In a previous article I extolled the virtues of Adobe's new InContext Editor (ICE) which is a new online CMS service that is integrated in Dreamweaver 4. Since then I have discovered that are in fact other much better solutions out there which do essentially the same thing, only better and cheaper. PageLime is the first of these which I have been trying out and will review here.
While ICE is currently FREE, Adobe plan to charge $10-20 per month for the first 5 sites and then another fee for each site thereafter. While this may seem quite cheap at first glance, when you compare it to the competition it suddenly seems the opposite. PageLime for example is free for the first 3 sites and then $19.95 per month for the Professional plan which gives you 50 sites and a lot more features.
Integration
TO make a page editable in PageLime is a snip, you simply need to add a new class to any editable content and wrap it in a div if required.
E.G.
<div id="header" class="cms-editable">Your content here</div>
So it is pretty much the same concept as ICE, except you do not need any supporting JavaScript files.
If you add the "cms-editable" class to an IMG tag, then you will get an image manager allowing you to upload, crop, resize and insert an image instead, very cool indeed.
FTP-XML
FTP-XML is a bit more advanced type of integration. Here, instead of publishing content into your files, PageLime publishes XML files that can be read by an API file they provide. For example:
1: <h1 id="xmlHeading" class="cms-editable">
2: 3: <?php pageLimeHtml('xmlHeading'); ?>
4: 5: </h1>
6: <div id="xmlEditableArea" class="cms-editable">
7: 8: <?php pageLimeHtml('xmlEditableArea'); ?>
9: </div>
10: <img id="xmlImage"
11: 12: src="<?php pageLimeAttribute('xmlImage','src'); ?>"
13: 14: width="200" height="100" class="cms-editable" />
15: <a id="xmlLink"
16: 17: href="<?php pageLimeAttribute('xmlLink','href'); ?>"
18: 19: class="cms-editable">
20: 21: here's an editable link. 22: </a>
What PageLime does is publishes an XML file to ~/PageLime/XML/1.xml (where 1 is the page id), and then pulls in this data to your page.
With this approach, your code is seperate from your content, while you can still continue to use PageLime's intuitive interface, and decoupled content management features.
Overall I am quite impressed with PageLime and as a quick and easy CMS solution for clients on a low budget it can't be beaten. As with ICE the amount of additional time required to implement is almost zero if you plan it from the start, and to enable PageLime on an existing site is no more than a few minutes per page.
Lets look at some of the other cool features that make PageLime better than ICE.
Content Editing
Time Travel
Browse through the entire content history of your site.
Template Managment
Create and manage templates that can be used to create new pages.
One Click Templates
Turn any page in your site into a template for new pages with one click!.
Add/Clone Pages
Create new pages based on templates!.
Broadcast Your Content
Turn any folder or page collection into an RSS feed.
Edit source code
Edit source code with syntax highlighting from your browser.
Manage SEO
Edit meta keywords and descriptions for your pages.
Images and Files
Image Gallery
The entire interface is built to facilitate a smooth desktop like experience. It works on all major browsers
Document Library
The entire interface is built to facilitate a smooth desktop like experience. It works on all major browsers
One Click Upload
Upload images and files with one click.
Zoom Crop
Make images fit into your pages without resizing them or cutting them up.
Premium Features
Brand PageLime
Upload your own logo, and choose a color scheme.
Host on your own Domain
Host PageLime on your own domain name, such as cms.my-site.com.
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