Content Managment goes Cushy with Cushy CMS! | Netfire.us - Design tutorials, articles, resources, and creative inspiration.

Content Management made easy with the Cushy CMS!

Posted on 03. Aug, 2009 by admin in Articles, Design, Interface, Software, Techniques, Tutorials, Web Design

Today I would like demonstrate how a service created by the fine folks at Stateless Systems can help those of us looking for a way to design sites how we like, and at the same time offer the ability to let our clients edit their own content. This service is the remotely hosted Cushy Content Management System.

For today I will not necessarily be providing a full review of the system, rather a walkthrough of just how easy it is to take an existing static HTML and CSS based website and turn it into a site that allows the client to edit their content. This service is definitely worth checking out and you can’t beat the price, free for the basic account. They do offer a white label solution for a small monthly fee if you want to seamlessly integrate it into your business.

The first step is to visit cushycms.com and sign up for a free account.

Once you’ve created your account you will have access to the default control panel where you will see areas for your managed sites and editors. These areas will of course be blank until we go through the following steps.

Now that your account is set up we need to add a website to the Cushy control panel so that the system knows what site you want to make editable. In order to set this up you will need to make sure that the site itself is on a web server, and have the necessary ftp information available so that we can enter it into the control panel in the next step.

Once you have uploaded the website and have your web hosts ftp information handy, click “Add Site” to enter the ftp information into the Cushy CMS control panel. This will allow the CMS to connect up to your web host.

After setting up your new website connection in the control panel it is time to tell the Cushy CMS what page or pages you would like to make editable. To do this, click on the “Add Pages” link and you will be taken to a screen that displays all of the files and folders on the web host you are connected to. At this point you would click on the page you want to make editable and enter a title for that page at the top of this screen.

You may notice that there is an error message on the screen. This is because Cushy CMS is checking the page you selected to make sure that the code in that page contains at least one instance of the class name that Cushy CMS uses. I proceeded in this order to illustrate how Cushy CMS checks for the class names in your code.

At this point we need to open our page in an HTML editor and add the simple class name (cushycms) to the block we want to make editable by the client. An additional note is that you are also able to add a title attribute as shown in the screenshot that will make the editable area easily identifiable to your clients. This helps when your client is logged into the Cushy CMS and is unsure about which block on a page they should be editing.

For additional information on working with your HTML files and cushy click here http://www.cushycms.com/static/documentation

After adding the Cushy CMS class to your HTML code and uploading the page to your web server you should now be able to add the page to the Cushy CMS without generating any errors.

Now that you have added your site and added the page you want to make editable, you will now see that page listed on the main control panel page. If you click on the page name you will be presented with a page that has a text editor that will allow for the updating of your clients website content. This editor is no full-blown drag and drop AJAX powered page builder, but it does the job when it comes to updating content.

When you are done editing and are taken back to the main control panel page where you now have the option to view the page you just updated in a web browser.

One additional thing that I wanted to show today is how to set up editors for the sites and pages that you add to the Cushy CMS. Editors are basically anyone that has access to sites/pages set up in your Cushy CMS. These could be clients of yours or if you are using Cushy CMS on a single website, an editor might be someone else on your team that is responsible to updating the website.

To set this up you simply click on the “Add Editor” button on the main control panel page as shown below.

On the editor details screen you can add the name, email, and specific site and page that this person is allowed to modify.

Now that the editor has been added, you will now see this individuals name in the editors section of the control panel homepage. From this editor section you can modify the individual’s permission, delete the editor or add new editors.

Well, that’s it for this tutorial. I hope you found this information helpful and might even be encouraged to check out Cushy CMS for those clients that would appreciate the ability to edit their own content.

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