how does everyone...fill in content on a new/empty site

So, I’ve been away from the MODx project and I’m still refamiliarizing myself with it, it’s come quite a ways in the past year. The question I have it a bit of a generic one although I’m interested in MODx specific answers. So, you’ve created this nice set of templates for a new site and it’s all ready to go, except it’s missing one thing - content. Given that the job of entering content is really an editor/user role, how do you handle this? Do you just hand over a shell of a site and say "Have fun" or do you get them going by doing a little copy and paste (if they have a current site or have a set of content) to get them started? I’m thinking of mid-size business sites here, not community or blog sites. I’ve worked mainly with enterprise WCMS before and in the past I’ve done some cool tricks where we had a set of templates that were set up just to handle content entry and in parallel to that we would create the real skin of the site and then switch them over when they were ready to go live. This way, content entry would not have to wait for final design. Thoughts?

I dont have much to say about this as I only use MODx for personal projects, but you might be interested to see this: [Tip] Automatic Placeholder Content.

Hi Dave,

Content is a bear indeed. I’ve typically found it easiest to plugin in what they’ve got, then sit down with clients for a couple of half-day content entry/editing sessions.

However, I am definitely going to start exploring a "gray box" content collection methodology, like you mentioned. I think that would be ideal. Relevant images + words on some not-so-styled pages with dynamic menu generation. I like it a lot!

Hi Dave...
The company I work for delivers the site in a finished, turn-key form. I train the client how to use the editor in order for them to do future updates, but we do the cut-n-paste of setting up the site initially for the client.

I’ve always looked at web design and development as "building" a site. MODx is a FANTASTIC tool for site building...and it sure is faster than building all the pages in Dreamweaver....LOL.

So, to answer your question, we’d *never* hand an empty (or even greeked) shell to a client.

Duane

Quote from: Duane at Aug 23, 2006, 03:39 PM

So, to answer your question, we’d *never* hand an empty (or even greeked) shell to a client.

Duane

Well the thing is that I don’t think it’s bad to hand over an empty site. What if you are talking about a new site when the content is evolving as the templates and structure are still being defined and built? I mean a basic biz site has all the same elments (or very similar) such as About, Press Releases/News, Products, etc.

I believe this subject was mentioned in a previous thread (but I couldn’t remember where) as to having a "site" template so to speak where there is a basic stock setup already in place for various types of web sites (blogs, business, etc).

A good idea in my mind, this would enable webmasters or persons who were unfamiliar with the system to install and edit a few files to get them up and running. They could alter or modify as needed, and the included site would be a good learning example for them.

Well the thing is that I don’t think it’s bad to hand over an empty site. What if you are talking about a new site when the content is evolving as the templates and structure are still being defined and built? I mean a basic biz site has all the same elments (or very similar) such as About, Press Releases/News, Products, etc.

I understand what you’re saying, but typically the sites we’re working on launch live at the time we turn them over. While there are probably dozens of changes made the first month, the simple fact of the matter is, our goal is to never have a live site that is incomplete (empty pages reachable from the menu). I’d rather see to it that the site is complete before we turn it over.

I’m certainly not saying that anyone else needs to approach it this way, I can only tell you my opinion. It undermines the credibility of our client to have a potential customer come in and find empty pages on their site. As a developer, I can’t justify turning a site that isn’t ready to do its job over to a client.

Some fill in their own information on the proofing site...but most want it to be turn-key (out of 20-some sites we’ve developed over the past 12 months, only one client chose to fill in their own initial content). We factor in the content set up into our pricing...and frankly, it takes me a lot less time to do it than it would a client. I might add, the delivery of "ready" sites is definitely a competitive advantage for us. I see our competitors backing away from shells because of it.

Duane

In all the websites I’ve done until now I’ve either written all the content, or gotten content from the client, cleaned it up, and put it in the site before going live.

But now I’m redesigning a corporate website, and implementing it from scratch in MODx, and there are years of press releases, news articles, etc. to migrate over. So what I’m doing is putting in place the framework, and creating at least one document in each category or area that can be used as a model. An employee from my client is tasked with doing the content migration: she follows my model, and I’ve given her some basic instuctions on how the site uses certain fields (pagetitle, introtext, content, etc.). We won’t have ALL the old content ported over before we go live, but the customers will not notice. Once very nice thing about the MODx site is that she can add new content at any time, publish it, and it auto-magically appears in the menus and tables of contents.

Quote from: myfriendscallmebill at Aug 24, 2006, 01:23 AM

But now I’m redesigning a corporate website, and implementing it from scratch in MODx, and there are years of press releases, news articles, etc. to migrate over. So what I’m doing is putting in place the framework, and creating at least one document in each category or area that can be used as a model. An employee from my client is tasked with doing the content migration: she follows my model, and I’ve given her some basic instuctions on how the site uses certain fields (pagetitle, introtext, content, etc.). We won’t have ALL the old content ported over before we go live, but the customers will not notice. Once very nice thing about the MODx site is that she can add new content at any time, publish it, and it auto-magically appears in the menus and tables of contents.

This is basically what I had in mind. I would never suggest you hand over an empty site to a client but it’s going to be their job to manage the content when it’s done, why not have them get used to creating new pages, press releases, etc. sooner rather than later...

I think you can’t really finalise the style of the site and the required TVs until you’ve got proper starting content. Yes, it can make sense to hand over the admin keys before the site is launched - use usergroup restrictions to have a basic holding page site as the live site until you’re both happy with the site.

One thing that really should be flagged up here is the excellent Import facility built into MODx. If you have an existing static site, copy the pages, strip out the surround leaving only the TITLE in the head and the content in the body, throw it into the assets/import folder and let MODx add all the pages. Then all you need to do is file them into the structure properly.

But on the "no content" side, it is worth pointing out that in some cases, where the client is taking a particularly long time to deliver the text it is worth making it clear that everything is working and just dependent on them so that you can bill them now rather than in six months’ time. So you have to be flexible.