PageBuilder: THE BASICS
Drag and drop content elements onto a page, configure some settings, and publish. Well, that’s the general concept anyway…
PageBuilder is a great tool for embedding multimedia and other interactive elements like Twitter feeds, YouTube galleries, news feeds, and the like on your CMS400 site. Its interface is fairly straightforward and users familiar with CMS400 will be able to hit the ground running.
A content block or a page?
The key to understanding PageBuilder is understanding the difference between a content block and a page.
A content block is a single item such as an HTML content item, a document, an image, etc… In terms of HTML content blocks, you simply open up the editor, type away, and publish. The header, navigation, footer, and other global elements are automatically attached.
With PageBuilder, you create pages as opposed to content blocks. Pages are a collection of content blocks and widgets. You select the desired template (which defines the available drop zones, or areas where content and widgets can be dropped), and when you’re done, publish. This provides more control over the placement of content and interactive elements than most standard templates will. Of course, the WSOL SuperTemplate is the exception to the rule…
What’s a Widget?
The real value of PageBuilder is the widget framework. Widgets are user controls that can pull data from both CMS400 and third-party web applications, so in terms of being able to control content, it takes things to another level.
Examples of this include embedding a Flickr gallery, inserting a Twitter feed into a page, or simply pulling data from CMS400 directly (such as a Collection). And it’s easy for developers to create custom widgets (most only take a few hours to build), so any pre-conceived restrictions about what you can and can’t do with CMS400 can be thrown out the window.
PageBuilder and the WSOL SuperTemplate
Anyone that’s heard of WSOL (as if there are those that haven’t!) has heard about our SuperTemplate for CMS400. I’ll spare you the sales pitch, but the short version is that the WSOL SuperTemplate can accommodate PageBuilder capabilities in addition to normal content editing capabilities, so it continues to be the premier CMS400 template technology available.
PageBuilder and SuperTemplate together allow content authors of any skill to use either technology to meet their web and business needs. It's just another great example of how CMS400 offers multiple options to meet the needs of a diverse user community.