#RockRMS

ping TreyH|KFS

pong sross|calvary

so.....

are there any good options for 'hey, comm-team, go play w/ this and you can create your own site' style stuff for RockRMS

they're now considering squarespace...

Designer's want interfaces they can touch and play with

gothca. no. there’s not anything like that for Rock that i’m aware of. There is a progam called Artisteer that will gerenrate aspx files which could be turned into Rock Themes, but I don’t know if they use Bootstrap. and you really need Bootstrap.

ugh, that sounds messy

i want to just give them a login to my rock instance (that i don't care what happens to), but i'm wondering if that's giving a loaded gun to a teenager

haha well, if they’re just designers it won’t really get what they want. if i’m understanding correclty, 4sq lets them move background images around and all kinds of “cool” stuff. it’s a good solution for a non-programmer

I would actually start by requesting they read through the excellent Designing web sites guide http://www.rockrms.com/Rock/Book/14/51 It even addresses some of the concerns typical designers/devs have about using a ChMS as the web site.

Rock doens’t have interactive zone placement like that

well, i guess i'll print the PDF....

because otherwise they won't read it

Then, they can at least say "no way, we can't handle that" or "yeah, it might be worth the pain to learn some new stuff"

Frankly, you're in a weird place with designers on staff and no one to code up those designs. Usually you start with a dev who CAN do design and then move to dedicated designers when/if the job becomes too much for the dev ;-)

yup

and there's no plans to add staff re: dev

and/or the designers understand they need to hand it off

they DO get that

but it's kind of scary to them also

4sq isn’t a hand off. 4sq is a web version of what Microsoft Frontpage was.

heh

i mean, i have real concerns that the time investment w/ 4sq will be wasted

yeah, the places i’ve been on staff, the art team would design and then hand off and i’d code

they're meant for mom & pop, not a church w/ an expectation of technical relevancy

yeah, i’d worry that even those they “let you change everything” they’re still boxing you in somewhere.

my thought is w/ a system like Rock that the 'art team' would ask for layouts/themes, we'd outsource that, but then the 'art tem' could swap out the images and text as needed

is that crazy?

oh, that’s fine too.

i don't know how to 'package' that idea and present it to them

but the 4sq option made it sound liek they wanted to do the site layout and build it themselves.

they think they want that (kind of)

but they 'want that' because they can see and touch it, not because they need that function frequently

Maybe you need to flip it around... ask them for a site design, then pay a consultant to code that up as a Rock template. THEN let them at all the stuff they can edit/change (which is most of it). They can add pages, change content, images, whatever... they just can't redo the entire layout/theme.

sure, i get that. i’d start with the docs like Jim suggested. let them see if’s a robus cms.

that's what i'm saying JimM|xing ... thanks

that works too :)

you meant 'squarespace' not 4sq trey...right?

oh, yeah! sorry. i was thinking the name four square not square space.

but yes, square space is the drag and drop site builder

so JimM|xing , what tool do they 'create the site design' with?

thanks for the talk JimM|xing and TreyH|KFS

The "DesigningAndBuildingWebsites" PDF/guide is too technical for my team at this time

but I think i understand a little better how to communicate with them now

sross|calvary: Cool. Though it's scary that THAT guide is too technical ;-) I mean, can they even recognize HTML? Anyway, most people I know design in photoshop and then a dev slices it up into code.

well, they recognize what html is

but that guide has nothing for the 'creator/artist/designer' to see that doesn't require a 'technical translation layer'

Are these people pure graphic artists, or "communications" people that are now over web?

a bit of both

mostly comm that are over web

have been over web for 4 years

years

<sross|calvary> well, they recognize what html is

<sross|calvary> but that guide has nothing for the 'creator/artist/designer' to see that doesn't require a 'technical translation layer'

<JimM|xing> Are these people pure graphic artists, or "communications" people that are now over web?

<sross|calvary> a bit of both

<sross|calvary> mostly comm that are over web

<sross|calvary> have been over web for 4 years

* JimM|xing1 (~jimm@68-188-31-2.static.stls.mo.charter.com) has joined

<sross|calvary> years

the real issue jim is that they've been using an outdated CMS, have never used a real CMS, and they are ready for a change. But they've only known a Flash CMS

The thing is... just because you know how to draw doesn't mean you know squate about good UX design, navigation, etc. You're in a tough spot.

Argh, so difficult to buy a single CPU server these days. Looks like I'm gonna have to buy a dual CPU machine and pull one out... since Dell didn't see the need to allow disabling via BIOS. Grrr.

oops, wrong group!