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Konductor Enjoy managing content again with Konductor, the CMS platform focused on providing a seamless workflow from design right to content creation.
O ne of the hardest challenges in the web design field is designing and creating a site that will be managed and updated by someone else. That someone else will eventually put on the hat of the webmaster – independently adding, updating and removing content often with little or limited web experience. Proprietary and open source tools abound for developers, but often require many hours (if not weeks) of technical implementation out of the hands of the designer – who is often left to find a local developer to address the technical task of cutting their design and then setting up web servers and databases. Frequently the end result is an expensive system that does not encourage proper design reuse and still requires server maintenance and training of the end users themselves. This gives the CMS industry a bad taste in the mouths of many designers. Set to release the first build of their AIR desktop application, Konductor is a new content management platform that simplifies the deployment of content management into websites. It combines an extensible service with a Dreamweaver plug-in and an AIR based content editor to create a seamless workflow from site designer to content owner. The designers workflow remains intact and uninterrupted – Dreamweaver can still be the tool of choice for creating the websites design and page templates. After templates are created and published to the software-as-a-service server – eliminating server setup and maintenance altogether – content management tasks are accomplished with the Konductor AIR desktop application. Dreamweaver Extension To start, a web designer installs the Konductor Dreamweaver Extension. A nice feature is the automatic site configuration that takes the
WebKit Page editing adopts the WSIWYG approach by making extensive use of WebKit to provide a real time html editing experience. Incomplete integration of the DOM in the AIR version of WebKit posed many challenges which could only be solved by extending upon it. In page editing mode, users have the standard text formatting capabilities such as applying styles and alignment with strict enforcement of proper XHTML. Editing modes are identified and highlighted so the average user can easily determine what they can and cannot edit. Asset Management Assets that are used in the site, such as images, pdfs, word documents, videos, are made available through the asset library. Users can add assets to their library by either manually adding them through the file OS browse window while in the asset library or, thanks to AIR, by selecting the asset(s) from the desktop and dragging it into the asset library. Adding an asset to the image library effectively uploads it to the server and it takes care of the file pathing and management. For image assets with a large file size, image optimization is presented as an option allowing the user to down sample the image
guess work out of site set up for the designer – no more having to search for passwords and directories as the server settings and transfer details are set for you. Once installed, the extension takes advantage of the native functionality in Dreamweaver and extending it to allow for additional information containing content, menu and form restrictions to be added, doing so with no additional code being added to the design. For most designers who use Dreamweaver, the extension is a nice and unobtrusive addition to their workflow. Konductor AIR Application Once templates are created and uploaded, content owners can begin managing their site with the Konductor AIR application. The application is geared towards a non tech savvy audience. Short, simple instructions provide the user with direction – avoiding the end result of abandonment caused by frustration. Managing content is divided into three major categories – page, menu and asset management. Page Management Page creation is as easy as associating a new page to a designer defined template of editable regions. Pages can be added, removed, and modified. The application supports a list and grid view, where the grid view shows actual thumbnail snapshots of the rendered html page it represents. There are several ways available to help a user organize and find pages. A search filter allows the user to filter the list of pages based on the name which makes it easy to manage and find specific pages in large sites. The concept of groups – allows the user to organize pages in whatever way is most intuitive to them. Adding a page to a group is a simple as dragging and dropping it onto the group.
Figure 1 . Konductor application
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