new REW CMS skin feedback

[webmaster]

Hey guys,
Before Phil and I get to far into this thing, I wouldn't mind feedback, especially from REW customers who use our CMS. We are going for a much more web 2.0 look and feel with tabbed navigation, icons etc and I wanted to get your feedback

This screenshot is from the page manager section

Weight allows you to set the order of the pages
The blue icon allows you to hide the page (So it doesn't show in the navigation)
The Pencil icon allows you to edit the link details
The red x icon is delete.

You can also get to the other main navigation control elements on the right -

This is certainly not finalized, just wanted to get users takes on it.

Also this will be fluid (Stretches to fit screen) so for those with larger monitors, it will allow for a lot more canvas for page creation and management.

Thoughts?

[webmaster]

Many would likely want to know what the wysiwyg or page editor would like like - and it will be something like this (If we don't get glaring negative feedback)

[metaylor9]

Obviously I can't tell too much without playing with it, but from those screen shots it looks like a vast improvement both aesthetically and functionally.

[jessiesc]

I've always been a proponent of the tabbed metaphor which much of the web has finally caught on. Tabbed metaphors are much more robust, you can add functionality easier, navigate easier with less overhead as well as organize more logically.

I assume this is a sample mock up since it's missing quite a bit of the data elements. Will the snippets continue to be a small icon, hard to find or will they have their own tab?

That being said, this layout is preferable to me.

I assume this will be an upgrade with a fee associated with it?

Good luck with the layout.

[SEO Nick]

I think it's a big improvement! Looks great, guys.

[keenjosh]

This is certainly not finalized, just wanted to get users takes on it.

Also this will be fluid (Stretches to fit screen) so for those with larger monitors, it will allow for a lot more canvas for page creation and management.

Thoughts?

I think it looks awesome -- really is a huge improvement over the existing CMS and lead administrator. I've been reading all the posts about the upcoming CMS release and I'm excited

[EFS Webmaster]

Personally I like the WYSIWYG functionality of this editor (see below) which we use on another one of our sites vs. the mockup presented above. It's very easy for "mere mortals" to utilize and i've never had to go into advanced mode to correct things. At the end of the day, I think you will appear to a broader audience if its not only easy to use but also doesn't require people to go in and tweak code (advanced mode) to get the WYSIWYG to actually display correctly.

As a fallback, I also like the editor on the forum better than the mockup above (sorry!).

[webmaster]

Don't be sorry - that is why I asked for feedback.

The challenge with wysiwyg editors is in the fact that most do no produce search engine friendly code - thus, any one we do implement we have to hack considerably.

Now in terms of yours vs this one - We have stripped out many of the available elements or not added many of the available elements, so that it is "simple" for our users - you have a TON of buttons on yours that I am not sure anyone (Including yourself) will ever use.

Perhaps you could give me some feedback on the buttons you use the most and would like to see on this one: We have not removed any items that the current CMS does (They are all still available) in addition we have added

Undo, redo
Strike through
Justification (Left right etc)
Table manager (The ability to create and add custom tables on the fly)
Special characters manager (All them funny little symbols)
Clean up code (Formats word code etc)
Custom styles expansion (Not just the standard h1-h6 + p etc) now you can actually have your custom div's selectable (Such as class=important, or blockquote, or featured or whatever)

You comments are appreciated.

For the user who asked about fees - I have no idea, I do know you must be on the rackspace hosted site to use the new system.

Personally I like the WYSIWYG functionality of this editor (see below) which we use on another one of our sites vs. the mockup presented above. It's very easy for "mere mortals" to utilize and i've never had to go into advanced mode to correct things. At the end of the day, I think you will appear to a broader audience if its not only easy to use but also doesn't require people to go in and tweak code (advanced mode) to get the WYSIWYG to actually display correctly.

As a fallback, I also like the editor on the forum better than the mockup above (sorry!).

[Calgary Agent]

Would adding TEXT COLOUR be an issue?

[EFS Webmaster]

Thanks for the solicitation of feedback! I agree that the screengrab I posted of the WYSIWYG editor is a little over-engineered however as I mentioned, I never have to go into HTML mode to get what I need or want which is a huge advantage. I agree that the downside might be code bloat however key user functions should really be built into the editor.

That being, said, here are the key functions that I would really like to see that I didn't necessarily see in your screen grab above (this is not a comprehensive list, just calling out stuff I didn't see on the existing work in progress0. Note that some of this feedback is based on what I see above and some of it is based on our experience to date with the existing CMS:

1) Font Treatments: Bold, Italics and Underline should be on the main toolbar for the editor.
2) Undo / Redo should be included within the toolbar.
3) Hard Return icon / function should be included within the toolbar
4) "Format Painter" function should be on the toolbar
5) Image Insert/Image Management function. I think this could utilize a forklift enhancement since we seem to have a lot of problems getting a WYSIWYG result with the existing editor. For us, images can be equally important as text so we need to make sure that we have a good tool for inserting and positioning them and the text surrounding them. We shouldn't have to tinker with HTML code to get things the way we want.
5) Spell check and search and replace are also nice functions, however firefox add-ins make these functions available without having to build them into the editor.

FYI....
Below is a screen grab of our existing image insert/editor which we really like. Very easy to insert, position, create borders, resize, format, wordwrap, yada yada yada.