cmScribe Version 5.3 Q2 | 2008
Do you have an existing application you need to update?
cmScribe now has robust application building tools that allow us to modernize existing legacy applications —
FoxPro, MS Access, MS Excel, Basic, Visual Basic, Dbase, Turbo Pascal, C++ and ASP. We can transform your business rules into robust, secure, scalable web-based applications. If you need to upgrade, revise or replace your application and data architecture, we can help.
Learn more about distributed web database applications here.
View selected case studies here.
cmScribe Version 5.2.3 Q4 | 2007
Users of the current version of cmScribe will notice a slicker interface we’ve dubbed “cm silver”.
This version of the software is a major behind-the-scenes overhaul and represents an exciting way forward. Click a link to read details.
New Interface -Users of the current version of cmScribe will notice a slicker interface we’ve dubbed “cm silver”. Most noticeably, from a user’s perspective, is the integration of a new WYSIWYG editor and the cleaner look of the page template view when you perform a “Manage This Page.” Panels are now neatly collapsed into a small footprint, showing only the Configure, Delete and Move button functions. When you choose to Configure a panel’s options that panel opens and positions itself conveniently center stage while the remainder of the screen darkens. Wow! It’s down-right theatrical! But seriously, some panels have a lot of options and they could overlap each other in page template view making it difficult to access them ― the new version solves that.
Watch a brief demo of the new Manage This Page view and Configure Panel, shown above.
(1:09 min swf)
New WYSIWYG Editor -For anybody used to Microsoft® Word® or Outlook’s® text formatting conventions the new editor is almost frighteningly familiar and easy to use.
- Paste From Word: The new editor does a superior job of cleaning up the extra formatting gunk introduced when you cut and paste text form Word.
- Pop-up Windows: If you want to create pop-up windows — yes, for certain tasks they are useful — it’s a snap with this editor.
- Smart Menus: Another really convenient feature is the right-click contextual menu access.
- Photo Resizing: The editor does a great job of resizing photos.
- HTML Code: The html code that the editor writes is much cleaner and compliant with W3C standards. Lastly, if you do write html you’ll appreciate the way the editor displays and handles the code view.
Watch a brief demo of the new WYSIWYG editor with Smart Menus, shown above.
(1:36 min swf)
From a developer and solution provider perspective the old editor was heavy. The new editor, from a code standpoint is much lighter. Since we include the editor within our core software its size has a very direct impact on every recompile of code and when copying website files onto a new server (e.g. Stage or Live sites). Admittedly, this factor isn’t as much of an issue for end users but it is something that other developers using cmScribe to build websites are very interested in — and the new editor alleviates the time overhead involved with these tasks.
Re-Architected to Conform to Strict Modularity -With the upgrade to cmScribe 5.0 and .NET 2.0, we have re-architected our product to become more modular. We have split the major functionalities into modules which can be included without any inter-dependencies except on our core software module. Each discreet module interacts with cmScribe’s core through an API (application programming interface). Therefore, we can easily include or exclude different functions of the product – i.e. if you don’t need the store functionality, we don’t need to include it in the project at all. The introduction of the API will also allow for future third party enhancements and plug-ins to the software.
Clients sometimes request us to customize the way a certain feature of their site functions. For example, we get requests to customize the store in order to have it integrate seamlessly with existing order and fulfillment systems. This new strictly modular approach allows us to add a “functionality placeholder” in our working version of the software that then allows the customer’s copy of the software to fill the placeholder with a particular function. I know this sounds a bit abstract, but what it means is the core software now contains nice hooks for integrating customizations without any hard coding. It’s kind of like those screwdrivers that come with all those different ends? So, a cmScribe website can be upgraded without affecting any of the customizations as they stay in a separate folder and will always just “hook up”! (As long as your “new” screwdriver handle retains the same size hole all those old ends will work in it). This allows for fast, efficient upgrades.
E-newsletter and Mailing List Management Integration -In the past we’ve created a few rich html newsletter templates for clients and sent them out as email blasts. Because it’s html people sometimes think it’s the same as the web, but it’s not. Html email and html internet pages may look the same, as they are both on-screen computer media, but literally, technically — they are not. They are both html but one is displayed in a browser and one is displayed in email. Anyone who has sent an html email out knows there is a lot of up-front testing done (read: headaches) to make sure the email renders properly on different types of email services (for example AOL email and Outlook email are different, and different too on the Mac and Windows PC). It can be frustrating. Today if clients are interested in producing email campaigns or e-newsletters and building and managing subscriber lists, we refer them to an easy, affordable service called Constant Contact. Learn more and get a Free 60-Day Trial by clicking this link. The company has resources dedicated to continually making sure that your email gets delivered successfully. For example, they provide plenty of pre-designed templates that are easy to customize and best of all tested on different email services to make sure the html doesn’t “break”. Constant Contact has standing relationships and ongoing dialogue with many of the leading ISPs and blacklists. This includes the sharing of information regarding policies, practices and issues (so for example, your html email newsletter doesn’t get blacklisted as spam).
There are several ways you can collect email addresses and build your lists. Constant Contact provides a list building tool in the form of a sign up box that can be put on your website. Your site visitors can sign up for your email list and their addresses are automatically imported in to your Constant Contact account. If you have multiple mailing lists, for example you may have several services or product lines and can build lists specifically related to those services or products, this new cmScribe panel will allow your visitors to choose from multiple lists and automatically register them to that specific list in Constant Contact.
Other ways to collect would be to set up a guest register and have customers provide you with their email addresses that you will import in to your Constant Contact account. Trade shows, conferences, purchases - any time you meet your customer, invite them to join your list.
cmScribe Version 4.99 Q1 | 2007
The following features have been added to cmScribe. Click a link to read details.
New Product Features
Rotating Content -Display any content on a rotating basis. Rotation can be set to daily, weekly, monthly or on browser reload. Setting up a year's worth of daily tips is easy. Simply create an Excel spreadsheet of your content and upload it with our new Import function. Need to make changes? You can view all the content at one time on the website and choose what to edit or export all the content to a file, edit and import again. Also includes the ability to append or replace the content you are importing.
Poll - Who's your favorite actor? What's your view on the current world political situation? Use the new cmScribe Poll to find out. Voting is only allowed once per visitor (set through a cookie). Results can be displayed on the same page (replacing the question) or on a new page. Results are displayed as a bar graph with the percentage of votes for each option. Number of votes can be set to display always or only after a certain threshold of votes has been reached. Another panel allows you to view the results of past polls. Admin functions include the ability to activate or deactive a poll (so that polls can be set up ahead of time), clear poll results to start again from scratch or duplicate a poll.
Email a Friend - Send an email with a link back to the website to one or more email addresses. Can be set to allow the visitor to add a personal message, as well as for the website owner to add information to the body of the email. Includes spam prevention, allowing the website owner to set the maximum recipients per submission, maximum emails a visitor can send or a recipient can get per time period, even a global site limit for number of emails that can be sent. The accompanying "Email a Friend Link" can be set to open the Email a Friend as a pop-up window.
Printer Friendly page link - Lets visitors know at a glance that a page is printer friendly with this new panel. Optionally set the printer-friendly page to open in a pop-up window.
Behind-the-scenes Enhancements
HTML Header panel - embed code, such as javascript, inside the tags.
Printer Friendly css stylesheet - Using cmScribe's style sheet edit area, now easily configure printer-friendly style sheets.
W3C compliance assistance - Set a site-wide requirement that all images and linked documents include "alt" text. This can be optionally set or not.
Tracking panel - add this panel to any single page or to the template to apply to all pages to create a database record every time a visitor comes to the page. If the visitor is a logged in user, record the user id as well.
Content Management System (cms)