Advanced Users Introduction

Our CMS is the perfect content management solution for web designers and graphic designers.

• Users are focused on editing the "content" of each page using a "word" style editor.
• Designers create site templates that are dyanmic and robust for mutliple devices. There are almost no limitations on what you can do with HTML, CSS and JS.

About Site Templates

• Experienced web designers can create their own "Site templates", with custom CSS and javascript, or traditional print/graphics designers can use our "editable banner templates". 
• The "Site Template" is an ordinary HTML page with the word [CONTENT] where the content should go. and [HEADING] for heading, and [MENU] for menu, etc. You can edit the HTML directly if you want.
• You can have 8 site templates, and assign a page to different templates. eg you might have a shopping template that includes the category list in a column, and the shopping cart in another column.
• You can insert custom javasript in the _scripts.js file
• Stylesheets are broken into 3 sections, 1 for the main content style (which is included when editing content) and 2 others for the main menu and category menu. If you want to include CSS which breaks when editing content alone, then insert it into the menu css or include via the meta tags area. The published pages use a compressed published CSS file, and the VIEW link from the CMS will take you to a page which only uses the current CSS sheet including changes. The compiled/compressed CSS may have some user configured overrides from the user selectable colours area.. 
• You can insert include rules for other CSS and 3rd party Javascript libraries into the meta tags area. 
• Images should be kept in the https://www.help.cms-tool.net/images// folder, and you need to ensure you use paths relative to the root when uploading your html from a 3rd party design app.

About Pages

• Page templates are for content. The most common page template is a "single design page" using a "Word" style editor. 
• In addition, we have blogs, shopping carts, forums, and galleries with automated thumbnailing. 
• You should setup your customers navigation using the most appropriate page templates suited to content needs. Don't just create placeholder menu buttons with the wrong page type.
• You can assign each page to a different site template. Or you can even use a Full HTML page to override the templates. 
• Pages have natural URLs, eg http://www.myname.co.nz/contactall.html . In the rename area for each page, just specify any "save as filename" you like eg "contactall.html". Some dynamic pages have /webapps/ in the URL. 
• SEO meta tags are editable by user or SEO expert using a friendly wizard interface.

Other Tips

• You can FTP your files and images up, make sure images go in the https://www.help.cms-tool.net/images// directory
• When FTPing html files, note that our system will automatically override the index.html page.. You can select the FileSite mode if you want to prevent your home page being overriden.
• Galleries, thumbnails and catalogues can be automatically generated from directories of photos. So just FTP these photos up. Our templates will create the thumbnails and page navigation automatically. We have several different gallery and slideshow formats, otherwise (for a fee) we can integrate your customised template with our system.
• The CMS system does not support PHP. Please get in touch if you require dedicated PHP support. We can host PHP but on a dedicated server not shared with the CMS content. 

Limitations on Support