ArrangementCMS April Updates

I thought I’d take some time out now that we’re near the general release of the April update pack to tell the world what we’ve been working on, so here goes…

A new editor

Probably the biggest change is the inclusion of the CKEditor to replace the older FCKEditor. Besides dropping the “F”, CKEditor brings some new features to the party, such as:

• Better standards compliance (no more HTML 3.2-like attributes)
• More polished look
• Better table editing

… and a file browser

By default, CKEditor doesn’t have a file browser, so we cast around the Interwebs and found a great little product – PDW File Browser. After a deal of integration it now supports folders, thumbnail previews (and full-size ones too) and a nifty uploader which allows you to queue files for upload.

In fact, so much do we like PDW that we’ve replaced the default image chooser control with one based on it. We’ll be aiming to update the page chooser in the next cycle.

Streamlined content sorting

There’s 2 new features for helping keep track of the pages, images and other resources in your site. First up is the re-designed page properties view. We’ve split the general stuff (like the name, the folder and the menu/nav bar) into a separate tab. Why? Because we added a new box that lets you choose where you want to create a new item. You can even choose “automatic” (the default), so your new page/image/whatever will be put into a sensible folder for you, helping you to keep track of what is where.

Of course it’s not much use if you’ve already got 20,000 items in your Site folder, so there’s the new Tidy Content (you’ll find it in Tools in Administrator Home) to help you out. It just sorts all your stuff into the same folders as if you’d just created it all from scratch.

Shopping

Frankly there’s so much new stuff in ArrangementCMS’s EShop module its hard to know where to start!

From a customer point-of-view, there’s a raft of changes, including:

• Better themability so your shop can look more how you want it
• Better image presentation – images are now taken from the normal content folders, so they benefit from the image speedups in the last couple of cycles. More than that, zooming now no longer relies on popup windows but instead uses the PiroBox viewer (just like Image Galleries)
• Better controls – there’s a new “quantity chooser” which lets your customers pick a number instead of having to type it. If they want more then the drop-down is replaced with a text box.
• Better options. That’s the things like colour and size which you would have used variants for in previous versions. Now there’s a whole new way of doing things which is more flexible and yet more comprehensible too! Oh, and you can have more than one option.
• New delivery options. Shop items can now have a weight and you can specify the delivery using a weight-break chooser similar to the price break one.
• A new department type. The Composite Department can display a gallery-style collection of items from more than one department with themable headers.
• The links at the bottom of department pages can now be customised.

Under the hood there’s a whole new way of managing the data for your shop, resulting in a more consistent appearance. Of course these changes don’t come without a problem. It’s only a small one though – manual intervention may be needed to you to upgrade. You’ll need to re-upload your shop images and convert any variants to use the new options system. Don’t panic though, we’ve done it and written some scripts to help – give us a call for more information.

Media support

We’ve made some pretty major upgrades to how ArrangementCMS handles media. You can now use the Arrangement Uploader to upload video, audio and Flash content and manage it with the new Media icon. This helps you to generate the embedding codes needed to put your media into any page or side bar.

If the thought of embed codes causes you to shudder, there’s a new page type – the Media Player – which lets you easily add a movie to a page with no code whatsoever. You can also use Media Player pages as a way to setup easy embedding in other pages.

Aside from video, ArrangementCMS’s audio support has been totally rewritten. We’re now using the Flash-based XSPF Audio Player for the best browser support possible. In the next cycle we’ll add support for HTML5′s <AUDIO> tag too to support those pesky devices starting with i.

Fixes too

As with all cycles, this one has seen its share of bug fixes. Several issues with the Image  Gallery Editor have been addressed, as well as a couple of problems with the Addresses feature.

Where now?

So what does the next cycle hold? Here’s what we’re looking at:

• A new theming engine to improve markup compliance as well as the time it takes us to implement a theme. We’re looking to add in support for JQuery dynamic interface elements, drop-down menus and user-settable shortcut icons.
• A new menu/side bar editor. As one of the original ArrangementCMS components, the incumbent editor is pretty good, but with no support for drop-down menus and very strange support for dual side-bars we think its time to work on a replacement.
• Custom item properties for the shop. This one is a biggie and it should allow much more flexibility for the shop, especially in creating delivery choosers to meet complex needs.
• Continued integration of CKEditor, hopefully including a UI to generate media embed codes inside the editor (or as close to it as we can get!) as well as a continuation of the effort to get it to use your theme.