I have someone who has asked me to design a website for him, but he wants to be able to edit sections of the site himself. This is always a nightmare, because people always want to do this!

I found this http://www.cushycms.com/ which appears to do exactly what I want. Would I be able to add this into code anywhere on a site created in VSD?

Without having looked at the cushycms I'm going to take a wild guess here and say no Janet. A CMS is a system and website all in itself so there's really nothing to add. Basically you set it up and it's a website and you go in and do all your changes through an admin panel instead of coding or doing visual setups. I would imagine it's like most any other CMS so I would have to say if you're thinking that would be what you need, go ahead and try it and see if that's what you want or not. VSD will always be there should you change your mind, and there will always be people that want that ability and the functionality that comes with CMS sites so it is a good idea to learn that setup too.

Jo Ann have a look at the site and the video. I think you might be surprised. I think it could work with VSD but maybe not the shopping cart type programs.

Janet why not test it out and see and let us know as it looks like a very useful tool.

Just was watching a good portion of the tutorial, but I'm so tired I'm missing half of it lol. I'll check it out some more tomorrow, because if it's a true CMS there isn't any need for VSD as it would be a complete site setup. This does look a bit different though so I'll let ya know tomorrow what my brain thinks on it lol.

After working with Joomla for almost 3 years it's hard to picture a CMS that integrates with anything else other than it's own modules, so it would be interesting to see something that does.

Hi, the fact that it is NOT a complete website system is why I chose it. It allows users to edit a section of an existing website, under a login and password. The video shows how! I just want to know if I can integrate it into VSD somehow.

If you want to add the CMS code into VSD use the html tool to place the cushycms code inside the VSD page. I don't see any reason you couldn't create a whole website using a CMS, making it LOOK like only part of a website, place the code into VSD, and then allow users to make changes. But YOU may need to update the code inside VSD each time they make a change. I'm not sure. You need to try it and see if it works, no one here can give you a "yes" or "no" answer that's for sure. But let us know how it goes! I would certainly be curious if it works or not :-)

If you can't figure this out and you want someone to do it FOR you, you could hire someone to figure out how to make the technology work and then show you how to use it. (I could do that) But other than that, you just have to experiment, the same as any of us would.

Cushy does have a support forum where you would be talking to people who specialize in Cushy rather than VSD. That would be better, because if you run into problems it won't be with VSD it will be with Cushy. VSD just uses whatever html you put in the HTML tool verbatim. The question is, will Cushy allow what you are trying to do? Here is a link to their official support forum:

http://groups.google.com/group/cushycms

Hope this helps!

Chad Spillars
http://www.sprucepinedesign.com/

I for one really don't think any updates done to the site via the cushycms will be showing up in VSD when you edit it next since the changes would be online not actually to the .vnu file correct? I'm assuming changes are done to the files that are uploaded, they wouldn't have any way to connect to the web builders computer unless they set that up, so although I too would like to know the answer to this, I"m not optomistic that it will be a viable way around VSD. Yes I am sure you can insert the code, but I am also pretty sure that after that it will have to be updated manually in the code using something like HTML Editor rather than still being able to use VSD.

Having said that, if the changes are only text changes such as links added to a page, or maybe a journal or blog style setup, you may be able to just copy and paste that info into VSD when you update, but that would require making sure you are keeping up with what's being changed etc. It's a possibility though depending on what they are editing.

I may have understood incorrectly from the video but it looked like the client did their edit through the cms system and then re-uploaded it to the client host.

Maybe someone can confirm whether I'm understanding correctly?

But I think the only way we will know for sure if it works is if someone tries it out and lets us know the outcome.

Seems to me that if the site is being updated online, but the html code inserted into VSD is accessing that page online, it should work. The only question in my mind is whether or not the cushy page would use any kind of technology that would not be recognized by the html tool when it's inserted, or that cushy would require the html to be replaced inside VSD each time an update is made.

Would someone please try this I wanna know if it works or not! haha!

Chad

Tested it here using toss-away email addresses and website:

http://cushytest.webege.com

You can enter the Cushy CMS backend by going to:

http://www.cushycms.com

Use the following to enter the administration area for client editing:

Email: cushyedit@mailinator.com
Password: 1234567890

You can change photos and text there...

Play around with it but please leave it in good stead when you are done so others may do the same.

NOTE: Someone with more coding experience could probably make this sing a bit better...

I will upload some screen caps on how I made it work and where the additional code goes a little later. Maybe a little tutorial.

The basic steps to create the page were as follows:

- create your page in VSD and save
- set up Cushy CMS account. Grab required code.
- add Cushy CMS code to your HTML pages where required using HTML Editor or word processor of your choice (doing it in this way maintains your text styles from your original VSD layout)
- upload HTML files to your FTP location
- go through the required setup in your Cushy account, allowing access to anyone you wish.

When you access the Cushy CMS, it very nicely allows you to make changes, but text will generally overflow background elements on the page unless you include some scrolling text block code on your original VSD layout, or after the fact in your HTML files. Such code can be found on the interwebz through google if you can't do it yourself (I will include links later too).