I’m a Pagelime newbie but I’m liking it very much. It’s the easiest and most elegant CMS solution I discovered so far.
The reason for this posting is to help other Softpress Freeway users see the benefits of Pagelime for CMS integration. My initial web searches produced very little information about these two applications working together and yet there is a certain synergy between Freeway and Pagelime. The simplicity and time-saving aspects that appeal to the users of one system will appeal in the other.
There is one very important point that Freeway users need to understand from the outset and I’ll explain briefly how I got around this. Whenever you make a change (however minor) in Freeway the software re-creates the whole site and uploads fresh code. If you integrate Pagelime directly to your site this will result in undoing any of your clients edits.
I thought about the problem and resolved it by creating a sub domain e.g. www.cms.clientsite.com. I produced a separate site in Freeway of the simplified client editable sections and upload these to the sub domain. I integrate Pageline with the sub domain pages only, which gives the client the opportunity to play/test before I publish these pages on the main site using iFrames.
If this method is too complex or time-consuming to set-up I should mention that Pagelime includes a very useful content history feature that you can apply after any changes are made in Freeway.
I discovered that you can save a whole lot of time by using ‘Extended attributes for text’ and ‘HTML Mark-up for photos’ within Freeway to make editable sections instantly available in Pagelime. I’ll write up the procedure and post it here sometime soon – it’s very easy when you know how.
I’m currently looking under the hood and getting my hands dirty with external CSS reference pages which greatly improves design consistency. When I’ve mastered this I will again post a step by step guide. Hopefully someone will benefit from my many hours of trial and error.
I say to all Freeway users out there, give Pagelime a go, I think you’ll enjoy it.
