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A New CMS for ASP.NET Lovers

The market for ASP.NET CMS products is expanding rapidly.  Users now have another option for blending content management and the power of ASP.NET with Webaptive.  Just released by developer Striquent, Webaptive is an enterprise CMS available in premium and community versions.  The biggest draw to this program is its ability to incorporate content management functionality into existing applications without the implementation of third-party software development kits.  This is made possible by the presence of IIS and the stack of Microsoft .NET technologies.

Creating ASP.NET Applications

Webaptive works closely with the web server to add CMS functionality to your applications.  From within IIS, you can choose the application you want to enhance. Once you make your selection and a database is automatically created, you can then enable existing applications or develop new ones.  Because the method in which Webaptive associates itself with applications is specific to the ASP.NET framework, it is strongly recommend that you create your pages and applications using standard ASP.NET programming practices.

CMS Features

Though rich in ASP.NET functionality, Webaptive offers many of the same capabilities found in other CMS products.  For instance, it has a built-in WYSIWYG editor for easily creating articles and blog posts, a CSS editing facility, and support for multiple authors.  Some of its more advanced features include localization and campaign management as well content inheritance options for managers and administrators.  Another unique quality of Webaptive its seamless integration with Perifigure, Striquent’s sister product.  Perfigure is a powerful analytic tool that analyzes site performance and provides detailed statistics on traffic, marketing campaigns and several other business related activities.  These capabilities alone make Webaptive a very attractive CMS for business users.

Standing Alongside and Out from the Crowd

Marketed as a CMSaaS product, Webaptive shares a few qualities with similar hosted SaaS CMS solutions such as CushyCMS and Surreal CMS.  Many of these platforms work by mildly blending content management features into a web page or website.  Though effective for the most part, they are not all that intrusive in regard to the core technologies and as a result, only provide limited CMS functionality.  Although Webaptive performs in a similar manner, it goes beyond the basics by digging into the code at the ASP.NET application level.  This gives it the ability to interact with ASP.NET controls as well as the standard HTML elements.  When all components are properly configured, this CMS can truly help you take your web applications to the next level.  Another difference is that whereas most SaaS CMS platforms are hosted solutions, Webaptive can be downloaded, installed and configured on your own server.

Availability and System Requirements

The Webaptive CMS is currently available in three versions: Community, Express and Enterprise editions.  In terms of functionality, the Community and Express versions are nearly identical.  However, the community version is free and therefore does not come included with reliable technical support.  The Enterprise edition is the most powerful version of the product as it is equipped with many advanced back-end versions and of course, paid support.  In order to run Webaptive, you will need the Windows Server 2003 operating system or higher and an SQL Server database.  These elements are needed to support your ASP.NET applications and web pages.

Textpattern: The Text-Friendly CMS

In World Wide Web years, TextPattern is a mature CMS that has been around in alpha and beta versions since 2001 and finally distributed under the GNU GPL in 2004.  The product has been dramatically improved over the years and the most notable enhancements yet can be seen in the latest version release, TextPattern 4.20.  If you need an easier and more efficient way to manage your content, the features of this open-source CMS tool may be of interest.

Word Processing-Like Environment

One of Textpattern’s key features is Textile, an intuitive syntax that allows you to easily convert plaintext into well structured rich web content.  Often nagging elements such as hyperlinks, tables and image tags can be created with one or two markers, making it closer to working with ordinary text as opposed to complex code.  When you are ready to publish your content, Textile takes all marked copy and automatically converts it to clean, valid XHTML.  In addition, all articles you compose in Textpattern can be viewed in plaintext, XHTML or a rendered preview.

Versatile CSS Editing

Textpattern offers full support for CSS, offering two modes that allow you to customize and enhance the presentation of your site in different ways.  Manual CSS mode lets you to create or edit any CSS data directly from the administrative interface.  This enables you to quickly edit styles without dealing with the hassle that often results from uploading via FTP.  You can create your style sheets from scratch or by using one of many compatible WYSIWYG editors.  Automatic CSS mode is an advanced feature that utilizes an organized interface to make CSS parameters more comprehensive and manageable.  CSS can really enhance the performance of a website and Textpattern allows you to harness all the power of this optimal design technology.

Link Friendly

There are quite a few CMS tools that offer power and ease of use, but lack the features needed to easily increase visibility via the search engines.  This isn’t the case with TextPattern as the software excels in SEO-friendly pages and link management.  You can store an unlimited number of links in an unlimited number of categories anywhere you want on your site.  It also makes it simple to add news links through the built-in editor or a Javascript book marklet, which displays a popup window to use where ever you may be on the web.

Add-on Functionality

Although Textpattern is not supported by nearly as many plugins as open-source products like Joomla and Drupal, the platform is very extensible.  All available add-on components can be installed and maintained in a straightforward manner.  Once you have incorporated them, they can be easily enabled or disabled through the administrative interface where you can also access help and parameters used by supported plugins.

Conclusion

Textpattern is an open-source CMS product that is free to download and use.  The software requires PHP 4.3 or higher, MySQL 3.23 or higher and the Apache web server.  Its developer also strongly recommends the use of a Unix operating system, although it states that the software will “probably” work on any platform that supports PHP.  Being a free and user-friendly tool, you may want to check your system requirements and give Textpattern a test drive to see if it meets your needs before giving up your preferred CMS.

SaasS Content Management with Clickability

Previously known as cmPublish, the Clickability Platform is a CMS with a different approach on content management.  Developed by CMS provider Clickability, this platform is delivered on an on-demand basis, as well as full service with the company’s “Innovation as a Service” solution.  Aside from content management, the Clickability Platform also offers analytics, email campaign, web 2.0 and advertising among other functionality.  While there is obviously far more to the Clickability Platform than content management, this is indeed the focal point of the package.

Core Technologies

Though a licensed commercial product, Clickability Platform is based on powerful open-source technologies such as PHP, MySQL and Java.  It utilizes Apache as its web server and Velocity for the templating system.  Even though you have to pay for a license, the leveraging of various popular open-source tools makes Clickability Platform a cost effective CMS product.

Clickability Content

The main content entity in the Clickability environment is the item.  Authors have the ability to create content items by selecting various types of content from the navigation pane.  This CMS gives you a number of different content items out of the box, including jobs, blogs, press releases, case studies and FAQs.  Furthermore, custom content types can be created as well.   The templating system is a major part of the process as it allows you to actually get the content on your web pages.  These templates can be tailored to display numerous types of content in different sections of a single page.  While this feature caters to beginners, Clickability Platform also has something for developers with advanced creation environments and other customizing assets such as stylesheets.

Additional Features

Clickability Platform certainly isn’t short on features.  The package bundles streamlined content management capabilities alongside a host of SEO tools, Web 2.0, capabilities and the following list of features:

Newsletters – Publishers can create a newsletter of content and automatically distribute it to subscribers.  They can also manage mailing lists and have the ability to provide subscribers with double opt-in capabilities.

Advertising - Adverting functionality is tightly integrated into the Clickability Platform.  This allows administrators to create and maintain campaigns as well as all the details that go along with them.  Because ads are considered content pieces, they have targets that provide administrators with a way to track and keep up with the history of their performance.

cmSideKick – Clickability Platform allows you to run your website in the browser and the intuitive cmSideKick in a second frame.  cmSideKick is a utility that enables you to perform deep analyzation of statistics, allowing you to view your site in the administrator mode or selective views to modify certain areas.  This is one tool that you are likely to put to great use in the Clickability environment.

Conclusion

Clickability has come a long way since its days as cmPublish.  However, it has managed to maintain all the basics of content management and received some nice upgrades to compliment the emerging technologies and web trends.  Clickability Platform is definitely a enterprise CMS solution and can help to satisfy the needs of businesses of all sizes.

Hot Banana: The Enterprise CMS

Originally launched in 1999, the Hot Banana CMS is an award-winning content management tool designed with the small to medium sized enterprise in mind.  It places a strong focus on content optimization and online marketing, but also has a broad range of basic content management capabilities, which helps it appeal to customers with varying needs.  Hot Banana is integrated with Lyris’ suite of marketing products, most notably EmailLabs, its flagship email marketing solution.  This CMS aims to satisfy three key demands: content management, website optimization and marketing automation.  If power and ease of use is something that matters for your project, then Hot Banana certainly warrants a closer look.

Website Optimization

Optimization is a key element of Hot Banana, proven by the fact that it contributes numerous resources to tracking site and campaign performance.  Its SEO tools play a key role in content creation and keyword analysis through a comprehensive editing interface and reports.  Some of the other optimization tools include affiliate tracking, metadata management, automatic Google Sitemap submission and updates, automated tagging and instant SEO-friendly output.  Analyzing your components for optimization is as simple as clicking and entering keywords into the appropriate field.  Hot Banana is one piece of software that allows you to enjoy CMS usability the way it was meant to be.

Marketing Automation

In the Hot Banana environment, marketing automation and optimization go hand in hand.  The software provides a robust web form builder that streamlines the creation of forms and management of captured data.  It also integrates with SalesForce and other popular CRM platforms as well as EmailLabs, which enables form data to be automatically migrated to customer databases.  In addition, Hot Banana aims to ensure marketing optimization with a press release manager, blog administration, and event and survey management tools.  While EmailLabs provides an open framework for integrating with other email marketing managers, Hot Banana has a nice set of default email marketing functions in its own right.

Content Management

A clean and well organized interface makes content creation a breeze with Hot Banana.  The software packs a nice selection of templates with options ranging from standard web pages and landing pages to multi-column email layouts.  From there, your page can be created using the WYSIWYG editor, which offers tools for HTML view toggling and keyword analysis directly from your browser.  Advanced metadata can be inserted via a separate table while all of your content items can be scheduled for publishing dates of your choosing.  Though Hot Banana has a user-friendly interface to work with, it actually conceals many hidden treasures beneath all the open-space, making you dig a little deeper to perform certain actions.

Conclusion

Hot Banana is geared toward small and medium sized organizations whom for marketing, branding and ease of use are essential.  The major downside to the platform is that its based on Cold Fusion, which automatically makes it a turn off for developers not familiar with the language.  Disadvantages aside, this Banana offers enough out of the box functionality to greatly benefit small teams and businesses with a strong internal focus.

CQ5 CMS Review

Created by software company Day Software, CQ5 is a content management system centered around a powerful set of management features and various Web 2.0 technologies.  This CMS is geared towards webmasters who want to distance themselves from the complexities of IT and simply have an enjoyable environment to work in.  According to Kevin Cochrane, Day CMO, content management should no longer be just about functionality and ease of use, but fun and unleashing innovation from within.  These are benefits that also extend to developers as CQ5 gives them their chance at new ActionScript and JavaScript API’s as well as an infrastructure based on many open-source technologies and standards.  However, the inexperienced user may have a tough time finding themselves around.

Primary Features

When looking at the list of features, you can tell that Day put a lot of sweat into the most recent version of CQ5.   While many CMS vendors are steering clear of Web 2.0, fearing it will soon be eclipsed by the Semantic Web 3.0, Day is one company that puts a huge emphasis on it.  Some of its key features enable blog, forum and calendering functionality to help users incorporate that community like feel into their sites.  The application also comes included with a number of pre-installed widgets for site enhancement.  Web forms, comments, tags, slideshows, RSS feeds and wikis are just a few of the elements that can be used to encourage visitor interaction on you website.

Media Management Tools

CQ5 has a nicely integrated facility that makes it easy to maintain a variety of digital media assets.  Some of the most notable features allow you to manage audio and video, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF file formats, watermarking and format transcoding.  One of CQ5’s best qualities from a user aspect is image editing.  The platform allows full image rendering and has some pretty nice editing features.  Unlike many other content management tools, CQ5 offers a browser-based cropping functionality for getting the most out of your photos as you can easily crop, rotate, map and flush images.

Backup and Recovery

CQ5 truly excels in terms of its backup and recovery functionality.  The newest version offers a hot backup utility that allows you to create backups of your entire file system.  This includes content, configuration files, modules and web scripts.  Restoring a complete CQ5 instance is a simple as extracting the backup from the zip file and restarting the system.  This could be a great benefit that saves a company a lot time, money and valuable resources.  All it takes a single click and all data is sent to Quickstart bundled file for disaster recovery purposes, allowing you to backup and restore your business environment in minutes.

Conclusion

While the new and improved GUI brings some user-friendliness to the product, CQ5 is a CMS best suited for advanced users.  Developers can truly benefit from this tool as it packages together a powerful set of web technologies.  It is the sophisticated and robust environment that takes away from its usability and makes this tool a little much for beginners.