   That is, Yet Another Word Press site.   After building CMS applications for years I’ve wound up with more work building in WP then most things.   I played a key role in getting this site to launch on time, with last minute changes.   The classifieds system was built with options for Paypal integration and full featured administrative options.

50plus.com

This site sat in a sad cold, difficult to use, Cold Fusion powered system, with denormalized Microsoft SQL database, mismatched columns and a very confusing interface for editors to use.   Denormalization has it’s place, and this was not it.

Taking the heap of 10,000+ posts, with disparate content encoding types and zero documentation on it’s inner workings was a real challenge.

It was rebuilt strong and stable into WordPress with specialized custom made plug-ins to allow editors to control article positioning and scheduling, pagination, and fine grained ad targeting.

Urb Ops is a turn based strategy game that uses a mash-up of Foursqaure, Facebook/Twitter and Google Maps.

It was built with a minimal lightweight custom MVC for speed and  response time (in expectation of a large user base).   The gaming engine and core UI experience was developed using jQuery and OOP Javascript code.

This CMS, built for my client Broadwave Studios features easy to create XSL/XHTML mashup templates (just add ‘editable’ to your class name in your XSL and you’ve got a new editable area).  Inner node values get replaced automatically with any content put into the CMS. Multiple menus system, data collection (for contact forms, email subscriptions), and repeatable regions (keep adding nicely formatted content areas to your page without resorting to crazy HTML mark up in your web editor).

However, it has evolved over time to include many features which were not planned on.   This is the nature of many applications.   As much effort as anyone can put into planning and developing a system, there are always unexpected developments that are difficult to implement without a complete rebuild.   And rebuilds can create more issues then they solve when it comes to upgrading existing systems.   With 1000′s of sites using the same software, if you want to keep your customer base, there are times when you have to make some sacrifices.

WordPress has become one of the most widely used system for building websites, it is well documented and has many (many!) users, support forums and articles relating to it.   The number of free and open source plugins available for it can turn daunting tasks into quick installs.  But beware, those plugins can also wreak havoc, especially for the non tech savvy users.

Having built custom plugins for WordPress to suite client requirements,  and stretching it to it’s limits (large scale sites with 1000′s of posts), I’m still impressed with the amount of customization that’s available for it (despite it’s many drawbacks) and I continue to work with it despite it’s drawbacks and frustrations.   The demand is high, and I’m always up for a challenge.

If you need to put a simple site together with minimal effort and skill, it’s a very stable, and flexible choice.  Also, training clients on how to use it can be as simple as pointing then at one of many many Youtube video tutorials, or a quick sit down to go over the basics.