Have a go on my CMS!

Hi all,

this is my CMS that I've coded for my site. Although I can reuse bits for clients sites as well.

I've disabled the upload function for the demo - but just to say it lets you upload 4 files at a time.

If you want to add some new items to the portfolio I've uploaded some images - the imagecode you need to put in for each is 'csszen' or 'bitzaebay'. without the single quotes obviously.

Also on the portfolio page you'll notice a featured thing where you can type in three of the id's of the portfolio pieces. These are the pieces that will show up on the homepage under the featured. So if you change these to another id of a piece in the list then check the homepage to see it updated.

Some of this probably doesn't make sense until you go on it...

Anyway the links are:

To see the public site: here
To edit the site: here

Isn't p/word protected but thats cos its a dummy one and doesn't link to my main site at all.

Also the site is now live: here

Let me know what you think!

Hey, nice job there Mike! Is that the first CMS you've done yourself?

Very nice job, well done. Will look at code more later!

yea its the first one I've done myself. Its my learning PHP curve lol!

well done mike

It's great. Really simple to use, never had to even think twice.


I have a confession to make. I have altered a few things. I think you may want to include some of the changes I've made in your actual site, it might sell your services a bit more. Then again, maybe not.

Apologies, but I really couldn't help myself.

Pete.

hahaha good to see you back around Pete!

I'll take a look and change bits if I like em....which I probably will. I've never been the best at writing copy!

LOL!!! I've just read it an I admit it made me laugh...quite a bit lol!

But I think for my actual site I prefer my copy...which reminds me...I really need to robots .txt tht development url.

Whats your opinion on the design Pete?

Yes, that would be a good idea. But, Webforumz now has a new feature, allowing SuperMembers to not just hide their website critiques from non-members and search engines, but ANY THREAD!

Yea I've ssen that actually when I was making a post when I got in earlier...this things taken onver my life...I go out with my mates...get home in a mess and rather than sleep I come on here lol!

I'm impressed! That was the first time I've actually seen a CMS "inside". Now I have to figure this out. So Mike how did you do it? Point me in the right direction please!!
Please don't tell me you created this all by yourself without the aid of WordPress or Joomla!

Yeah, I've been a bit busy recently but it's the weekend now, thank god.

I really like the design, mate, it's really fresh and so easy to navigate. It also stands out which I know you wanted it to do. The nav is brilliant, in my opinion, you done something new without users having to learn a new nav system, which is ideal. I like the typography and the layout, plus there is lot's of whitespace, which I particularly like. Your colour choice should also be commended, there is subtlety with the black, beige and greys yet you add that visual punch with the addition of a bold red. Very nice.

My only problem is those petals, I don't dislike them particularly but they do seem to remind me of 1980's wallpaper or something. I know flowers and the like are popular at the minute but I would be interested to see what your site looked like without them. You could even try a different shape, maybe use a shape with fatter petals-it could be the characteristics of the shape that are bugging me rather than the shape itself.

I would like to bring to your attention the 'submit' buttons here. You have them on your CMS 'edit' page, your 'services' page and your 'contact' page and none of the buttons look that much like buttons. I know it says on the buttons what they do but if you are going to redesign form controls then they still have to have some siilarities with the standard button design. A border may help, it could be lighter on the top and right but darker on the bottom and left. This would make it seem more three-dimensional and would show off its pressability a little more. Or even double borders are nice in my opinion and make it look like a form button rather than just another bit of the page.

Other than that, and that is only two little points, I think the design is great and I also think that your CMS is excellent as well.

Nice work, mate.

Pete.

Thanks for the review Pete. Much appreciated and good to see you back on here.

haha well i won't tell uyou if you don't want me to! But yea...I coded every bit by hand lol. Its all PHP mySQL.

The CMS side writes the data to the database and the site pulls the data out of the database!

I've got a couple of tables - one for portfolio items and one for page characteristics like title, and copy and the three featured id's.

If you want to see the code for any of the pages let me know and I'll PM it to you...to use or just because your curious!

Mike

don't get me wrong,
but isn't that a little uneccesary?

what do you mean?

wouldn't it be easier to just write to a file?
I'm probably getting confused sorry

No I prefer using databases - I find it more secure and easier to work with. i hate writing to and from files. its more hassle and more difficult and as I have MySQL databases available I prefer to use them.

fair enough
can i ask whether the code is object orientated?

yea you can ask...but I don't know what that means...what does it mean?