Five Things WysGui CMS Does Best
Howdy, folks! Today I'll mention some powerful advantages a certain Content Management System provides. Keep in mind much of the advantages are pointed at Web Developers who know some coding/scripting languages, or web designers who know HTML/CSS. Also of course, Flash & Flex Developers. In the future, it appears WysGui will improve for the casual web manager with little or no coding knowledge. Maybe even Joe the Plumber!
Lean, Fast, and Just Plain Easy-to-use!
When Ease & Simplicity Matter
Most Content Management Systems actually run slower than the typical web-site powered by HTML & CSS. Most web designers probably think it's impossible to make a site powered by PHP and a database run faster then one with identical output of HTML & CSS. Well actually, that's not true. WysGui is a great example of this. There are ways to tell a server to save a simplified snapshot of a page for future access. If that was the only thing WysGui did, it would run *almost as fast as the same thing without server-side code. However it's not the only thing. It also gets properly cached by the visitors browser, making it even faster! Studies show that web-sites which load faster are more likely to keep their users involved.
Also, WysGui is very easy to use. An eleven year old can get the hang of most things quite quickly. When you first log-in as an Administrator, you'll notice there are more links, and now you can Manage your Account, by clicking "My Account." When you do, the Account Management window appears, but at the bottom notice there's some options for Favorites. In WysGui, every user can manage their favorites. Favorites are just links to your favorite web-pages. They can be WysGui, or elsewhere. Since each user gets their own favorites, nobody can see your favorites, nor can you natively see others. You can peek if you're an Administrator, but you'll never need to worry about them.
Also, WysGui is very easy to use. An eleven year old can get the hang of most things quite quickly. When you first log-in as an Administrator, you'll notice there are more links, and now you can Manage your Account, by clicking "My Account." When you do, the Account Management window appears, but at the bottom notice there's some options for Favorites. In WysGui, every user can manage their favorites. Favorites are just links to your favorite web-pages. They can be WysGui, or elsewhere. Since each user gets their own favorites, nobody can see your favorites, nor can you natively see others. You can peek if you're an Administrator, but you'll never need to worry about them.
The Control Panel is even more important than favorites. Each rank shares their control panel with like ranks. Every Registered User see's the same control panel. Every Administrator see's the same control Panel. Registered users do not see everything the Administrator can see. The difference only varies amongst ranks. If desired, you can even give your guests a Control Panel. It's up to you to manage the ranks of content/pages to control what users can/cannot do based on their rank, or even their username!
Unlike Favorites, it might be a little more important to manage other ranks' control panels. For instance, natively a new user can add a page and add content to it. They can only natively edit their own pages/content, but beware, it is possible to give people way too much permission, to the point where they can cause damage to your site. Keep in mind, if a user can change information on an important page, parent, or group, than they can damage the site- possibly without recovery. So it's very important to watch what you're doing, but WysGui sure comes with all the power you'll ever need, doesn't it? That's why it's the most Versatile CMS to date!
Content Management
A Blog? An Information Source? A Little Bit of Both?
Content Management shouldn't be a complicated matter. First off, content can consist of text, HTML code, Images, Flash, or JavaScript. That includes videos, certain widgets from the web, and many other things. With WysGui, there's a WYSIWYG editor that will let you do just about any of those things- including uploading of images, flash, and other allowed file-types. No need for any coding or HTML knowledge there. Every strong CMS has this functionality as well- That's not what makes WysGui special.
I've notice the most vast difference amongst Content Management Systems is the way content is organized. For example, many people want a blog. Many people prefer a News system. Also, there's those who wish to supply an informative source. The order in which the content appears is very important when deciding what CMS to use. With WysGui, you have full control of the order in which your content displays. That allows you to order the articles any which way, with little effort and no coding knowledge. Part of your site can be ordered like a blog with newer articles appearing on top of older ones. It also allows you to have an introduction above your blog, without worry of it getting pushed down. Also, putting content in the sidebars, header or footer areas are just as easy. By the way, the sections of the pages are called parents. Also, the header, main body, sidebars, and footer are the basic parents. There are no limitations of what can go in what parent. Though sometimes the size of the content is too large for the parent. For that reason, it needs to be thought-out while deciding which parent to use. It only takes common sense and a little computer savvy to manage WysGui Content. You may not be visualizing it now, but once you get to using WysGui, it makes all the sense in the world.
When it gets to the point where a piece of content can't handle it all, for example if Server-Side code or head tag data, is needed, then modules come in.
I've notice the most vast difference amongst Content Management Systems is the way content is organized. For example, many people want a blog. Many people prefer a News system. Also, there's those who wish to supply an informative source. The order in which the content appears is very important when deciding what CMS to use. With WysGui, you have full control of the order in which your content displays. That allows you to order the articles any which way, with little effort and no coding knowledge. Part of your site can be ordered like a blog with newer articles appearing on top of older ones. It also allows you to have an introduction above your blog, without worry of it getting pushed down. Also, putting content in the sidebars, header or footer areas are just as easy. By the way, the sections of the pages are called parents. Also, the header, main body, sidebars, and footer are the basic parents. There are no limitations of what can go in what parent. Though sometimes the size of the content is too large for the parent. For that reason, it needs to be thought-out while deciding which parent to use. It only takes common sense and a little computer savvy to manage WysGui Content. You may not be visualizing it now, but once you get to using WysGui, it makes all the sense in the world.
When it gets to the point where a piece of content can't handle it all, for example if Server-Side code or head tag data, is needed, then modules come in.
Developer-Friendliness
Create Modules directly in WysGui
Modules are a little more advanced. Instead of a WYSIWYG editor, it has a code editor. That's because modules are intended for moderate to advanced web developers; Or beginners to PHP, JavaScript, etc. It's intended for those users, not limited to. A Module could be a simple guest-book, a form, a framework, and many other things. Modules are ordered along with Content. That makes it easy to sort an advanced form, just as easily as everything else. No coding knowledge is needed to move around and organize modules. Just like content, it's mostly common sense.
For the developers, WysGui makes it very easy to create a web-site quickly. It's been said, "If you've ever used a CMS and wished you could do more, WysGui is for you." That's because the versatility never ends with WysGui. It's a web-based system that can be accessed and managed through any computer with Internet access. You don't need to be on a computer with Notepad++, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Word, and FTP software. You can manage your site's core functions and abilities directly through the Admin Panel. The code editor is color coded, and provides a syntax highlight for many different coding languages.
The lack of dependencies of outside software for developers makes WysGui a very powerful tool, with allot of potential. Especially since everything on the site is manageable, typically as modules, on-site. Also, if the four default module pages aren't enough for your advanced skills, you can create a new page for whatever you need and simply include it in the desired section of the module. Which reminds me..
There are,
settings, which are declared before everything.
Action, which is declared after settings, but before any mark-up.
Head Data, which includes any JavaScript, CSS, or anything in the HEAD tags.
Form/Content, which is the main display for the module. That's actually what gets sorted with the content.
It may be hard to comprehend at first, but as far as web-sites go, with just these four sections, almost anything can be done..
For the developers, WysGui makes it very easy to create a web-site quickly. It's been said, "If you've ever used a CMS and wished you could do more, WysGui is for you." That's because the versatility never ends with WysGui. It's a web-based system that can be accessed and managed through any computer with Internet access. You don't need to be on a computer with Notepad++, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Word, and FTP software. You can manage your site's core functions and abilities directly through the Admin Panel. The code editor is color coded, and provides a syntax highlight for many different coding languages.
The lack of dependencies of outside software for developers makes WysGui a very powerful tool, with allot of potential. Especially since everything on the site is manageable, typically as modules, on-site. Also, if the four default module pages aren't enough for your advanced skills, you can create a new page for whatever you need and simply include it in the desired section of the module. Which reminds me..
There are,
settings, which are declared before everything.
Action, which is declared after settings, but before any mark-up.
Head Data, which includes any JavaScript, CSS, or anything in the HEAD tags.
Form/Content, which is the main display for the module. That's actually what gets sorted with the content.
It may be hard to comprehend at first, but as far as web-sites go, with just these four sections, almost anything can be done..
Theme Control
A Web Designers Paradise
Themes are fully customizable with WysGui. They consist of templates and style-sheets. Each one can be edited directly in the admin panel. A theme can have multiple styles. You can make a theme with an array of different skins. The style-sheets and templates are interchangeable within a theme. When adding a template to a theme, it should be consistent with all existing style-sheets. When adding a new style-sheet, it should be consistent with all existing templates. If you want to add a completely new template and style-sheet with separate consistencies, simply add a new theme.
An example of using this setup would be a theme with a set of different colors in the style-sheet. Or maybe a theme with different parent organization on the template. If you have 2 templates, and 5 different style-sheets, that equals 10 options for skins.
Some HTML and CSS knowledge is required to manage themes in WysGui, though is not required to attach a theme to a page.
An example of using this setup would be a theme with a set of different colors in the style-sheet. Or maybe a theme with different parent organization on the template. If you have 2 templates, and 5 different style-sheets, that equals 10 options for skins.
Some HTML and CSS knowledge is required to manage themes in WysGui, though is not required to attach a theme to a page.
File Management
I know what's running my site, do you?
WysGui has a strong back-end. The Brain of the operation, and everything else is accessible through the site tree. The Site tree is basically an icon powered site-map. It's designed in a file/folder type structure. It shows you all of the files & folders starting at your site root. You can navigate through folders, files, and images. You can click an icon to open the file in a new window or tab in your browser. Sometimes, in certain areas the file is covered by security, but in normal cases it's a very handy tool to have. Each icon has an edit button, depending on your view, it may look different. In any case, you'll see a pencil. You can click that to open the editor in a new window. You cannot edit media, such as images/videos.
The Conclusion
All-and-all, it's a pretty strong system.
Though there are other Content Management Systems that cover a vast variety of other tools, communities, and structure, WysGui should stick out to be a good competitor. Though it's smaller, has allot less features, and doesn't have a wide variety of people developing software for it, it does have allot to offer, and if given the chance of having a community, could explode into a widely used system. Reasons being, it's got a very powerful brain, it's very lean and quick, it's easy to use, content is easy to create, sort, and manage, modules are a key part to WysGui, and simplifies the path of Drupal, themes are manageable on-site, and file-management abilities are present on-site.
WysGui does not have a strong community backing and is less than a year old, even as an idea! Though more and more things are popping up around the web about it, I can only hope it gets recognized and wide-spread, so development of modules and third-party tools can expand. If it just had that, it would be arguable the best system. At least in my opinion. So Give it a Google, you very well may find a reason to try it out.
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