Phase 2 contract with AM?
Webmaster’s wish list
Here’s what the webmaster would like to see added to the CMS, perhaps in a phase 2 project with them.
- Pages marked visible=yes under a page marked visible=no should show in the left navigation bar when at the page with visible=no. Of course, they would never show in the site map. Here’s an example: The Global Tobacco Control pages should not normally show in the site map, but should be in the left navigation when visiting them. Consequently, in anticipation of this possibility, I have turned visibility off on the main page of this section, but on for all the pages under it, and temporarily, I’ve created my own links in a plugin in the left navigation bar. Alternative may be to have a Windows Explorer type site map, with collapsible/expandable sections (mentioned below under annoying things to fix).
- Implement the use of a form for all e-mail links on the website. Thereby eliminate any direct reference to CPHA e-mail addresses. Should reduce SPAM and virus attacks.
- Move other forms from NALD (e.g. the order form for CPHA Publication Sales). May require some programming.
- Three different titles for pages:
- normal page title (as now)
- short title to be used in breadcrumbs and left navigation
- title to be used in the site map
- A special dummy page, used only as a separator in the left navigation bar. It would have the following characteristics:
- It would not be a link - one cannot click on it. There is no actual page associated with this
- One can perhaps select from a limited number of defined styles. e.g.
- a coloured bar
- a coloured background, with the "page title" used as text to denote a section
- Its position in the left navigation bar would be determined in the same way as any other page.
- Site debugging aids:
- a report of all orphaned pages on the site
- a report of all orphaned assets on the site (perhaps optionally by type, e.g. images, PDF files, etc.)
- a report of where all pages on a site are referenced
- a report of all references to a specific page (perhaps both language versions of the page)
- similar reports as in the last two points, but for assets
- a report of pages that only exist in one language
- a report of all pages where a particular global content plugin is used
- a report of links to pages within the site and assets that don’t exist.
- a report that lists images and links that are not accessible, perhaps by page, and some surrounding text.
- A different site debugging aid: I cannot tell what page I was trying to access when I get the error page. One usually sees this in the address bar of the browser with 404 errors. But your CMS shows the error page’s address. Any way to get the request page’s URI displayed (perhaps through a special plugin)?
- Improve the
<h1> style (used with page headings - now with the maple leaf and light brown background). It doesn’t stand out well, and sometimes one places an
<h2> heading at the top of a page to make the page heading clearer. An example of the latter is here www.cpha.ca/en/portals/h-l/old-home/h-l2.aspx. The new CCIAP site handles page headings much better.
- Implement the login feature; use it for CPHA members (if we stay with memberships). Tied in somehow with our membership database, with individual logins (perhaps using the new external reference plugin). Note, SharePoint should be used for Board members, and perhaps project advisory committees.
- Related to the previous point, ensure that users can search for everything they have a right to see, by role, but see nothing else when searching.
- Merge CIII completely with CPHA’s site. Perhaps at a later time bring the database in-house, and use the external reference plugin and perhaps other tools to access the database.
- Restore: be able to efficiently restore a page (perhaps to a different file name with visibility turned off, to allow the webmaster to make final decisions about using it).
- Be able to copy an existing page to a new one, with all content. Perhaps this would be done by adding a copy from button in the ADD PAGE dialogue window.
- Handle accented characters better. Use HTML entities? Make sure this has no impact on indexing and searching the site. Cannot currently enter accented characters correctly in accessibility fields. Probably cannot display accented characters even in normal text in some parts of the world.
- Indexing is slow. It would be much preferable if indexing of the site is not normally required, but done instead as changes are made. e.g., when a plugin is saved, the references to words in the earlier version are removed from the index, and the words in the new version are added. Then, only occasionally should a new index be created manually when it is felt that the index is no longer efficient.
- Two simple edit checks should be incorporated in the "ADD PAGE" funtion, which would save me a lot of grief, and reduce the number of calls I make to AM to fix my goofs:
- Ensure that a user does not create a page with the same filename as an existing page in the same location, and
- Ensure that the filename is legitimate (e.g., no accented characters)
- Augmenting the above point, it would be nice to have a function under PAGE in the CMS's toolbar to create a duplicate page in the second language. No problem if it uses the same content (i.e. in the incorrect language for the new page) - it would still save a lot of work, and ensure that errors indicated in the point above aren't made. This is also a variant of the earlier point of being able top copy a page generally.
- Be more compliant with W3C recommendations. All tags end (e.g.
<br> becomes
<br />), and attributes with null values are removed where they are invalid (e.g.
align=""). [see note at bottom]
- Addresses relative to the site (links to internal pages and assets) are converted to addresses relative to the page when the text link is copied to another page. Not sure if this has an impact if the page itself is moved. It would be preferable to keep all such references relative to the site. [see note at bottom]
- It would be cool if the Asset Manager window listed image size in pixels (say for JPGs, GIFs, and PNGs).
- One can move a page from one part of the site to another, and all the liks move with it. However, one cannot rename a page's filename without all references to subservient pages being broken. Yet experience has shown that renaming pages is a common requirement for CPHA.
- Fix some very annoying things in the CMS:
- All references to pages should be in a format similar to Windows explorer or the CMS’s GOTO button, with the user being able to collapse or expand parts of the list. This applies to asset management, and making internal links.
- Do the same with the site map. Perhaps the sitemap plugin can have a parameter that shows the number of levels opened by default.
- The global contents plugin, in edit mode, should list plugins alphabetically. Same goes for the global content management, and content management.
- The CMS takes you to the landing page when you delete a page. Deleting a section can be tedious, with all the navigating required to get back to where you were. I suggest:
- better: return to the page before or after the deleted one, if there is one, otherwise return to the parent page of the deleted one.
- best: When deleting a page, allow optionally that all subservient pages also be deleted. Also optionally, allow this to be done in all languages.
- Add a title field to the internal link dialogue box
- Add an optional bookmark capability to the internal link dialogue box, so one can link directly to a bookmark on another page.
- The windows for resizing a table never close. One ends up with several instances of the browser open.
- Too many key clicks. Get rid of:
- extra apply, OK, etc. when adding assets and links
- the prompt are you sure you want to add xx plugin to this page?