Alright, I've been working on a rough draft for a control panel for my multi-site manager. Here's what the status page looks like:



Let me know what you guys think!

Me likey.

Loving it!

I know this would be loads more work, but a customizable colour scheme would be nice I bet it'd be easy to hack-change, though?

Definitely. The template for even the ACP will be customizable. There will be a failsafe script, of course, that will restore the old style to the ACP just in case something goes wrong with the user-created style

I'm going to write the template manager to be as noob-friendly as possible, and make it easy to make a style not based on the original layout setting as the default. I know a lot of template-based systems don't usually allow for modders to easily use a different layout set up. (phpBB being one of them ).

Anyway: Ideas on the CP design?

(Suggestions on the organization of the sections even?)

I'll say it now: Sex. I am really looking forward to that. Making my site look consistant, from the visitor view to the admin pages, is a plus for me.

Everything looks good. I'd love to view a dummy/demo version to get a feel for stuff.

Swivelgames, I don't know if you're still working on this one, but it was one of your coolest designs to date, and I hope it still comes to fruition.

Thanks a lot, Kerm. I really appreciate the encouragement. I've kept this tab open since your post to use as a reminder and for motivation. I'm currently cleaning up [edit:]and documenting[/] my latest variations of my unnamed-cms that I've come so far with lately, and I'm going to see how far I can get with this design using it.

Right now the CMS is going to go through quite a few beta applications so functionality can be tested and universal functions and UIs can be written to best suite a wide-range of applications.

So after preparing it for it's next "version" (which won't be long at all) I'll be applying it to this design, and also Alex'


[I need to come up with a name of this thing and possibly post updates on it, since it's actually getting somewhere... unlike my endless list of named-but-unsuccessful-cms's and my infamous reputation suggests]

I can't wait! I should have zipped you my beta site because it already has the Login link in the header P: I could I always just send you an updated header, hm?

Keep going! The screen shots make the CMS look really flashy and nice and your words make it sound highly versatile. And I believe you, and it, won't disappoint!

Quoted for truth. You're giving me a bunch of idea on how I should revamp my own CMS, as a matter of fact.

I've designed two wiki designs, and I wanted to know everyone's thoughts on it.

(*cough* different project *cough* Ignore the content )
http://swivelgames.com/templates/wiki-mainpage-template.jpg
http://swivelgames.com/templates/wiki-template.jpg

Also, I redesigned the logo slightly. Take a look

Old

New

To see the new logo in action, just check out Swivelgames.com. And hit up the old design (or the new wiki designs) for the previous logo version in action

I must be missing something (or misreading), because both of those Wiki designs look great, but the same with different content. Is Fe the new name for Lemur, aka the Swivelgames CMS? Or that's an entirely different project? Keep up the good work.

Thanks Kerm!

Fe and Lemur are related, but Fe is planned to be more advanced and robust. FeMS is planned to be a mixture of an advanced, robust CMS, and something of a Network Management System, including the ability to manage multiple instances of FeMS across servers and domains, given you're a user that has permissions on that instance and they're linked. The control panel I posted a screenshot of above (first post on this page) is actually related to FeMS, and not necessarily Lemur. FeMS is being planned to stem from Lemur once Lemur has reached it's initial potential. Lemur is being developed right now (and actually coming along quite smoothly ).

I actually hesitated to post up the screenshot of the main page because I wasn't planning on revealing anything about Iron for a while. ^^,

Yeah, I noticed that whole networked dealio. Are you thinking about multiple domains containing sections of the same site, or more loosely-linked sites like the tiSAX sites?

The sites will be anywhere inbetween. The original idea is to have multiple domains, different or same content on each, and all managed under one clean, organized, and robust control panel. They'll be able to transfer/share content, styles, etc... and either have their own content or share between the others.

Basically, two sites can link their installations and allow management of the other site to happen through the same CP. The owner of site_1 could have full range over site_1, and partial permissions over site_2. The owner of site_2 could have full range over site_2, and partial permissions over site_2. Or, the owner can have full range over site_1 and site_2, and power can be delegated to other users to manage certain aspects of site_1, site_2, or both.

An example of both uses would be my current situation.
I own and/or host

• BlueLogicTeam.com
  
• Swivelgames.com
  
• ArmedForBattle.net
  
• T****G***.com
  
• ToggleSwitchLetsPlay.com

Rod Serna owns and/or hosts

• BlueLogicTeam.com
  
• T****G***.com
  
• RodSerna.com
  
• and a couple others

Aaron Davenport maintains

• ToggleSwitchLetsPlay.com

All sites are childs of the BlueLogicTeam.com installation. Different information is shared between the databases, including users and their privileges on the different sites.

Rod Serna and I are both co-owners of BlueLogicTeam.com and T*G*.com, so we should both have owner privileges over both of them. Any staff members under us for T*G*.com have access to manager their areas of the site. Both BLTcom and TGcom are manageable through the same control panel (through either BLTcom or TGcom).

Swivelgames.com and ArmedForBattle.net are both mine, so I have full privileges over them. Members of AFB will have access to certain aspects of managing the AFBnet site. Both sites are childs of BLTcom, so sessions are transferable between the sites. Rod Serna, although an owner of BlueLogicTeam.com, has no privileges over Swivelgames.com or ArmedForBattle.net. He does, however, have all the rights I've mentioned I have over SGcom and AFBnet over his domains and websites.

ToggleSwitchLetsPlay.com is a child of Swivelgames.com, however, and it's owned by me, and co-owned by Aaron Davenport.

I'm very tired right now, so it's a bit hard to explain. I need to write a spec on it and build the spec up as I go along. Right now I haven't the ability to explain it very easily, haha. Basically, there will be a large amount of features to play with, and linking sites can be as simple as linking tiSAX (modules, different content, themes, etc...) and as complicated as cPanel

The idea behind it is very complex, and it may seem messy, complicated, and even hard-er to manage, but the whole idea I have thought up with all the different complexities makes it 10 times easier to manage them, instead. I need to sort it all out still and write a spec on it or something. Because of Lemur's versatility, the idea has quite a bit of potential.

But there's a long road before that comes around. I want to gradually move towards that, but focus on Lemur right now. The released version of Lemur will be the base with a number of preinstalled, integrated modules. After that's done I'll isolate an instance of that and work towards building up an FeMS build that's based off of Lemur's stable core. I'm going to do my best to keep the modules from being too integrated for FeMS, though, because (1) I want FeMS to be more of a package, and (2) the core of FeMS is Lemur; I want it to be easy to implement updates and changes made to Lemur into FeMS, so that they're both active projects that are easy to maintain.


tl;dr: It'll be pretty shweet. It'll make it incredibly easy to manage installations across domains, sub-domains, and even something as simple as different directories on the same domain. Complexity and versatility packaged as simplicity. It should be spectacular. Too bad visions aren't always what they're made out to be
Let's hope this one gets close, someday. For now, let's hope Lemur reaches it's full potential and continues to make it's way towards the vision I have for it.

Whoa, tons of info there, thanks Swivel! I'm particularly interest to see what happens with T***G***.com; I know you and Mexi have some interesting ideas for it, and I'm looking forward to see how you differentiate yourselves from all the other similar sites out there.

Of course, Kerm!

I'm interested to see how it turns out. Hopefully we'll combine some pretty cool ideas to make it stand out above the others.

Most definitely. In a way I regret that I don't have the time at the moment to put into making a contribution to the project myself.

I'm sure we'd love to have you on board whenever you do have the ability to.

No worries, though I'm sure if your minds works as mine (and I'm sure most of Cemetech's users') you'll probably never run out of ideas for more projects.

And more specifically, my mind will continue to generate new ideas at least twice as fast as I can implement them.

Hahah, yeah, that sounds familiar



Also, not sure if anyone has checked it out recently, but I also wanted to know what everyone thought about the incredibly simple page up on Swivelgames.com right now. The "Coming Soon" pages or whatever you want to call them