GetSimple Next Version

[jason.dixon.email]

GetSimple CMS stands out because it works well, and it's the perfect solution for developers/designers to make their customers websites in, so the client will not have to call every 5 minutes and be like "hey, I want to change what a sentence says".
And the great thing is, you can take an existing HTML website and, using GetSimple's easy templating system, turn it into a fully functional but easy to use CMS website, in less than hour! Virtually no learning curve for the end users/clients that don't know what the heck a computer is, and perfect for the designers/developers!

This is what attracts me to this CMS. I am not the type of user that is likely to take a premade template and build a website using check boxes. But I also do not want the complexity of something like Wordpress.

I love the fact that I can prep the files (create the page template in HTML then add some tiny code snippets, insert plugins, etc) pop the files on a server and it works. Hell, I can even give out an entire website in a zip file and it will install and work for them in a couple of minutes, even if another installation is on the same server (no sharing databases!).

I hope this direction never changes.

Our major down fall right now is that we're big on not adding features to the core because they should be done as plugins so people can choose what we want, but we only have like 10 people that regularly make good plugins that actually address feature requests. A lot of plugins are crappy and/or outdated.

And we have very small variety of themes, etc. in Extend

Both of those things are related to community size really. Which will of course right itself as the CMS becomes more popular. Snowball effect.

The biggest challenge this CMS faces at the moment I think, is exposure. It needs social network advertising and many fancy promotional-looking ways for a user to find and get the plugins they need.

The plugin system (within the CMS itself) is fine I think. Functionality should be customizable. But how is a new user supposed to know, for instance, that they need to go to extend and download i18n special pages, when all they want to do is add a sidebar?

The plugin extend system needs some work I think. There needs to be a featured option for the top plugins in different categories as opposed to simply the most popular.
Even better would be an "app store" style system built into the CMS itself and on this website.
A new user should also be able to pick plugins on the CMS download page for things like a blog / itinerary / forum etc.

To expand this, I think the developers need to make some plugins official. Things like Blog / Ecommerce / Itinerary plugins etc. Then upon first installation the CMS should ask what kind of site the user is wanting, and automatically download from extend the latest version of the plugin corresponding to the users choice. With of course, a message telling them that they can get new plugins at the site.


I hate to say it because the CMS itself is perfect as the focus nudges just enough towards developers while keeping things excruciatingly simple. But the road between initially reaching this site and ending up with a fully functional CMS with all the plugins desired, feels very much like it was paved by developers.

Anyway... Here is what I would like to see added to the core:

* I would like to see a simple image slider built in.
* A simple check-box type option to load some page sections via ajax (ie: load data without leaving the page).
* A simple method of adding data to different sections of a web page (I'm trying to deliver my vision right now with Simple Input Tabs).
* i18n page options built in.
* Hierarchical navigation built in too.
* Multi-user system built in for both the front end and back end. I wouldn't normally care as there is a plugin, but I feel it would be more secure if it was built into the core.
* A check-box option to toggle "developer mode" on and off (turning it off would hide tabs such as editing template code and components, and any plugin tabs that flag themselves as developer only). There is limited space and it can get cluttered.
* Built in plugin finder. A repository of sorts to search and find plugins directly in the CMS.
* Dynpages functionality built in, and with it a standardized syntax for adding component sections to content. There is too much {%...%} or (%...%) or whatever going on with different plugins having their own style. Would be nice to have it stick to one syntax and have a hook or something that plugins can use. I also imagine it would increase performance and security if the system scans once per page, rather than once per plugin. OR better yet, have a button to insert a component in the WYSIWYG editor.
* Along with this, having the component section "rebranded" to snippets and added to the pages tab. Provide with it more dialogue options to explain what the code does and how to use it, and allow templates and plugins to create "snippets" when loaded.
* Finally I'd like to have a central data storage API that uses a shared config file/folder to enforce the standard of keeping plugin config information in a predictable place.