FarCry CMS 5.0 Install and Configuration - My Firsthand Experience

July 15, 2008 — Vincent Collins

I have a client that is interested in implementing their first Intranet. They want something simple to use, which usually means something powerful behind the scenes. Also, of course, the client wants something free that can be extended by ColdFusion.

I have posted in the past about CMS options. There are many choices but but the choices narrow once you introduce CF as a requirement. I have decided to give FarCry 5.0 a shot. The last time I installed FarCry was probably 2003 so I’m willing to give it a fair shake once more.

So far, I’m impressed overall. For one thing, the 5.0 installer just works and simplifies the whole process. So many CF programs (including many of mine) require editing of text files and placing of scripts manually but FarCry seems more mature and is evidenced by the installer. I’m very impressed with this.

The look and feel of the administration back end or web top as FarCry refers to it is really nice. There was a bit of a learning curve for me at least regarding how to actually use the tool to build the structure of a website and I will go into that in a later post. That said, I was up and running pretty quickly once I got it.

The documentation seems a bit fragmented on the deamon site. I know there is a wiki for each version but it’s incomplete. I spent hours looking for answers to my questions in the form of documentation. In the end, I did happen to come across their 125 page training guide for version 4.0 which was a help. There are also eSeminars posted on deamon’s blog such as this one for version 5.0.

5.0 is still in beta, however I hit the ground running with it before I knew this since the 5.0 version is placed prominently on deamon’s home page without the warning that it is beta. Well, at least as recently as today :) This means that things such as site-wide search and other components aren’t working yet as I came to find out while I was developing a mockup for a client. I’ve decided to take a small risk and continue to use the 5.0 version because I’d hate to go backwards and Geoff Bowers’ recent posting eluded to the fact that this feature would be implemented in the coming weeks.

Once the software was installed, and once I had a handle on how to create top-level links with related pages with them, I was able to quickly create all the core Intranet pages in the hierarchy needed within a couple of hours. I’m now working on creating users with permissions to edit only certain sections such as Department heads editing their own departments and not others’. From what I understand, this is straight forward to do.

The challenges ahead are many such as how to embed custom CF pages and how to use the built-in functions such as RSS feeds, News, FAQs, Events and how to embed built in features like these into a FarCry page. I’m hoping it’s covered in the 4.0 manual because as I have said, the wiki is incomplete or if it is not, it seems at least hard for me to navigate. I’m also going to have to figure out how to modify the look and feel and find out how navigation works once you get 4 levels deep. Also, how the ‘create link’ function works in the webtop.

FarCry seems deep and can feel a bit daunting at times for me when I just can’t figure out how to do something I want. However, my gut here is that Deamon really has a winner on their hands and if I can figure out how to master it, I may become a bit of an evangelist for the tool because there just isn’t another software package out there written in CF that is open source and does what this one does. Well, that last statement is based on my knowledge. If you know of something else, please let me know.

Also, I would really like to hear from some of you with first-hand experience/knowledge of FarCry. It would be nice to know how others are using it and how successful you have been handing over the day to day management of a site to end users with no programming knowledge. Have you come across a tutorial you can hand end users with simple instructions on day to day maintenance, adding a page, approving a page, adding users, etc. Did you have to create something yourselves?

I’m really looking forward to hearing your comments!

Posted in CMS, ColdFusion, Open Source. 5 Comments »

Simple Content Management System - Does one exist?

August 30, 2007 — Vincent Collins

Ever since websites have existed, there has been the need to provide a way for non-technical people to update their online content. This one simple issue has employed thousands over the years. Here is the funny thing though. Technical people end up designing the “non-technical” content management systems and thus you end up with a tool that “anyone” can use but in the end, firms hire a technical person to “manage” the CMS. It seems that after a new CMS roles out in it’s simple form, it doesn’t “do enough” and then the feature creep happens at the expense of simplicity and elegance for the non-technical user.

Here are some of the issues that I see with the big content management solutions. They are expensive and most systems have too many features you will never ever use but again, you still pay for them. Also, in every case, you end up having to hire a consulting firm to install, configure, and customize it for you. I have first hand experience with several firms who have gone down the road of purchasing one of these beasts. They are typically quoted a ridiculous price like $250,000 plus annual support and licensing dues. But in the end of a year, they are pushing or exceeding $1,000,000 after required hardware, consultants, optional plug-ins and widgets are added to the mix.Now, I’m sort of comparing apples to oranges here because these system requirements are usually more than just a simply CMS but it is unimaginable to me to see how you can justify prices like these for what boils down to providing a tool that allows you to update and manage content on your Intranet or Internet.

Here is my question. Can anyone claim to have either used or designed a simple CMS? Clearly the answer is in the eye of the beholder. However, I’m really interested in seeing/demoing such a tool. It can be written in ColdFusion, PHP, .NET, Java, RUBY, Python or any other language. I’m eager to get my hands on one.

It would be wonderful if it were open source. It would be fine too however if it’s proprietary but only if it’s simple and elegant and the price reflects its simplicity.

Wishlist Features:

  • Options for contributors to be pulled from either a remote database table or via LDAP or manually added. Roles of who can do what.
  • Approval tree routing of content option
  • Ability to create and edit pages keeping track of all edit changes with ability to roll back.
  • Spell-check (firefox now has built in spell check so this is becoming less important over time)
  • Ability to paste in images using a wysiwyg style editor. People know how to use Word already so updating a web-page should be similar.
  • Ability to add/edit/delete/move contributed pages
  • Ability to upload files
  • Ability to sort any subdirectory alphabetically, by creation date, by last edit date, and/or ad hoc
  • No recurring license fee
  • Easy to install and configure
  • RSS feeds optional per content grouping

I would be extremely happy if there was a tool that did 90% of this and was INTUITIVE, ELEGANT, and most importantly, EASILY ADOPTED by the mass amounts of people that don’t have the time or interest in learning yet again another program.

To date I have evaluated or used more than 10 and haven’t found a single one that I can imagine a small law firm feeling comfortable managing their content without hand-holding. In the end, that’s the target market that has been neglected. The small businesses who can’t afford an IT group. Can’t afford $500,000 just so they can have a postcard site. Can’t afford to pay a consultant $100 an hour for weekly ad hoc updates.

I’m really hoping that in the last year since I’ve evaluated CMS tools, that something has cropped up that will take the Internet by storm. Google Pages is a nice concept but after reading through the documentation, it again is a system that thousands of consultants will start selling their services around because the average small company won’t be able to figure it out.

Please chime in if you have a CMS candidate you would like me to try out.

Posted in CMS. 11 Comments »