Articles - Page 113

What I Mean to Say: A Practitioner Perspective on AI, Semantics, and Content Evolution

msalvatierra

<a href="http://liferay.com/" target="_blank">Liferay, Inc.</a>, has rolled out its latest project – Liferay Screens – in order to aid companies develop native apps for iOS and Android platforms.
Liferay is a vendor for <a href="http://liferay.com/">open source portals</a> designed for enterprising companies and organizations. Their clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Allianz, Siemens, Toyota and the United Nations to name but a few.
According to Liferay, Liferay Screens is a, “collection of fully native mobile components, using all the power of your Liferay Portal as an enterprise grade mobile back-end.”
<h2>Responding to the Mobile Explosion</h2>
In case you haven't heard, mobile is pretty darn big nowadays.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/liferay.png" />
This release is part of Liferay’s larger push to provide a mobile platform for companies developing several native apps across business units. Through Liferay Screens, the company hopes to save its customers time and money by making it easier for mobile apps to reuse core data and services.
Here are some of the benefits that Liferay Screens brings to the table.
<ul>
<li>Liferay Screens comes fully compatible with standard development tools for iOS and Android</li>
<li>Lowers learning curve for developing apps backed by reusable back end services</li>
<li>Helps developers comply with UX and Brand requirements using Screens Themes, which follow Apple and Google’s design languages and allow for custom colors</li>
<li>Adaptive layouts automatically ensure apps function and appear correctly on phones and tablets of any form factor</li>
<li>Reusable services like registration, user management, localization, and authentication help developers focus on more important business logic</li>
</ul>
Juan Fernandez, Liferay's Product Manager, had this to say upon the release of Liferay Screens:
<blockquote>“The problem we’re trying to solve for companies is, ‘how do we quickly build great mobile apps that integrate with the overall customer experience, while keeping development costs to a minimum?
Companies have to respond to the mobile explosion, but they need to do so with a strategy. With Liferay Screens, you can develop high-quality, elegant mobile apps quickly without compromising on these long-term considerations.”</blockquote>
Find out more about Liferay Screens.
Also, be sure to check out <a href="/products/liferay/" target="_blank">Liferay through our CMS Directory</a>.

Liferay Speeds Up Mobile App Development With Liferay Screens Release

mike-johnston

Hippo 10 has been released, and it brings a new focus on content performance along with it.
Last year's CMS Awards saw Hippo CMS win in two categories; the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-free-java-cms/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Free Java CMS</a> and the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-java-cms/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise Java CMS</a>. Those victories were no mean feat, considering the competition in the two respective niches.
Touted now as a Content Performance Platform, Hippo 10 enables a data-driven omni-channel content strategy which aims to bring a more personable digital experience for every visitor. It is designed to help businesses understand their visitors – both known and anonymous – before helping them to deliver their content in any context and on any device.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/login.png" />
<h2>A Change in Direction</h2>
Content has always been the priority, and it probably always will be. Hippo 10 in changing the direction of the platform's focus to reflect the personalization-centric times.
Here's how.
A Move Towards Being A Content Performance Platform
Whereas traditional web analytics have focused on the majority and average visitor, Content Performance metrics tailor content delivery to the individual, based on that individual’s real time engagement with content.
Built on the power of the existing Hippo’s relevance engine, the Content Performance Platform adds further precision to real-time personalized content delivery. By providing a continuous feedback loop, Hippo CMS 10 offers actionable insights on content's success in supporting business goals.
A Refreshed User Interface
What good is a software update without a facelift?
Hippo 10 users will benefit from a revamped user interface, offering a new visual style alongside improvements to user interaction, making it more efficient and intuitive for end users.
Personalization, Testing and Continuous Optimization Combined
Given the dynamic nature of personalized onsite content, traditional A/B testing isn't as effective as it once was. During the period that an A/B test reaches statistical significance, the enterprise risks repeatedly delivering the wrong content to the wrong audience. By testing of content (rather than pages) per persona, and dynamically optimizing that content, Hippo CMS 10 avoids the pitfalls of standard A/B testing and drives better user experience for more visitors.
Hippo's multi-pronged bandit algorithm optimises while testing is going on. The algorithm initially tests content versions delivered in equal proportion— adjusting the proportion of content delivered in favour of the well performing content, wasting no time to continuously optimise the digital experience. This approach makes content performance metrics actionable even with a limited number of users in a test group.
Developer Agility
Hippo 10 also offers a major step towards the company’s SaaS and PaaS product vision, enabling developers to truly focus on what’s important: rapid development and continuous deployments.
Thanks to Live Reload functionality, developers utilize their preferred IDE to create code, templates, CSS and JavaScript, which then automatically synchronizes with the Hippo CMS repository. Changes are instantly visible without the need for publication or refresh. All this makes for a tight and optimized loop between code development and deployment.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/running_experiments.png" />
Upon the release of Hippo 10, the company's CEO Jeroen Verberg made the following comments.
“By learning about and responding to the individual visitor’s preferences, interests and intent in- real time, Hippo CMS 10 takes the guesswork out of content strategy.
This release transforms the CMS into a data-driven intelligent marketing technology that measures real-time content performance against the online goals of the enterprise – attracting visitors, improving engagement and increasing conversion.”
For more information on Hippo 10, check out the <a href="http://www.onehippo.org/" target="_blank">Hippo Community Website</a>.
Additionally, be sure to explore more of Hippo via our CMS Directory.

Hippo 10 Release "Transforms" Hippo Into Content Performance Platform

Every day I get several emails from people and companies looking to find the perfect platform for their needs. While I try to answer as many as I can, sometimes emails get missed or I run out of time to answer them or they get buried in the mass of incoming emails. For this reason, we launched the CMS Critic Forums.
On our forums, you can post your question and either myself, Kaya or one of our readers can provide you with suggestions as to which product you might want to explore further. Obviously for complicated questions, some of these may require a separate consulting engagement but we'll certainly do our best to point you in the right direction or, at the very least, offer some methods to help you get there.
The forums are a great place for you to:
<ul>
<li>Ask questions</li>
<li>Request information on a specific product (How would WordPress work as a realty website?, etc)</li>
<li>Share your successes or failure stories (I tried this CMS and it was great or I tried something and hated it and here's my experience).</li>
</ul>
The benefits to you sharing your experiences with our readers are twofold; if you share a horror story, we might be able to connect you with the right people to resolve your issue or if your story is a successful one, you may inspire someone else with your success.
Either way, please participate and help us grow this community to the best it can be.

Free advice for those who are having a tough time finding a CMS

To wrap up our featured week with <a href="https://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">dotCMS</a>, I’m taking a look at how the platform opens doors for developers.
The enterprise-grade Java, open source CMS recently beat off stiff competition to win the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" />
Previously, we <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank">interviewed dotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>, caught a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough from CTO Will Ezell</a>, discussed the <a href="/whats-new-with-dotcms-3.2-and-the-3.x-series/" target="_blank">dotCMS 3.x series</a>, and caught up with dotCMS both <a href="/dotcms-at-home-or-on-the-cloud-fast-and-flexible/" target="_blank">on the cloud and at home</a>.
Now though, here’s what the award-winning platform is doing for developers.
<h2>DotCMS as an xCMS</h2>
DotCMS is many, many things, and according to Will Ezell, the platform’s CTO, one of those things is an xCMS.
Otherwise known as a User Experience Platform, dotCMS defines xCMS in the following way:
<blockquote>
“An xCMS is a system that provides native content management, search, APIs, rapid development tools and personalization [features] that allow an organisation to centralise presentation and/or management of disparate content and UX systems.”
</blockquote>
Will Ezell goes on to explain in more detail in the video below.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gMTdG4A_fLM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Essentially, what Will Ezell has done, is successfully make the case that dotCMS is more than just a CMS for websites. It’s a “hub” which can push content through all sorts of different channels. It’s a product ready for the generation of Internet-of-things.
DotCMS provides easy and open APIs to query, retrieve (xml &amp; json) and write content, binary assets and even remote widgets. These API calls have been built specifically so that content can be retrieved in real-time and used by external systems.
<h2>Hyper-friendly to Developers: Geolocation, Frameworks &amp; More</h2>
To take a closer look at how dotCMS makes the leap beyond standard websites, here are some of its key features used on the ground.
First up, dotCMS is extremely framework friendly. It can be used with any responsive framework, including Bootstrap, Foundation, Gumby and Skeleton.
Due to being able to use their preferred tools and frameworks, developers can decide between working with a fully customized site, or a completely template and theme controlled presentation or frankly, anywhere in between
Just take a look at dotCMS’ pre-designed themes and templating documentation for a better idea of how this entire process can be streamlined.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-49.png" />
Furthermore, no proprietary tools are needed for web or Java development either, making life even easier and more familiar for development teams.
Elasticsearch driven Geolocation is another feature worth noting. As long as there is a content type with a field supplying latitude and longitude coordinates, content can be dynamically displayed or hidden using Elasticsearch Geolocation queries.
Developers can also have a bit of fun with dotCMS’ remote widget API. Widgets (essentially little apps) can be delivered, fully rendered, as snippets of code to remote systems by calling a RESTful url. All it takes is javascript to pull and display content rich widgets into any webpage or external system.
Support for Spring &amp; OSGi -dynamic plugins as well as CMIS support provide even more room for creativity and options for integration.
DotCMS touts themselves as the developer friendly CMS. No doubt, they might just be your new CMS BFF.
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

DotCMS: Breaking Down Barriers for Developers in Content Management

After getting to know the DotCMS 3.x Series, it’s time to take a look at the platform’s flexible cloud offering. For those unaware, <a href="https://dotcms.com" target="_blank">DotCMS</a> is available as an on premise solution, as well as a cloud-based solution.
As one of the leading products in the Java, open source CMS niche, DotCMS recently won the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" />
Previously this featured week, we’ve also had the pleasure of <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-platinum-partner-architech/" target="_blank">interviewing DotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>. CMS Critic also had the chance to sit through a detailed <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough</a>.
For now though, it’s back to DotCMS as a cloud solution.
<h2>To Cloud Or Not To Cloud: On Premise vs dotCMS Managed Hosting</h2>
The awesome thing about dotCMS is its flexibility when it comes to being cloud based.
dotCMS can be used on premise just as simply as it can be used from the cloud. In fact, clients can even opt for a hybrid of both.
As far as on premise goes, the client will be largely responsible for the maintenance of the entire setup, although companies with experienced technical teams may prefer this option due to the hands-on freedom, there’s no denying the comfort of the cloud.
DotCMS Managed Hosting is easier to scale with, as it enables development teams and IT resources to be focused on building solutions, not administering servers. Thus, overall costs as well as time to market are minimized.
Further flexibility is found with dotCMS Managed Hosting as the cloud solution is available for smaller, single server implementations to mega set-ups using multi-tiered development, staging and production clusters. All configs are scalable and as dotCMS is an Amazon Web Services Technology Partner, solutions can be hosted in one or more of the Amazon geographical region data centers. From a web operations perspective, all this flexibility means it’s likely that dotCMS can be configured to meet the budget and business requirements of most businesses.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-47.png" />
Plus, with dotCMS Managed Hosting, upgrading or moving to bigger (or smaller) instances, or adding more storage is only a support ticket away.
Speaking of support, opting for dotCMS Managed Hosting brings the help and support of the dotCMS team closer. otCMS engineers will keep your servers up to date with the latest dotCMS patches, security updates versions, including major version updates. Plus, all cloud customers enjoy the added security of full nightly, weekly and monthly backups.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-48.png" />
Further to this. Virtual Private Clouds (VPC) are employed to achieve complete separation of your dotCMS cloud instances from all other clients. Either way though, dotCMS clients are never not locked in. They can easily transition from on premise to cloud, and back again should they wish.
<h2>More Cloud Options</h2>
DotCMS also offers a little publicised option that is geared to Proof of Concepts (POC), digital agencies, and start-ups or wherever a single dotCMS server fits the bill. Called dotCMS Cloud – this option provides a single server dotCMS set up that you can order online. Billed as the fastest and easiest way to get started with dotCMS, dotCMS Cloud is another example of the fast and flexible cloud solutions dotCMS is bringing to market.
Reliability, flexibility, support, and scalability all in one solution. Not to mention the shrunken IT and maintenance footprint. That’s why companies are moving to the cloud. It looks like dotCMS is one such CMS that can get you there too.
Learn more about <a href="http://dotcms.com/products/java-cms/managed-hosting" target="_blank">dotCMS Managed Hosting</a>. 
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

DotCMS At Home or On the Cloud: Fast and Flexible

<a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">DotCMS 3.2</a> is the latest and greatest version of DotCMS. It boasts plenty of new and useful features, building on the foundations set by versions 3.0 and 3.1.
The Java-based, open source content management system recently won the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" /> Mike Johnston kicked off this featured week with an <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank">interview with DotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>, followed by a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough with CTO Will Ezell</a>.
Now though, it’s time to look at the forward steps DotCMS with its 3.x series.
<h2>Looking Back at DotCMS 3.0 and 3.1</h2>
The release of DotCMS 3.0 back in November 2014 saw a number of major changes being made both to the user experience, as well as under the platform’s digital hood.
On top of a new enterprise licensing scheme and support portal, DotCMS became the first Java open source CMS to let users build with the power of CSS preprocessors directly into the platform, with the help of Sass and LESS auto-compiling.
Multi-type containers became available to DotCMS users for the first time too, providing huge flexibility to what content a template can render.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/multi-container_700x0.png" />
This also allowed users to greatly reduce the number of templates maintained, thanks to the ability to re-use container code.
A native DotCMS mobile app demo was released on Android and iOS too, giving new users a taste of DotCMS from a mobile device.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-starter-mobile-app.png" />
The DotCMS team also brought in modern code management tools including Github, Artifactory, Maven, and Gradle.
As for DotCMs 3.1, which was released in March 2015, users were treated to more creative features.
This included, “Pages-as-Content” feature allows you to extend DotCMS content concepts to pages, including; custom Page types, different versions for different language and the ability to create custom attributes per HTML page.
In turn, this allowed for custom workflows to be managed, including the use of “whole pages” in a workflow. This capability helped user experience designers use dotCMS custom workflows more effectively and efficiently, with less code.
<h2>DotCMS 3.2: What’s New</h2>
As previously mentioned, Mike Johnston recently sat down with Will Ezell, DotCMS’ CTO, for a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough of DotCMS 3.2</a>.
During that walkthrough, Will Ezell said that:
<blockquote>
“[DotCMS is] very easy to develop for, very easy to extend and very easy to engage with. [That’s from] a business user’s perspective, as well as from a web developer’s perspective and a Java developer’s perspective.”
</blockquote>
The walkthrough showcased DotCMS’ inline content editing features, elastic search for geolocation functions, and personalization features.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-43.png" />
Version 3.2 supports 13 CSS frameworks, as well as theme based templates that automatically adapt and optimize content, images and videos to fit mobile devices. This accompanies multi-level caching and clustering abilities, allowing DotCMS to handle huge levels of traffic, and scale accordingly.
DotCMS 3.2 also boasts customizable pages, UTF-8 urls, facets, and also ships with Tomcat 8.0.18. the platform also now supports Java 8 as well as Java 7.
It’s clear that from a product perspective, that dotCMS‘s focus is to empower business users, developers and IT. As CTO Will Ezell mentioned:
<blockquote>
“We’re balancing the needs and dependencies of each stakeholder in a way that removes barriers, not adding unnecessary tooling and layers to get something done. Working with dotCMS should be fast and familiar, no proprietary tools or environments are needed. We had one customer say, “It’s like Christmas for developers.”
</blockquote>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

What's New with DotCMS 3.2 (And the 3.x Series)

Shopify - The global commerce platform

Build your business with Shopify to sell online, offline, and everywhere in between.

The global commerce platform

#ffffff

So far this featured week, we've seen <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mike Johnston interview DotCMS' CEO Tim Brigham</a> before sitting down with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CTO Will Ezell for an insightful product walkthrough</a>. I then took a peek at what <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/free-open-source-feature-rich-an-overview-of-dotcms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DotCMS 3.2 has on offer</a>. 
To get an even better feel for DotCMS as an enterprise CMS solution, Mike Johnston also managed to grab a few moments with Tyler Davey, the VP of Sales at Architech — <a href="http://dotcms.com/company/news/dotcms-and-architech-partner-to-deliver-innovative-digital-experiences" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a DotCMS Platinum Partner</a>. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LrtyBkxmLWk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

CMS Critic Interviews DotCMS Platinum Partner Architech

Following up from an <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank">interview with CEO Tim Brigham</a> and a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough with CTO Will Ezell</a>, it’s time to delve into what makes <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">DotCMS</a> tick.
The Java, open source, content management system was recently crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<blockquote>
“Quick to deploy, open source, Java-based, open APIs, extensible and massively scalable, dotCMS can rapidly deliver personalized, engaging multi-channel sites, web apps, campaigns, one-pagers, intranets – all types of content driven experiences – without calling in your developers.”
</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" />
DotCMS is available in a Community Edition and Enterprise Edition, the former being the free version.
With the recent release of dotCMS 3.2, the platform has taken on a range of new features to go with an already powerful product.
<h2>Exceedingly Responsive &amp; Massively Multi</h2>
After prompting visitors to test out the responsive nature of dotCMS by resizing their browser window, the details of the product’s dedication to responsive design are revealed.
Thanks to built-in support for 13 CSS frameworks, as well as theme based templates that automatically adapt and optimize content, images and videos to fit mobile devices, it’s easy to deliver engaging customer experiences across all devices.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phone-bg-g4-1.png" />
Custom themes can also be developed to accommodate various mobile device capabilities such as geolocation services.
When it comes to developing sites, dotCMS comes equipped to handle multiple micro-sites, mega-sites, mobile apps and multi-channel projects. In fact, dotCMS’ multi-site capabilities can host thousands of sites in just one, manageable system. And as we saw in the walkthrough demo, new sites can be launched easily, in a matter of a few clicks.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/multi-everything.png" />
The tools are there for you to build your own SaaS CMS solution with granular, site based permissions, and manage all content in multiple languages without the added expense.
<h2>Super Scalable, Fantastically Flexible &amp; A Whole Bunch More</h2>
dotCMS has been built with growth in mind. Horizontal scalability, to be precise.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-banner.png" />
The platform offers up a configurable, multi-level caching infrastructure which maintains state across nodes in a cluster. In fact, dotCMS is architected to never hit the database once the cache is loaded (you can even turn the database off completely), even while pages and content stay completely dynamic.
For dealing with high levels of traffic, dotCMS is able to cluster; enabling multiple dotCMS instances to run as a single unit that can scale to meet massive traffic loads. (And yes, dotCMS is available on premise or on the cloud)
To help further facilitate that growth, dotCMS is also highly customizable.
dotCMS provides easy and open APIs to query, retrieve (xml, json) and write content, binary assets and even remote widgets. These API calls have been designed to perform at scale so content can be retrieved for real-time use by external systems. This means dotCMS is easier to integrate and can be used as a hub for content management, easily pushing or pulling content from other systems.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-enterprise.png" />
On top of open APIs, dotCMS users have access to Widgets (which are essentially apps) that can be managed just like content.
DotCMS' remote widget API can deliver these fully rendered widgets as snippets of code to remote systems by calling a RESTful url. All it takes is javascript to pull and display content rich widgets into any webpage or external system.
Developers also have the power to hot deploy whole Spring web apps in dotCMS without a restart, thanks to dynamic plugin support. Meanwhile, CMIS support allows dotCMS content and files to be read and written by any system that is a CMIS client, including Sharepoint, Liferay and even Drupal.
Further to the aforementioned features, dotCMS also boasts a GUI based workflow engine along with remote publishing capabilities — with support for a variety of publishing architectures. (e.g., authoring&gt; staging&gt; production)
<h2>A Powerhouse for Powerhouses (And Normal Houses)</h2>
dotCMS has claimed a desirable chunk of the enterprise market by landing and working alongside large clients such as Standard &amp; Poor’s, Wiley Publishing, Thomson Reuters Foundation and Hospital Corporation of America. As such, it’s reputation as an enterprise solution is growing fast.
DotCMS is also an attractive platform for small to medium sized businesses, thanks to its open source nature, active user forums, plugin and theme library, as well as its accommodation for codesharing on its website.
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

Free, Open Source & Feature Rich: An Overview of DotCMS

Following an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interview with dotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>, Mike Johnston sat down with the company's CTO Will Ezell for a detailed walkthrough of dotCMS 3.2.
dotCMS is a rapidly growing open source Java platform. It's also the most recent winner of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a> — which is no mean feat.
So without any further ado, let's continue dotCMS' featured week by taking a look at dotCMS 3.2 in action.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zKPvquUnHak?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

A Walkthrough of dotCMS 3.2 with CMS Critic

It's the beginning of another featured week here at CMS Critic, and this time we're focusing on another quality product in the form of <a href="http://www.dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dotCMS</a>.
dotCMS is a popular Java, open source, content management system, which recently won the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
Mike Johnston recently had a chance to sit down with the company's CEO, Tim Brigham, discussing dotCMS both as a product and as a company. To get a feel for dotCMS, check out the Interview video below.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mPw9DNNqzB0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
So, with another featured week now kicked off, stay tuned for more dotCMS coverage.
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

CMS Critic Interviews dotCMS CEO Tim Brigham

To cap off another featured week here at CMS Critic, I’m taking a look at the vital day-to-day content management features of <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a>.
Previously, I explored the way in which <a href="/how-mura-cms-keeps-every-team-member-productive/" target="_blank">Mura CMS helps all modern team members to stay productive</a>. Before that, I looked at the <a href="/mura-experience-platform-market-with-relevance-automation-amplification/" target="_blank">benefits of the Mura Experience Platform</a>.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" />
Mura CMS was recently made winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>, and that had a lot to do with the platform’s core content management features.
Let’s take a closer look at some of those key features now.
<h2>Content Editing: Inline, In-context &amp; Staged</h2>
The content on your website is absolutely vital for converting customers, attracting subscribers and conveying beneficial information about your brand.
Thus, the most important aspect of any CMS, is the way in which it allows you to control and craft your content.
Mura CMS makes it easy.
All content can be directly edited right there on the page, simply by clicking on it.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-inline-editing.png" />
There are no windows popping up to distract or slow you down, while pages can be saved as drafts, previewed and published just as easily.
To avoid any mistakes, Mura CMS's versioning system makes it easy to roll back to a previous version of the page in seconds. So, there’s no more worrying about saving over good copy, because it’s so easily reversible.
Furthermore, built-in content staging allows you need to make changes to multiple pages at once, and publish them all at the same time.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-content-staging-2.png" />
The platform’s Change Set feature allows you to save as many edits as you want to a Change Set, and preview the site as if all your edits were live. Once you're done with your edits, a single button allows you to publish them all at once.
You can even stack Change Sets on top of each other, and preview the site as if they were all active. Now that’s neat.
<h2>Scheduled Publishing &amp; Powerful Permissions</h2>
Need a blog post or press release published first thing in the morning, but don’t feel like waking up early? No problem.
Mura CMS allows you to schedule times and dates for your content to go live, so you can organize yourself and your content accordingly.
<img style="max-width:280px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.png" />
Interestingly, you can also schedule when you want content to be removed from the site — so there’s no more outdated events or job postings cluttering up your website. Batch changes (via Mura CMS's Change Set feature) can also be scheduled for automatic publishing at a specified date and time.
Speaking of organization, Mura CMS also gives you the tools to organise a workforce made up of team members who require different website permissions and administrative access.
For example, you want Alan, your latest intern, to post job listings, but you aren’t not ready to give him access to the entire site just yet.
To deal with this issue, Mura CMS enables you to grant administrative users access to just the sections you want, even down to the page level.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-permissions.png" />
Users can even have different administrative roles; some users can edit and publish, while others can only post draft content for others to approve and publish when they see fit.
These permissions can extend to every key module and functionality; your most trusted groups can have Super User access to the entire set of tools, while other groups are only allowed access to specific Modules and Plugins.
Organisation, security and productivity — all rolled into one excellent feature.
<h2>Drag-and-Drop Form Building, And A Lot, Lot More</h2>
Forms are a great way to gather information from visitors and customers. The only problem is, building useful forms is usually a technical task. But not with Mura CMS.
Mura lets you craft powerful web forms via a drag-and-drop interface, requiring absolutely no coding or technical know-how.
This frees up marketers and administrators to tackle form building, putting them in touch with their audience in a new and useful way.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-form-builder.png" /> 
Form submissions are automatically stored for detailed reporting and retrieval with zero database modifications needed.
Further content management features include workflow and collaboration management, simplified mass copy-and-pasting, built-in help, and more.
Learn all about <a href="http://www.getmura.com/features/outstanding-usability/" target="_blank">everyday content management with Mura CMS</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

Simple Everyday Content Management With Mura CMS

As we continue with our <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a> featured week, we’re taking a look at how the platform keeps its users as productive as possible.
Previously, we got to watch <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-sean-schroeder-matt-levine-of-mura-cms/" target="_blank">Mike Johnston interview Sean Schroeder &amp; Matt Levine</a>, before getting a <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">tour of Mura CMS’ best features</a>.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" /> 
According to the Mura CMS team:
<blockquote>“With Mura's pre-built content objects, starter templates and intuitive interface, your productivity will get turbo-charged.”</blockquote>
Furthermore, that turbo-charged productivity extends to every major department and job role within a modern enterprise.
Let’s take a look at exactly how.
<h2>Content Administrators</h2>
Content is the most important aspect of any website, application or marketing campaign. To make crafting and managing that content easier, Mura CMS has some usability-focused solutions.
Inline Editing
Making edits to content with Mura CMS is as simple as clicking into the page, and working with the content directly. Right there on the page.
Mura imposes no pop-ups or form fields to get in your way, so you can get on with honing your content without any distractions.
Local Content Indexes
As well as making every day page content easier to edit, Mura CMS also simplifies the more technical side of content management.
With Mura CMS, complicated SQL and programming is a thing of the past. Unlike other systems, Mura’s easy to use, intuitive Local Content Index tool allows you to do it quickly, with zero coding, even if you have complex rules and scenarios in place.
You can drag and drop to specify the fields you want to display, in any order you choose, and you can even assign custom CSS classes or IDs right in the configurator.
Form Builder
Mura makes more use of dragging and dropping when it comes to building forms.
Creating web forms is easy; just drag and drop the fields you need in the Form Builder, making it an extremely basic and non-technical process. This empowers marketing teams, because there’s no need to involve the IT team just to get a form build and deployed on the site.
Form submissions and data can also be customized to integrate with external systems like CRMs, Marketing Automation Systems, etc.
Multi-File Upload
When you need to add multiple files to your site — like when creating an image gallery or when adding a folder’s worth of documents to a section of your site — you can simply drag and drop them into Mura CMS, and you’re all done.
You can batch re-name them, and images get automatic creation of thumbnails and alternative size options (no need for external photo manipulation in Photoshop).
<h2>Front-end Developers</h2>
Mura CMS provides a lot of features and tools for developers looking to quickly build layouts and designs – there’s nothing in the way of getting your hands dirty with some code. In fact, it only makes it easier thanks to a number of features and capabilities.
Common Conventions for HTML, CSS, &amp; Javascript
Web Standards, HTML 5, CSS3, LESS, jQuery. All of those familiar languages are also standard practice in Mura CMS.
Mura ships with tons of built-in objects and features, all targetable with your own custom CSS or theme. So, designing and re-designing your website with Mura is as fast as it can be.
Direct Access to Markup
Need to add another container or even substantially change the markup of a built-in Mura object? No problem.
Mura CMS lets you easily override defaults at both the site and theme-level for complete control. You can create custom objects and stay on the upgrade path.
Mobile Support
Responsive or mobile-specific? Either one works with Mura CMS.
The platform ships with both Bootstrap 3 and jQuery Mobile, and offers several frameworks, wired up and available for download on the Mura CMS website.
<h2>Programmers</h2>
When the job requires a more technical touch, Mura CMS is able to flex its muscles accordingly. Here’s how the platform keeps programmers programming productively.
Events
Mura's front-end request lifecycle is fully event-driven.
So, developers are able to augment or override any of the default behaviors without needing to customize the Mura CMS core, which means you — the programmer — can customize Mura CMS as much as you want while staying fully update-safe.
ORM
To avoid unnecessary bloat, Mura CMS’ ORM provides a light-weight route towards quickly creating custom entities that seamlessly blend into Mura's object model, content versioning, and bundling.
As a result, you can quickly and easily craft custom apps and functionality all within Mura's default programming system.
Mura Scope
The Mura Scope provides a single point of access to everything that Mura provides. In turn, this allows code portability between execution contexts.
Mura Scope is similar to jQuery's syntax, so the average programmer can get up to speed quickly.
<h2>IT &amp; System Admins</h2>
The last thing you want from any CMS is for the complex stuff to be dealt with brilliantly, only for the most basic wants and needs to be left out. Here’s how Mura CMS takes care of the smaller, yet arguably most important stuff.
One-click updates
Updates to some CMS systems can be a pain, but thankfully your Mura CMS site only needs you to log into to the admin area as a super-admin before clicking the “update Mura Core” link.
Doing this simple task automatically updates Mura CMS to the latest stable release, with no need for lengthy downtime or compatibility testing. It’s supremely quick and easy.
Allow Customization &amp; Stay on the Upgrade Path
In almost every modern enterprising context, one size does not fit all. As a result, you and your team will need to make customizations on the fly that support your business in various ways.
The only problem is, many teams take steps to do this, only to find out years later that they have backed themselves into the corner on an old version.
Thankfully, Mura CMS allows teams to customize as needed and stay on the upgrade path without any hassle.
Multi-Site Support
Mura CMS empowers you to easily setup multiple sites in a single installation, and even share administrative rights between the sites.
Plugins, display objects, layout files and more can all be shared between the various sites, making development and maintenance much faster and more manageable.
So there you have it, productivity boosts for content managers, front-end developers, programmers and IT specialists alike — all under one Mura CMS roof.
Learn more about how <a href="http://www.getmura.com/features/serious-productivity" target="_blank">Mura CMS keeps everybody super productive</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

How Mura CMS Keeps Every Team Member Productive

So far during this <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a> featured week, we have seen <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">Mike Johnston interview Sean Schroeder &amp; Matt Levine</a>, as well as an insightful <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">video walkthrough of some of Mura CMS’ best features</a>.
As the winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>, Mura CMS is well positioned to be a solution for a wide range of projects, from public websites to intranets — and Mura Experience Platform (MXP) is one reason why.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" />
Let’s take a look at how Mura Experience Platform empowers marketers by enabling them to present relevant, personalized website experiences for their visitors.
<h2>A Contextualized Approach</h2>
Because MXP can present custom experiences driven by an internal rules engine, which can be integrated with any external data source(s), Mura Experience Platform makes it easy for marketers to provide the right experience at the right time for all key audiences.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/persona-stage_2x.png" />
According to the Mura CMS team:
<blockquote>“The Mura Experience Platform takes personalization to a whole new level — far beyond widget-based approaches — allowing you to control every aspect of the web and mobile experience for your users, making your website your best salesperson and customer service rep.”</blockquote>
Here’s how that’s made possible.
Persona &amp; Stage-based Narratives
Content needs to intelligently shift emphasis according to who is reading it. An executive has a different set of concerns and interests than a developer, so it’s important to address their specific concerns to increase the relevance of your content.
Mura Experience Platform allows marketers to have conversations with different demographics and audiences in a simple way, by presenting relevant content that meets the needs of the visitor’s role and where the visitor is in the buying/evaluation stage.
Persona-driven Forms
As with every other part of the web &amp; mobile experience, Mura Experience Platform allows marketers to craft persona-driven forms, collecting the most relevant data in the process.
Marketers can also do this in stages via progressive profiling.
Custom Applications &amp; Multiple Data Points
Along with the ability to build custom applications, Mura Experience Platform empowers marketers to use any data point, from location to demographics to firmographics and more.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/relevant-experiences/">Mura Experience Platform’s relevant experience features</a>.
<h2>Marketing Automation</h2>
The single biggest benefit of using a Marketing Automation platform — like Marketo for example — is the ability to deliver a contextualized email-based nurture stream to convert leads into customers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/landing-pages_2x.png" />
But when those same users get to the website in question, they’re back to one-size-fits-all content. And that’s an issue.
Here’s how Mura’s integration system fixes that.
Right Content, Right Time
When using Marketing Automation, marketers spend a lot of time defining users and the stages they pass through during the buying process.
Mura Experience Platform’s integration with Marketing Automation systems allows marketers to leverage this work and deliver web and mobile content that accelerates a users' path through the buying process.
Honed Landing Pages
Marketing Automation landing pages look great in demos, but they rarely work well in practise.
Mura Experience Platform produces the same benefits of rapid deployment, flexible authoring options, integrated forms, but with far better capabilities.
These include; robust mobile support, and a more intuitive authoring environment, along with built in collaboration features like flexible workflows, one-click version roll-back, and much more.
Automated Subscriber Content
Looking to save time on email marketing campaigns?
Mura’s Experience Platform lets marketers select the web content they want, before automatically formatting it into a responsive email, and then hands it off to the relevant marketing automation system for delivery to subscribers or segmented audiences.
Furthermore, all content can be contextualized for each audience segment. For example, if you had 3 personas and 5 buying stages you had content targeted for, Mura Experience Platform can create 15 different versions of the same email, all customized with relevant content for each.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/marketing-automation-integration/">Mura Experience Platform’s Marketing Automation integration features</a>.
<h2>Content Amplification</h2>
Content is still at the heart of every lead generation formula, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/content-marketing-hero_2x.png" />
Mura Experience Platform gives marketers tools that enable them to plan, create and track web and mobile content. It’s content — amplified.
Here’s how.
Publishing Content
Because Mura Experience Platform is a complete publishing platform, marketers have access to a full compliment of content creation, collaboration and workflow features.
These features include; drafts, versioning, content check-out, notifications for collaboration, track changes, permissions and approval chains.
With Mura Experience Platform, content can be published both to web &amp; mobile with one-off ad hoc revisions or additions, scheduled, and robust sets of batch content (either on the fly or scheduled).
Amplifying Content
After creating great content, it’s time to amplify it by broadcasting to your favorite channels.
To help marketers achieve this, Mura Experience Platform is designed to integrate with social tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Feedly, Oktopost and more.
Mura Experience Platform also creates custom RSS feeds (including by persona and stage) for posting on specific terms and for curation by influencers. Additionally, built-in integration with AddThis and ShareThis allow for easy on-site sharing.
Tracking Content
Pushing out great content is important, but being able track and measure it is just as vital. If not more so.
With Mura Experience Platform Content Campaigns, marketers can publish sets of content and track them as a group, helping them keep track of content-pillars and derived assets for easy measurement of content performance by channel.
Also, Mura Experience Platform's Content Campaigns allow for tacking updated content versions so marketers can compare performance levels with the previous versions.
Content scoring metrics allow marketers to measure content performance across all owned content channels; primary sites, blogs, articles, landing pages, microsites.
And perhaps most importantly, marketers can know which content is producing the best ROI by mapping their contribution to creating a new customer and the associated dollar amount of each sale.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/content-marketing/">Mura Experience Platform’s content marketing features</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

Mura Experience Platform: Market With Relevance, Automation & Amplification

Semrush - Be an SEO hero

Be an SEO hero with Semrush

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 113

News

The global commerce platform

Be an SEO hero with Semrush