Articles - Page 34

Bland Brands Beware: Optimizely’s New Identity Brings Human Creativity to its Agentic AI and AEO Ambitions

matt-garrepy

What to know:<ul><li>TinyMCE has introduced AI capabilities to its rich text editor</li><li>Powered by OpenAI, the new feature is available and easy to activate</li><li>The solution provides pre-written prompts to help users create content</li><li>CMS platforms that use TinyMCE can offer AI in their editors and plugins</li></ul><hr /> You might not know it, but many CMS platforms have been “tinyfied.”I don’t mean “minified,” as in made smaller – or “gentrified,” though some apps out there could use a bit of that.No, “tinyfied” is how <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/">TinyMCE</a> refers to content management systems that utilize its rich text editor. It’s a fun moniker for a tool that’s essential to every CMS, enabling users to create formatted content using simple WYSIWYGs.The role of the text editor in a CMS can’t be overstated. In addition to adding raw content, they can be used to create lists, tables, and other elements. The functionality of an editor can also be extended via plugins and customizations based on a platform’s needs.Many CMSes have adopted TinyMCE as their default editor, while others have implemented it into various modules and plugins. Which platforms, you ask? According to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/docs-3x/extras/TinyMCE3x@Software_using_TinyMCE/#:~:text=Many%20CMSs%20have%20been%20'tinyfied,it%20in%20a%20module%2Fplugin.&amp;text=ARNIA%20CMS%20.,is%20part%20of%20the%20CMS.">company’s documentation</a>, the list includes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">Alfresco</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/dotcms-adds-additional-static-publishing-features-and-new-four-eyes-workflow-approval-in-latest-version-release-dotcms-4-3/">dotCMS</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/umbraco-cms-acquired-by-software-investor-monterro-interview-with-ceo-kim-sneum-madsen/">Umbraco</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/">WordPress</a>, and other notable brands (like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-monthly-recap-shopify-invests-in-sanity-dotcms-updates-content-authoring-experience-wp-engine-acquires-plugins-and-more/">Shopify</a>) – all relying on TinyMCE to shape content editing.Now, TinyMCE is introducing <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI’s</a> powerful GPT models to its text editor. The new solution comes with pre-written prompts and writing tools and provides a familiar, intuitive UI that works within existing designs and structures.I recently spoke with TinyMCE’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikdanielsson/">Fredrik Danielsson</a>, Principal Product Manager, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisebentley/">Elise Bentley</a>, VP of Marketing, about the company’s new AI Assistant. They shared how the novel features will benefit users while helping CMS platforms accelerate their AI roadmap.<h2>Adding AI to an API-first portfolio of solutions</h2>Over the last few months, I’ve spoken to numerous CMSes about their emerging AI strategies.As I’ve noted in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/a-closer-look-at-contentstacks-ai-features-with-christine-masters-senior-product-manager/">previous articles</a>, some have charged full speed ahead, adding <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kontent-ai-pioneers-native-ai-in-headless-cms-interview-with-vojtech-boril/">native solutions</a> to their workflows. Others are waiting it out, trying to divine the hope from the hype.While not a CMS itself, TinyMCE is a key part of the content ecosystem. Despite being a new entrant to the AI game, its AI Assistant fits squarely with the company’s ambitious API-first strategy and its goal of powering CMS users with more advanced functionality.“TinyMCE has focused on the content creation space for almost 20 years,” said Elise. “When you think about CMS users, it’s actually the rich text editor that they’re connecting with. We’re creating a seamless experience by bringing AI into a workflow they already know.”According to Elise, there are currently over 350 million downloads of TinyMCE a year – and that includes a very broad spectrum of CMS, DAM, workflow collaboration, email tools, and more. While all of these applications co-exist in the DX stack, Elise noted that understanding the CMS user was fundamental to building the right kind of AI strategy.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-editor-1024x663.png" alt="TinyMCE rich text editor" />“Content creators are ultimately using [TinyMCE], so what are the top things they’re creating? For a CMS, it was blogs and website copy – so whatever we delivered, we needed to make sure it worked great for those use cases.”TinyMCE’s impressive footprint has certainly bolstered its market position. In March of this year, the company was purchased by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/blog/tiugo-portfolio-with-tinymce/">Tiugo Technologies</a>, a PSG portfolio company offering a family of innovative, API-first developer platforms – which includes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tiugo-technologies-enhances-its-portfolio-of-developer-platforms-with-buttercms/">ButterCMS</a>.While many technologies in a wide range of industries have rushed to market with AI solutions, some have been met with delays or even less-than-stellar outcomes. I asked Elise how Tiny has focused on quality while ensuring timely delivery to the market.“We have a big emphasis on quality here, and we don’t release things to market unless we believe they are market-ready,” she affirmed. “AI Assistant has gone through robust QA processes, and it’s stable. We have a lot of users signed up, and we’re actively gathering feedback.”<h2>Making AI more useful with ready-made prompts</h2>Along with his mantle of product manager, Fredrik has also been the internal AI champion for TinyMCE’s new functionality. I asked him what fueled his interest – and why it mattered.“We think this is a really important innovation in rich text editing,” he said. “It’s opened up so many opportunities in human-computer interaction and how we can use this technology for all sorts of things. It’s similar to when the iPhone came out, and we suddenly had the internet and computers in our pockets. AI is almost a must, and we have to be doing this.”It’s true that AI has captured the zeitgeist of the moment, spurring CMS platforms to introduce AI features at a breakneck pace. But the hype cycle can be tenuous, and user experience can sometimes be a victim in the race to innovate.<hr /><h4 style="text-align:center">"It’s not just about connecting with AI – it's about unlocking the power of AI and helping you to learn how to use it for content creation purposes, so you’re not on your own."</h4><hr />Tiny aimed to avoid that trap by putting the user first. As Elise explained, the company had been exploring AI for over a year, and the decision to act only surfaced when customers started asking how to add it to their applications. Thoughtful research helped reveal where the TinyMCE’s capabilities could align with the promise of AI.“When we went out to explore AI, we did the demand studies,” she punctuated. “What people are actually struggling with is how to interact with AI. That’s where our solution is much more advanced. We provide the pre-written prompts and the assistance. It’s not just about connecting with AI – it's about unlocking the power of AI and helping you to learn how to use it for content creation purposes, so you’re not on your own.”Fredrik further codified this, describing TinyMCE’s ready-made prompts as a sort of “discovery feature” that helps inspire end users by giving them a starting point while providing convenient actions such as rewriting, fixing grammar, and creating alternative variants.<h2>Adding AI where content creators need it</h2>For CMS platforms using TinyMCE, the clear benefit is the easy, frictionless addition of AI to the text editing experience.Designed as a core part of the content creation workflow – as opposed to a bolt-on component – the solution’s UI works out of the box without adding any extra AI development burdens. What’s more, it can be up and running in a couple of hours with just a few steps.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-steps-1-1024x217.jpg" alt="TinyMCE AI Assistant steps " />As Fredrik outlined, the AI Assistant is an extension of TinyMCE, so you simply activate it within the plugin and connect to OpenAI via your <a target="_blank" href="https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys">OpenAI API key</a>. The AI Assistant provides a configurable, intuitive interface for OpenAI prompts, while your API key sends and receives prompts and responses from OpenAI.When you’re ready for production, you can set up a server-side proxy for secure communication with OpenAI. And presto… you’re off to the races.“The fantastic thing about TinyMCE and how we operate is that we provide APIs and actually allow you to customize the prompts if you want to put in the engineering effort,” said Elise. “You can customize it around your own use case.”While other CMS platforms are home-growing their capabilities, TinyMCE is effectively shortcutting the complexity and laser-targeting AI at precisely the right places. Along with the essentials for improving grammar and writing, users can target the AI Assistant to summarize, explain, or simplify language with an easy-to-use picker. There's also the ability to generate content from custom prompts and insert it instantly into your post.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-screenshots-1024x540.jpg" alt="TinyMCE product screenshots" />“We’re providing the UI and prompt engineering so you can quickly get started, instead of spending months trying to figure out how to do it yourself,” said Fredrik, summing up one of the core benefits. “With OpenAI and TinyMCE, it’s the speed.”<h2>What does TinyMCE's AI Assistant cost?</h2>When it comes to new features, the million-dollar question is always the price.According to Elise, the AI Assistant is an additional $29 per month – which is nominal, considering the advanced resources the company is dedicating to the technology. I asked how users are responding to this price point and the value position. “Everyone that has signed up is accepting of the cost, and it’s appealing for both startups and enterprises,” she said. “Part of our research was to examine price and how we sustain engineering on such a revolutionary new feature set.”Because TinyMCE’s AI Assistant requires you to create and connect your own OpenAI API key, platforms are also responsible for <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/pricing">any direct costs from OpenAI</a> associated with its usage.<h2>Wrestling with security, data privacy and copyright issues</h2>One of the biggest challenges with tapping large language models like ChatGPT is data privacy. And rightly so: since its introduction, OpenAI has spurred multiple security concerns, including a <a target="_blank" href="https://securityintelligence.com/articles/chatgpt-confirms-data-breach/">data breach</a> that exposed active user data to would-be hackers.OpenAI has made great strides in firming up its protection. Additionally, CMS platforms that have introduced GPT connectors have gone to great lengths to wall off enterprise data from the GPT learning pipelines, so a company’s data doesn’t become part of the LLM’s general training lakes.I asked Fredrik and Elise how TinyMCE was handling the data privacy concerns with its new AI, and how questions around content copyright might impact their strategy.“This is a huge, huge question,” Fredrik said. “We’re talking about privacy and copyright on the internet. We deal with a lot of enterprises, so naturally, we get that question. In the vast majority of use cases, it’s about building trust with vendors [and letting them know] we take care of your data.”Elise expanded on this, adding that TinyMCE is actively monitoring and looking at ways to create more secure and private solutions with ChatGPT.<h2>Expanding the horizon of AI for platforms and users</h2>In the quest to provide meaningful AI to more content creators, TinyMCE has certainly introduced a unique offering at the text editing layer – and done so in a familiar and accessible manner.I asked Fredrik where he sees the greatest opportunity for TinyMCE’s AI to transform the content experience.“This is completely new for us, and it’s fun,” he mused. “We’re innovating and exploring and starting fresh. As with all these things, there are no conventions right now. But it should be simple, intuitive, and designed for everyone – not just power users. I want everyone to be able to harness the power of our AI.”While the new AI features are already GA, TinyMCE is just getting started. According to Elise, they plan to support more than just ChatGPT in the future and continue a healthy pace of innovation based on customer needs.“As more people come on board, we want the feedback loops to make an even better, more robust product,” she said. “But right now, we’re very happy about this new feature.”Being happy about your product? There’s nothing tiny about that.You can experience that happiness yourself by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/tinymce/features/ai-integration/">adding the new AI Assistant</a> to your existing TinyMCE account with an exclusive 14-day free trial.

TinyMCE Brings Advanced AI to CMS Text Editing: Interview with Fredrik Danielsson & Elise Bentley

CubeCart has announced that their latest version is now ready for live environments, following a beta testing period.
According to the CubeCart team, CubeCart V6 is part of, “a whole new philosophy for online commerce.”
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1634_1634_37_37_cubecart_logo210_1.jpg" /> Previously, <a href="/cubecart-goes-open-source-launches-extensions-marketplace/" target="_blank">I covered the news of CubeCart v6 Beta going live</a>, which brought along with it an extensions marketplace, as well as news that CubeCart is now totally open source.
Key Points:
<ul>
<li>CubeCart v6 is Open Source and 100% Free.</li>
<li>You can upgrade from v3, v4 &amp; v5 to v6.</li>
<li>No bloatware: CubeCart v6 ships with no additional extensions, and only one minimal, responsive theme.</li>
<li>Extensions such as payment gateways, shipping rate calculators, skins etc now have individual version releases which means updates can get to you faster than having to wait and upgrade your store entirely.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.cubecart.com/technical-support">Technical support</a> plans are available for experienced web masters and those with little or no technical expertise at all.</li>
<li>Developers can submit their extensions into the CubeCart <a href="http://forums.cubecart.com/topic/49315-four-reasons-you-must-list-your-extensions-in-the-cubecart-marketplace/#entry206138">Extensions Marketplace</a>.</li>
<li>CubeCart v6 is ported from v5 which means existing v5 skins and extensions are forward compatible. </li>
</ul>
It's always good news when open source is being embraced, although the expansion of CubeCart's extension marketplace is also well worth noting. Those are two highly approriate enhancements taken on by CubeCart in my opinion.
To find out more about CubeCart v6, <a href="/cubecart-goes-open-source-launches-extensions-marketplace/" target="_blank">check out my previous coverage</a>, as well as their <a href="http://forums.cubecart.com/topic/49383-cubecart-600-available-now/" target="_blank">official blog announcement</a>.

CubeCart v6 Released

mike-johnston

SEO Samba have recently upgraded their CMS/Website builder, SEOToaster and we thought we'd take a look at their new release and examine the improvements. We previously shared our experiences with their tool back in 2010 and you can read that review <a href="/seotoaster-review/">here</a>.To get started, the installation process is pretty straight forward and within a few clicks, you'll be up and running with the latest version of SEOToaster CMS.Once installed, you'll be greeted with a page that contains a number of steps you can take to get started. The first step is shown below:I have a couple of issues with the way things are done with this page. First off, I noticed a spelling error with the very first paragraph on the page. As some of you know from reading my previous reviews, I've got serious issues with spelling mistakes. The issues are twofold. First, it shows poor quality control and as a result, lowers my confidence in the code and the rest of the product. Second, it's unprofessional. The word that's misspelled for those who can't tell is “Successfully” (note that it's missing the third S). To find a mistake this early on is not reassuring at all.The second issue is that I am given a rather poorly highlighted error with no instructions on how to resolve it. The error, you can see in the screenshot above, is “can not create widcard plugin. You have to install the proper loader”.  A bit vague isn't it?I checked their website (seotoaster.com) to try to find a solution to the error after Google returned no results and could not find the support section for SEOToaster CMS. I ended up scrolling to the footer of their main website, where I found a link to the forums. Assuming this would be the place to look,  I searched the forums and received no results. Frustrated, I went back to the main page and again, scrolled down to the footer to find “Q &amp; A Support” and clicked on it. I searched for the term “widcard” and finally found an article telling me I needed the IONCube Loader that the installation routine had told me was “optional” (see below):<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-4.png" />As a developer, if you are going to mark something as optional, tell the user what they will lose by not installing it so that they can make an educated decision or link to an article explaining what types of issues they will encounter when not choosing to meet the optional requirement. This will eliminate the confusion later on. Further to this, if it's going to create a confusing issue during the install routine, you are probably better off making it mandatory before proceeding.With the installation complete, I moved to the theme selection piece, which indicates that I can choose from one of their themes, download it, then reupload it back to the system and select it as a starting point. Following the instructions, I went ahead and downloaded the insurance theme thinking it was a decent starting point. To my chagrin, after uploading it and selecting it, I can't seem to get past the theme screen. Clicking done appears to do nothing and the system just sits there on the theme selection page.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-5-620x375.png" />Also, oddly, it doesn't appear to show a preview of the theme either which I found rather odd.  Given that I was unable to move past the screen, I clicked the X in the top right of the window above and was greeted with a framework of the theme but not the actual theme itself:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-6-620x382.png" />While it serves as a structurally usable template, it defeats the purpose of having a theme preset with sample data and colors. While I am able to enter content into any of these boxes without issue and can certainly make due, we're dealing with issue after issue so far and it's not making the process easy or giving me much confidence in how the experience will be for the end user.Obviously, the installation process needs a bit of work but the bulk of the business SEO Samba does is with hosted installations which eliminates the need for an installation routine so we'll cut them a bit of slack for the issues I've encountered today.Once installed, however, it's time to get to the meat of the system which is the adding and management of content. SEO Toaster uses inline content editing and to get started, you simply click in an editable area (defined by the small colored icon in the screenshot above) and the editor launches.Here's how the editor looks:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-10-620x381.png" />Obviously, it can handle the majority of typical formatting that you'd come to expect from a standard WYSIWYG editor but it also can be used to insert other content and widgets. To add an RSS widget to a content area for example, you simple fill out the widget details and click apply.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-11-620x382.png" />Once you've got the widget details entered, click Save Content and you'll see the end result:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-12.png" />A cool thing about this RSS feed widget is that it cycles the content with a slider motion so that the most recent 5 items from the RSS feed are each displayed. It's hard to show via a screenshot but just trust me that it looks cool, ok? ?Headers are defined by an H icon and clicking on those gives you a simple text entry box that you can type your header into:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-38-48.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Once you click save, it's instantly updated. Pretty simple isn't it?The bulk of the work you'll do with SEO Toaster is via the inline content editor or the collapsible menu that floats to the right of the screen when logged in. It looks like this:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-41-06.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />From this menu, you can create pages, edit page properties, organize them and much more. When editing the page properties, you'll get the following options:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-42-21-620x373.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Adding media and images is quick and easy. I particularly enjoyed the naming of the menu items under the media menu:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-44-02.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />To add images, simply click on the aptly named “Upload things” menu item and you'll be presented with the following image upload window:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-46-07.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />From here, you would either select a destination folder for your images, or create a new one and choose the files to upload. The whole process is quite quick and took a few seconds. Now, to add any of the images you've just uploaded to a content area, simply click and launch the inline content editor, select your folder, the size of image you want to insert and the image itself from the preview thumbnail and you are done.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-53-30-620x382.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />As you can see, adding content and widgets to come up with a unique design is very simple and straight forward and definitely where SEO Toaster shines. Working with the system, I encountered no issues or speed concerns and everything was snappy and worked well.In the SEO section of the menu you are able to do a number of things including editing your robots.txt file, adding 301 redirects, creating deeplinks and sculpting.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-57-04.png" />You can learn more about the various SEO options available and how they work from here: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.seotoaster.com/seo-website-design.html">http://www.seotoaster.com/seo-website-design.html</a>. They are a bit advanced for me to go through in this review but I will say that there are plenty of great options that can be integrated with SEO Toaster and they are well implemented.If you are a developer or a coder, you'll be happy to know that SEO Toaster provides full editing functionality for your templates and CSS including line numbering. To edit, simply click on the layout section and choose either edit template or edit CSS.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-01-42-620x374.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Under the “Other” menu item, you can change basic configuration settings including the default media sizes, email settings and more.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-04-24.png" />Perhaps one of the best features that potential users will be interested in hearing about are the plugins that SEO Toaster has available. Under the plugins menu, you'll be presented with a good number of great plugins that help extend the functionality of the system such as:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-06-55-620x374.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />You'll note that on this page, the system does actually warn you about the IonCube Loader not being installed. For most people, you'll want to either ensure it's installed or use their hosted service. For this review, installing the loader wasn't something that could be done quickly and easily so I chose to skip it. As you can see, there are some pretty amazing plugins available including a variety of payment modules for eCommerce use. This is great news for those looking to use the system to create a store or sales page. There is also an eCommerce version of SEO Toaster coming soon which will likely implement things much better but for the interim, there are definitely some options.Not all of these plugins are free, some are available on a month to month payment basis or for a onetime fee but hey, a company has to make money somewhere and it's good to see there are a number of options to choose from, including how to pay.Overall, SEO Toaster is a pretty simply and straight forward CMS. I'd almost prefer to call it a website builder but since you can download it and host it locally, it's kind of a blend between the two. Installation process aside, it's easy to use, has a slick and simple interface that even the most inexperienced user could get used to within a few minutes and offers plenty of ways to extend the functionality of your site.If you are in the market for a simple to use CMS that makes getting a page online quick and easy, SEO Toaster just might be something to consider. You can learn more at their website: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.seotoaster.com/">SEO Toaster</a>

SEOToaster V2 Review

With a release date of March 17 th, PrestaShop version 1.6 is right around the corner.
<a href="http://www.prestashop.com/" target="_blank"> PrestaShop's popular ecommerce platform</a> powers over 165,000 online stores across the globe, throughout 160 different countries.
Version 1.6 promises to bring about an array of new features, including a completely re-designed front and back end.
The team over at PrestaShop recently gave me early access to version 1.6, and with just days to go before launch, I can confirm that PrestaShop users have a lot to be excited about.
<h2>A Revamped Front End</h2>
Before I delve into what PrestaShop admins will soon be enjoying, there are some notable improvements made to the PrestaShop “Front Office” which will drastically improve the shopping experience for customers.
PrestaShop has gone into detail about all of the updates version 1.6 brings to the front office via their <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/blog/en/prestashop-version-1-6-a-look-at-the-redesigned-front-office/" target="_blank">official blog</a>, but I was less concerned about the features list, and more concerned about how it all came together – so I made my way over to PrestaShop's brand new Front Office myself.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta7700x0.png" alt="PrestaShp 1.6 Front Office" /> 
First things first, I think that PrestaShop 1.6 brings about one of the best looking default themes offered by any ecommerce platform on the market.
The theme is sleek, responsive and beautifully presents customizable banners in a way which is eye-caching, yet professional. Also, thanks to Sass Compass technology, you can edit colors, fonts, CSS and much more with just a few clicks using the Live Template Edit feature directly from the Front Office.
Another notable feature I quickly came across was the “Quick View” functionality for all listed products. The feature brings up a “Quick View” button whenever customers hover over a product, which in turn opens up a lightbox presenting key product information, images, pricing, social sharing buttons, and so forth.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta5700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Product Quick View" /> 
Changes to the catalog pages also stood out for me. Customers can choose between viewing products in a grid or in a list, with both options looking and working well.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta9700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Catalog" />
Furthermore, the catalog pages house a host of search filters, making shopping extremely easy. Customers can filter products by colour, size, materials, styles, price and more with just a few clicks.
Banners make another appearance on catalog pages, allowing you to add some colour and creativity to the page. The sidebar beneath the filter section offers more space for promotion, enabling you to showcase new products, special products, previously viewed products, and so forth. This may sound like a lot of features to include on one catalog page, but thanks to the very light and spacious design of the theme, it all just works.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta10.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Sidebar" />
Finally, I can't ignore PrestaShop's brand new and improved Shopping Cart system – which is arguably the most important element of an ecommerce website.
Quick access to the cart is available via the top right-hand corner of the page, but unlike previous versions of PrestaShop, the drop-down menu gives you a large, cleaner window, along with the featured image of the products in your cart.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta11700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop1.6 Shopping Cart" /> 
The shopping cart page itself is once again sleek and easy to understand. Check out is separated into five sections: Summary, Login, Address, Shipping and Payment. Pretty straightforward stuff.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta8700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Shopping Cart" />
All of these features and modules make shopping on PrestaShop 1.6 a breeze. Customers receive a professional browsing and purchasing experience from the homepage, and all the way through to check out.
Social sharing buttons are common place throughout the theme, catalog filtering is easy to use, and the overall design of PrestaShop's new responsive defealt theme is simply elegant.
<h2>Back End Beauty</h2>
To accompany an impressive new Front Office, PrestaShop 1.6 also introduces an all new modern and user-friendly “Back Office”.
Much like with the Front Office, PrestaShop have documented many of the new features of their new Back Office via their  <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/blog/en/prestashop-v-1-6-back-office-whats-new-and-improved/" target="_blank"> official blog </a> , but I was more interested in perhaps shedding some light where it had yet to be shone.
So I got to grips with its sleek interface, and I have no qualms in confirming that it is indeed a colossal improvement on the current PrestaShop admin panel.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta12700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Back Office" />
The top menu, which provides access to latest orders, registrations, messages, achievements, and more, is very neatly laid out and unintrusive, even with drop-down menus. The left-hand sidebar contains the bulk of available features and functions, all of which are listed below a handy search bar.
Quick access to product uploading, profile settings and your store's homepage is provided by the top menu bar, which sits above a secondary tab containing a help button specific for each page of the Back Office.
The sidebar can be minimized too, allowing the main window to take center stage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta2700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Back Office" /> 
PrestaShop 1.6's dashboard itself is a sight to behold. It houses a wide range of statistics, insights, useful links, news and even gives you the ability to add further measurement tools via <a href="https://addons.prestashop.com/en/" target="_blank"> Addons </a> , if you so wish.
All the interfaces I came across in the back office of PrestaShop 1.6 maintained the modern feel I found on the dashboard, with each section offering detailed functionality.
Further statistics could also be found via the newly introduced “Intelligent Merchant KPI” feature, which displays relevant facts and figures relating to stock levels, profit margins, abandoned carts, and more. These stats are all displayed across the top of different pages and sections of the Back Office.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta3700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Intelligent Merchant KPI" /> 
Another feature I noticed, was that certain back-end pages offered me “Recommended Modules”. For example, the “Orders” page recommended me modules pertaining to fraud and feed management systems. Impressively, I didn't even need to leave the lightbox in order to install these modules.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta4.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Recommended Modules" /> 
It was these smaller elements which were standing out for me. Each page had its own dedicated help page, a set of recommended modules, relevant statistics and more. All of these features combined to give the entire admin panel a real sense of detail.
<h2>Real Time &amp; Forecasted Statistics</h2>
PrestaShop version 1.6 really is all about the statistics. The dedicated “Stats” page is still around, but with a brand new look. It allows you to get a wide range of statistics from all the nooks and crannies of your store – all of which are automatically measured.
The Stats page offers insights into areas like best product categories, best customers, best sellers, sarch engine kewords, visitors, best vouchers and many more. Although this feature isn't new, the enhanced design makes it feel as if it is. There is so much to monitor, and yet the simple graphs and lists associated with each parameter makes that monitoring easier to do than ever before.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/prestaaa700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Stats" /> 
But wait, there's more.
PrestaShop 1.6 also brings about a truly unique ecommerce feature – “Real Time Net Profit Margin”. As the name implies, it automatically updates net profit margins in real time, presenting you with sales and your profit figures instantly, every minute of the day.
Finally, the “Forecast Statistics Panel”, lets you see how your sales are trending and what the outlook is for the future. Using this tool, you can make smarter business decisions based on current trends and forecasts based entirely on the performance of your store.
These progress measurement tools, accompanied by the “Intelligent Merchant KPI” I mentioned earlier, makes PrestaShop 1.6 a statistical powerhouse, enabling you to monitor various metrics from a variety of helpful angles.
<h2>Newly Integrated Technologies, Seamless Upgrading &amp; More</h2>
Technologies such as Bootstrap 3.0, FontAwesome, Sass Compass and D3 Data Driven Documents have all been integrated into version 1.6 of PrestaShop, putting it right up there with the most technologically advanced ecommerce platforms.
Seamless upgrading for nearly all PrestaShop users is also offered, thanks to version 1.6 having virtually zero core changes from 1.5x – meaning that any 1.5x store can be upgraded with minimal effort.
Additional noteworthy features include integrated product comparisons with dedicated URLs, cross-selling features via the “Add to Cart Confirmation” screen, and more.
<h2>Community Driven Progress</h2>
If you caught my <a href="/prestashop-a-free-feature-filled-online-store-builder-with-a-thriving-community/" target="_blank"> previous coverage of the PrestaShop </a> , you'll know that they are an ecommerce platform who are big on community.
Whilst piecing together version 1.6, PrestaShop have worked closely with their expert community volunteers <a href="https://github.com/PrestaShop" target="_blank"> through GitHub </a> , and have also obtained feedback and suggestions from their thriving online forum which is populated by over 620,000 members.
Because of this community connection, PrestaShop have been able to gather feedback directly from their user base, and implement it into version 1.6.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/prestaaaaa700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop Forums" />
The proof of this community driven progress is in the pudding. For example, PrestaShop have listened to the calls from their community by taking a number of paid-for features from their Addons store, and have converted them into integrated features included as standard in PrestaShop 1.6 – making them completely free of charge for everybody.
Such features include Rich menu navigation, Add to Cart with Cross-selling, Quick Product View and Advanced statistics.
Now that's what I call giving back to the community.
<h2>Just Days Away</h2>
Version 1.6 of PrestaShop has been in development for a while now, but its launch date is now tantalisingly close. Just days away in fact.
There is excitement within the PrestaShop community, with merchants the world over anticipating new ways to sell, monitor and improve their online stores. The first impressions were extremely good, and the platform only grew on me as I explored it further.
I believe many of the new and unique features implemented by PrestaShop will become indispensable for store owners before very long. Many will forget what it was like to run their store without instant profit margin reports or forecasted sales figures – and for those reasons alone, PrestaShop 1.6 is an impressive piece of software.
PrestaShop 1.6 is set to be released on March 17th at 12:00pm EST. To find out more about PrestaShop, visit their <a href="http://www.prestashop.com" target="_blank"> official website </a> , or check out the <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/en/progress-1-6" target="_blank"> PrestaShop 1.6 progress page </a> .
Additionally, you can explore more of <a href="/products/prestashop/" target="_blank"> PrestaShop via our CMS Directory </a>

Hands-on With PrestaShop 1.6

Just weeks after the <a href="/wordpress-4.1-dinah-released/" target="_blank">final release of WordPress 4.1</a>, the CMS giant has unveiled the first beta for WordPress 4.2. 
The exact date of the final release hasn't been revealed, with WordPress only saying it will be ready for “next month” (which translates as April 2015). 
Here's what you can expect from the latest version of WordPress.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wplogoblue-stacked-rgb.png" />
<h2>Intuitive Plugin Installation, Emojis &amp; More</h2>
<ul>
<li>“Press This” has been completely revamped to make sharing content from around the web easier than ever. The new workflow is mobile friendly, and all you have to do is navigate to the Tools screen in your WordPress backend to get started.</li>
<li>Browsing and switching installed themes has been added to the Customizer interface, making switching between themes faster and more convenient. <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/31303"> </a></li>
<li>The workflow for updating and installing plugins just got more intuitive with the ability to install or update in-place from the Plugins screens. </li>
<li>Need some more Emojis in your life? WordPress 4.2 comes with Emoji support nearly everywhere, even post slugs.</li>
</ul>
As for the developers out there, WordPress has included some goodies under the hood:
<ul>
<li>Taxonomy Roadmap: Terms shared across multiple taxonomies will <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/02/16/taxonomy-term-splitting-in-4-2-a-developer-guide/">now be split</a> into separate terms when one of them is updated. </li>
<li>New <code>wp.a11y.speak()</code> functionality helps your JavaScript talk to screen readers to better inform impaired users what’s happening on-screen. </li>
<li>Named clause support has been added to <code>WP_Query</code>, <code>WP_Comment_Query</code>, and <code>WP_User_Query</code>, allowing specific <code>meta_query</code> clauses to be used with <code>orderby</code>.</li>
</ul>
To get your hands on the beta, download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (try “bleeding edge nightlies” if you're confident with code). Alternatively, you can <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-4.2-beta1.zip">download the beta zip file here</a>.

First Beta Released For WordPress 4.2

Reflections on WordCamp Europe 2022

paris-tuzun

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

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<a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank">WP Engine</a>, the managed WordPress hosting solution, has been very busy lately.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-page-performance/">Page Performance</a> was recently rolled out by the company, a feature that makes WP Engine the first managed WordPress hosting platform with a web page speed performance tool built into the user dashboard. This new interface gives users actionable insights to help quickly and dramatically improve the speed of their websites.
WP Engine also just <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707005380/en/WP-Engine-Unveils-Web%E2%80%99s-Wordpress-PHP-7">unveiled a PHP7 compatibility checker</a>, which is a plugin that they're toting as the internet's first tool to verify PHP 7 compatibility on WordPress website.
Amidst all this news, I managed to grab a moment with WP Engine's Vice President of Product, Jason Jaynes.
<h2>Who is Jason Jaynes?</h2>
<img style="max-width:175px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/biopic_jaynes_web.jpg" alt="Jason Jaynes" />Jason Jaynes is an experienced software executive with eighteen years of practice across multiple functions including marketing, product management, sales and software development; and multiple disciplines including social media, security, mobile, online advertising, and SAAS.
Jason is currently the Vice President of Product at WP Engine where he oversees product management and product strategy. Prior to WP Engine, Jason served as the co-founder and CTO of Apptive where he oversaw all product strategy and development. Prior to Apptive, Jason has served in numerous roles including Vice President of Business Marketing for Demand Media, Vice President of Product and Marketing for Demand Media's social division, and Director of Product Management for Credant Technologies.
Jason holds an MBA degree from the University of Texas and a B.S. in Computer Science from Texas A&amp;M University.
<h2></h2>
 
<h2>The Interview</h2>
KI: Can you briefly tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role at WP Engine?
JJ: I am responsible for product management and product strategy across the entire company. I work extensively with customers to understand overall market needs and to define and create the next generation of product features. A few months ago, WP Engine released Page Performance, a solution that empowers customers to obtain and utilize actionable insights that boost site performance. It's helped many of our customers improve their site speed, typically a 15% increase in front-end performance.
However, you can only optimize your code so much. Sometimes, the answer is putting a race car engine on your site, that is what PHP 7 is, a high performance PHP engine that will bring even greater performance to our customer base. However, it’s an involved process, so we created this <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-compatibility-checker/">PHP Compatibility Checker plugin</a> to help our customers ready their sites for PHP 7, coming to our platform later this fall. As a managed platform, we are enabling our customers in many ways to reach their peak website performance.
KI: As the internet becomes more and more ingrained into the daily life of the human race, can you tell us (preferable with some statistics), just how demanding the average internet user is for fast-loading websites?
JJ: We actually have a great infographic on this, which explores all the ways in which the “need for speed” has evolved over the years in a range of ways:
<ul>
<li>Desire for instant gratification</li>
<li>Online shopping expectations</li>
<li>Mobile site speed expectations</li>
<li>The emotional toll of load times</li>
<li>Site speed in the real world</li>
<li>How to improve page load time</li>
</ul>
KI: What does your latest product, Page Performance, bring to the table?
JJ: It’s clear that a poor digital experience sinks sites in a heartbeat — a <a href="https://blog.kissmetrics.com/speed-is-a-killer/">study</a> by Akamai and Gomez showed that even a one-second delay in page load time will result in 11 percent fewer page views, a 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7 percent drop in conversion. With site owners and developers literally on the clock, it’s critical that the customer experience be seamless in order to not affect the bottom line – it’s all about performance and conversion.
Our latest intelligence product, Page Performance, empowers customers to obtain and utilize actionable insights that boost site performance. Integrated into the WP Engine user portal, Page Performance provides a detailed site speed report and actionable recommendations to solve for technical issues impacting digital businesses, resulting in higher visitor retention, improved Google rankings, increased conversions and positive reputations and customer experiences. Key benefits include:
<ul>
<li>Access to key metrics on any Page with report history to see improvements over time. Report includes such metrics as cacheability, render start, visitor complete, render complete and other data.</li>
<li>Actionable recommendations with rich context, including links to a library of support material enable users to make fast, significant, measurable impact to site performance.</li>
<li>Integrated into WP Engine user portal to support a convenient developer workflow.</li>
</ul>
KI: What sets WP Engine apart from other managed WordPress hosting solutions?
JJ: WP Engine powers amazing digital experiences for websites and applications built on WordPress.
With award-winning customer support and state-of-the-art technology, our managed WordPress platform provides performance, reliability and security to brands, agencies, SMBs and individuals. Engineered at a code level to make resource-hungry WordPress deployments run faster, the WP Engine platform displays stunning speed while incorporating an industry-leading hardened infrastructure that allows webpages to load up to four times faster than any non-WordPress platform. Offering different plans to fit the needs of customers ranging from individuals to the enterprise, our platform helps our customers create robust and reliable websites with direct SFTP, Git version control, built-in CDN, enhanced security, one-click staging, automated migrations and restore and more.
Through our efforts, WP Engine has contributed significantly to establishing WordPress itself as a platform that can be reliably deployed in a range of enterprise scenarios. We were involved in introducing or popularizing platform features that have become key characteristics of hosting, including site staging (as we mention above), integration with developer workflow tools and advanced caching strategies.
With the recent launch of our Page Performance service (noted above), WP Engine is adding a layer that is likely to continue evolving customer expectations of a managed WordPress offering. Performance Intelligence for sites, of which Page Performance is the first product, will be an area of continued investment for us.
To find out more about WP Engine, <a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>

Interview With Jason Jaynes, VP of Product at WP Engine

Adobe has made a number of big announcements at the U.S held Adobe Summit, the company's annual Digital Marketing conference.
CMS Critic are present at the Summit, and you can follow our live tweets from the event <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic" target="_blank">via our Twitter page</a>.
To be frank, Adobe has already revealed so much that it's hard to know where to start. So, here goes nothing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobe-logo-100275038-orig.png" />
<h2>IBM &amp; Vibes Partnerships</h2>
Adobe and IBM have announced a global partnership. IBM Interactive Experience will build specialized enterprise consulting capabilities around AMC.
Furthermore, IBM Websphere will soon be integrated with Adobe Experience Manager. 
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006619/en/Adobe-IBM-Interactive-Experience-Announce-Global-Partnership#.VP6FJdLF-8B" target="_blank">Read more about the Adobe and IBM partnership</a>.
Adobe has also got a new partnership with Vibes, a mobile marketing giant. The deal means that marketers using Adobe Marketing Cloud can now seamlessly integrate Mobile Wallet, SMS and Push Messaging into their existing marketing campaigns.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006580/en/Vibes-Partners-Adobe-Power-Mobile-Marketing-Campaigns#.VP8sQfmsWSo" target="_blank">Read more about the Adobe and Vibes partnership</a>.
<h2>Internet-of-Things and Wearable Devices</h2>
Adobe has introduced AEM Screens and new functionalities in Target, Analytics and Mobile Core Services that enable brands to bring highly personalized experiences to physical spaces like retail stores, hotel rooms, vending machines and Internet-of-Things.
Furthermore, a new Internet-of-Things SDK lets brands measure and analyze consumer engagement across any of those touch points, while new Intelligent Location capabilities in AMC will allow companies to use GPS and iBeacon data to optimize their physical brand presence.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006586/en" target="_blank">Read more about Adobe's movement on the werable device front</a>.
<h2>Mobile Marketing &amp; More</h2>
Adobe has also unveiled a significant enhancements to Adobe Mobile Services, a Core Service across Adobe Marketing Cloud, that include a fully integrated mobile app framework.
The new mobile app framework delivers the complete, integrated solution in the industry for developing and managing apps, and is the first to eliminate marketers’ dependence on an array of disjointed point solutions.
Adobe has also added six top app tech providers (Fiksu, Vibes, Kochava, Ionic, Crittercism, appFigures) to its partner ecosystem, who are integrating their tools into the mobile app framework.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006582/en" target="_blank">Read more about Adobe's mobile marketing and app development progress</a>.
And finally, Adobe has announced a new algorithmic engine and advances in Audience Core Services to bring together the worlds of data-driven marketing. Its new Audience Core Services enable brands to connect massive audience and behavioral data. 
A new set of algorithms lets them reach those audiences with paid media in AMO. A new Audience Marketplace lets brands buy and sell anonymous first and third party data
By integrating programmatic buying natively, Adobe brings the marketplace to the marketer and enables consistent experiences across channels
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006581/en" target="_blank">Read more about the enhancements to Adobe Marketing Cloud</a>.
I told you there was a lot of news! And yet the Adobe Summit still isn't over, so be sure to <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic" target="_blank">follow us on Twitter</a> to stay on top of our live tweets direct from the event.

Partnerships, IoT & Wearable Devices: Adobe Makes String of Announcements

While the days of mailing self-addressed, stamped envelopes (along with typed or laser-printed poems, short stories, or short creative non-fiction) to journals are not completely behind us, it's become increasingly rare to find a literary journal that does not use cyberspace as a way of accepting submissions. Today, in fact, when one talks about a submission system being “old fashioned” or “low-tech,” chances are pretty good that that means email! More and more literary magazines today are leaving even email submissions behind, instead using submission management systems to track authors and their writing, including updates on which editors have read what so far and whether staff members have voted to accept or reject the work.
<h2> Submittable </h2>
By now, editors and aspiring writers alike have certainly encountered the user-friendly interface of the open-source software of Submittable (formerly called – and often still referred to as – “Submishmash”). Authors who click the “submit” button on the websites of journals that use Submittable recognize the pop-up form that's branded with the company's familiar orange logo. Submittable is used not only by some of the most well-known and prestigious journals like The New Yorker, McSweeney's , and The Atlantic – but it's also what a large percentage of respected journals that are not as well known outside of the literary world are using, too.
From the editorial side, Submittable has been called a “one-stop shop,” allowing for automatic emails to be sent to authors, acknowledging receipt of submissions – and also allowing editorial staff to easily rank submissions and track information. The Submittable website also boasts that no web designer is needed to use the system, and submission capability can be built into a journal's existing site. Submittable is PCI compliant and secure – and it also allows for analytics, reporting, and the exporting of data. Editors can review submissions on their iPads, iPhones, or Kindles.
There are 3 Submittable plan levels, costing from $220 to $2200 per year, depending on the number of editorial staff who will be accessing the account, as well as the number of submissions the system will be able to handle. However, non-profits and/or publishers of art or literature get a 50% discount with the coupon code “NonProfitArtLit .” And, speaking of the issue of money, Submittable also allows journals to collect reading fees.
One Submittable features writers appreciate is that a Submittable username (the user's email address) and password, once set up for one literary magazine, is good for logging in to all journals with submissions systems powered by Submittable. They may also appreciate the fact that authors, whenever they're logged in from any Submittable-subscribing journal's website, will see a complete list of work submitted to other Submittable journals as well, along with a note on what's accepted, rejected, or still simply “in progress.”
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weaver_elizabeth_submittable_screenshot.jpg" alt="submission management systems - Submittable user interface screenshot" />
<a href="http://www.submittable.com"> Check out Submittable </a>
<h2> Submission Manager </h2>
Writers who submit their work to journals that don't use Submittable may often experience a strange feeling of déjà vu when clicking on a literary magazine's “submit” button and finding themselves being asked to create an account on a vaguely familiar-looking grid page. There's a reason for this feeling of déjà vu: sign-up and log-in pages powered by another popular literary journal submission management system – going simply by the name “Submission Manager” – does, unfortunately, require writers to create a new account for each journal; despite the familiar-looking user interface and the feeling that you've “been here before,” the déjà vu often just means you've submitted work to another journal that uses Submission Manager – but not yet for this particular journal (meaning, yes, you do have to create a new account).
Submission Manager's website boasts that it manages reading periods – which means that neither authors nor editors have to face the annoyance of trying to submit work (or of getting work) during a time when editors are not accepting it. It also allows the capability, where an SMTP application is available, to send automatic emails that acknowledge submissions. Submission Manager consists of a MySQL (version 4.1 or higher) database with a front end programmed in PHP (version 4.3 or higher). It requires a web server and a browser that's set up to accept cookies. While there's no eye-catching logo like the memorable orange one that Submittable uses, the color scheme and fonts can be customized.
Most marketing for Submission Manager seems to be through the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), a non-profit organization which is funded in part by the National Endowment for the arts – and which offers Submission Manager's services to literary journals for $200.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weaver_elizabeth_submission_manager_screenshot.jpg" alt="submission management systems - Submission Manager user interface screenshot" />
<a href="http://www.submissionmanager.net/">Check out Submissions Manager</a>
<h2> Tell it Slant </h2>
A third submission management option for literary journals is Tell it Slant. One feature that Tell it Slant predominantly markets is how it handles simultaneous submissions; like Submittable (and unlike Submission Manager), Tell it Slant allows authors to use a single username and password – when logging in either from individual literary journal websites or directly from Tell it Slant's own site. This particular submission management system, however, goes a step farther, also taking full advantage of having all information together in one place – by first detecting when a single piece of writing has been submitted to more than one journal that uses Tell it Slant; then, when one journal on the system accepts the simultaneously submitted piece, that piece of writing is automatically deleted from the submission queues for other journals on the system. This is great news not only for journals but also for authors, who usually have to go through and individually withdraw the accepted piece of writing from consideration by other journals.
Tell it Slant also boasts of forum-style discussion capability that allows editors to have meaningful online exchanges about specific submissions and authors – as well as a function that allows editors to perform keyword searches in author bios. A handy feature for writers is that there's also a specific area of the user profile that builds this bio – whereas, with other sites, adding biographical information tends to be a matter of authors having to copy-and-paste their bios in from elsewhere every time they submit work.
Their site is free for literary journals, with processing fees being charged only for submissions to journals that receive more than 75 a month submissions a month. The processing fee also applies for journals which charge a reading fee.
As far as payment information is concerned, from the writer's perspective, authors who submit their work purchase “credits” through PayPal in order to pay submission fees when using the system. According to Tell it Slant's website, prices vary by journal but tend to be between $1.50 and $3.00.
While it is true that many journals using Submittable and Submission Manager, by contrast, don't charge submission fees, it's worth noting that submitting to journals the the old-fashioned way (through the U.S. Postal Service) requires sufficient postage for sending the writing (costing more or less, depending on the size of the manuscript), plus a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply (and an additional amount of postage when authors want to have the manuscript returned to them) – all of which adds up for any writer trying to get their work out there. According to Tell it Slant's website, their credit system was started with the plan of eventually offering discounts for writers who buy credits in bulk, so they're making an effort to really make this fee system worth everyone's while.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weaver_elizabeth_tell_it_slant_submission_mgmt_system.jpg" alt="submission management systems - Tell it Slant user interface screenshot" />
Check out Tell It Slant
Writers and literary journal editors alike today appreciate the ways in which technology has helped to streamline the editorial process. While email is easier to search and track than the old-fashioned paper-and-envelope method, many literary magazine editors have embraced the multitude of features that submission management systems offer. Submitting writers, too, appreciate the seamless, paper-free systems that more journals are using now; with any luck, the fact that more writers are able to get out of the post office line – and get online instead – also means they're able to spend more time crafting great work that's one step closer to being discovered.

3 Submission Management Systems for Literary Journals: an Overview

Despite engaging in some pseudo-journalism within the CMS industry, I don't consider myself to be a journalist in the traditional sense. Although from the outside looking in, you probably can't tell the different. Or, you know, you probably just don't really care.
My point however, is that journalists who report on the movements of large companies and organizations seem to be receiving less material to work with, forcing them to exert more effort. As a result,<a href="http://news.isebox.net/2015-journalist-survey/" target="_blank"> a recent study has found that 68% of journalists are unhappy and overworked</a>.
Here's an infographic with all the details.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/journalist-survey-results-infographic-isebox700x0.png" />
Now, although I wouldn't class my own experiences in the exactly the same ways, I definitely see where that 68% is coming from. For sure, the above infographic doesn't perfectly reflect the reality of journalism within the world of CMS, but it does hold some weight.
However, instead of latching on to this journalism sob-story, I'd prefer to take this conversation in a more relevant direction.
So, with the eyes of CMS vendors across the world being my target, allow me to explain.
<h2>Why CMS Vendors Should Do More To Help Journalists</h2>
My role here at CMS Critic has now spanned a period of almost two years, and the quality of material given to me by some vendors (and I reiterate some, not all) has been consistently lacklustre.
Of course, I'm not talking about the quality of the actual products. I'm talking about the way in which many vendors choose to promote and portray their most recent updates to their customers as well as their go-to journalists. Here is what I humbly suggest that those vendors stop doing.
Stop the boring bullet-point lists with no additional next, stop making key announcements via a casual forum post, and stop sending out boring press releases with obscenely long quotes and “About” sections.
Instead, I would kindly urge vendors to focus more on spreading the news via company blogs, video content (which demonstrate new features), short interviews, and so forth. It's about time such announcements became engaging.
Am I saying this simply to make my own life easier? No.
My role here extends to reviewing products, <a href="/announcing-this-years-judges-for-the-2014-critics-choice-awards/" target="_blank">judging products</a>, and <a href="/cms-critic-on-tour-paris-amsterdam-basel/" target="_blank">covering conferences</a>, while CMS Critic also provides consultancy services. Because of this, I feel it necessary that I do all of that extra research mentioned in the infographic, no matter how dazzling or daunting each news update is. Whatever the case, my personal workload is unaffected.
Rather, it is in the best interests of the vendor to spend more time on the presentation of their news announcements.
It will make journalists more eager to cover the story, and customers far likely to pay attention. Not to mention, the overall brand will benefit from some more stellar marketing and outreach strategies. A win, win, win.
Those are my two cents anyway. If you need me, I'll be crying into my overworked keyboard.

Writer Woes: 68% of Journalists Are Unhappy (And Why CMS Vendors Should Care)

Looking for our <a href="/socialengine-review/">SocialEngine Cloud Review</a>?In my view, there’s a notable lack of capable social network builders out there. They exist, sure, but if you compare it with the eCommerce industry, there’s a serious shortage of vendors.SocialEngine though is one platform that has been around for a number of years (since 2006, actually). It was also voted in as the <a href="/announcing-the-2015-winner-for-best-social-network-software/">Best Social Network Software of 2015</a> here on CMS Critic.It comes in two flavours; SocialEngine Cloud and Social Engine PHP.As for SocialEngine Cloud, it’s a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution that lets you launch a community from SocialEngine’s servers. You can read our <a href="/socialengine-review">SocialEngine Cloud Review</a> for more information.SocialEngine PHP on the other hand is a downloadable and self-hosted version of the platform which I’ll be focusing on throughout this review. Let’s get started!<h2>Getting Started</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-get-started.png" />You can download a free trial of SocialEngine which lasts for 30 days, or you can try it out via their online demo.In either case, what you’ll find is a functional admin panel that lacks decoration.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-app.png" />It serves up recent SocialEngine news, site stats, and some quick links to help you find vital areas of the dashboard. It does it’s job, but it’s not as beautiful as the SocialEngine Cloud dashboard – which I find odd.The rest of the dashboard is equally bare in terms of design, but it is quick and easy to navigate.<h2>Core Features</h2>SocialEngine really is feature-rich – there’s no denying that. Here's an overview:<ul><li>Mobile Web App</li><li>Chat and IM</li><li>Private messaging</li><li>Social feeds</li><li>Photo galleries</li><li>Groups and sub-groups</li><li>Events</li><li>Forums</li><li>Blogs</li><li>Polls</li></ul>You can also use drag-and-drop software to visually arrange content, customize widgets, create whole new pages, and position banner advertisements.This is all after you piece together your social network using themes, addons, and social frameworks. Here’s a breakdown of those features, and more.<h3>Plugins &amp; Themes</h3>SocialEngine boasts a plethora of addons in the form of plugins at themes, many of which are third-party contributions.The quality of the addons vary, and although themes have started to look a lot more modern, I wouldn’t put them on par with the average WordPress theme – if I were to use them as a benchmark.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-plugins-and-themes.png" />All SocialEngine addons can be found via the SocialEngine marketplace.<h3>Full Content Ownership</h3>Your community’s content is yours to own. Unlike most hosted services, SocialEngine PHP never prevents you from moving your community or serving your own advertisements.SocialEngine PHP gives you a simple, unbranded network that you can customize in any way. You’ll have the freedom to maintain fine-grained control over all aspects of your site and content.<h3>Site Stats</h3>SocialEngine offers a relatively stellar site stats solution, and I’m a fan of native analytics systems within content management systems, even if they aren’t that detailed.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-site-stats.png" />SocialEngine’s analytics system is fairly well detailed, though. They offer site-wide stats, referral stats, as well as stats within your community. That includes metrics on things like:<ul><li>Private messages</li><li>Friendships</li><li>Comments</li><li>Abuse reports</li><li>Sign ins</li></ul><h3>Multiple Social Frameworks</h3>SocialEngine lets you choose from two-way friendships (like Facebook), one-way followers (like Twitter), verified/unverified friendships, and more.This lets you build a community around common frameworks that your members will be familiar with.You can also add sub-networks to segment members by factors such as age, workplace, location, gender, or anything else you deem necessary.<h3>Moderators &amp; Membership Levels</h3>Create multiple levels of membership in your community to give some members access to special content or extra privileges. You can also assign moderators to help you maintain your community and remove unwanted content for you.<h3>White Labelling</h3>Thanks to SocialEngine have been generous by not including their branding on licensed versions of their product. That means you can go ahead and white label it – so it looks like the software is your own invention.This goes a long way in convincing potential community members of your website’s autehticity and prestige.<h2>Pricing</h2>Unlike SocialEngine Cloud – which requires you to pay a monthly fee – SocialEngine PHP is available at for a one-time fee.There are three deals currently on offer, as seen in the image below.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-pricing.png" />Starting from $299, you can’t say that SocialEngine is pricing anybody out, but it’s not exactly cheap either. You could say it’s pretty well priced, actually.However, it must be said that, despite being well priced, the $299 version doesn’t give you access to SocialEngine’s best features.As for the higher plans, they afford you extras like mobile apps, instant messaging for members, forums, blogs, polls, marketplaces, and so forth. Those deals come in at $499 and $699. Which is kind of pricey.<h2>Getting Help</h2>With every purchase of SocialEngine PHP, you get 30 days worth of ticket-based support. Which isn’t a lot.Further help can be found via the <a target="_blank" href="http://community.onsocialengine.com/">global SocialEngine community</a>, as well as through detailed documentation. But to be quite honest, for a product that costs at least $299, I expect ongoing support from the SocialEngine team that lasts longer than 30 days.You can get extended ticket-support access, but that comes at an extra cost.<h2>Verdict</h2>SocialEngine PHP is indeed a platform with plenty of history, and a strong community. It ships with a wide range of features, and it has the potential to power a seriously epic social networking website.But I must say, it is still a platform that’s rough around the edges.Regardless, if you’re in the market for a social network builder, SocialEngine PHP is certainly worth a try.<h3>Pros</h3><ul><li>Awesome amount of features out of the box</li><li>Different social frameworks to choose from</li><li>A solid community to help you grow and provide you with addons</li><li>No SocialEngine branding</li><li>An industry veteran</li></ul><h3>Cons</h3><ul><li>Templates and plugins lack quality for the most part</li><li>Support options are very limited unless you pay extra</li><li>The $299 deal gets you a very bare-bones version of SocialEngine PHP, while more feature-rich plans are far from cheap.</li></ul><h2>Final Remarks</h2>SocialEngine is a solid social networking solution, with an excellent range of features. Themes, plugins, and the admin panel aren't of the highest quality though, and you will have to pay a high price to make use all of features,<a target="_blank" href="https://community.socialengine.com/signup">Click here to sign up for a free trial with SocialEngine</a>.

SocialEngine PHP Review

<a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank">LemonStand</a>, a cloud-hosted eCommerce solution, has introduced content blocks as its newest feature.
The platform boasts of being, “tailor-made for online stores that do over six figures per year in sales, or aspire to.” 
<a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lemonstand.png" /></a> Even on its lowest monthly plan, LemonStand imposes no transaction fees, nor does it cap the amount of products that users can sell. 
<h2>Content Blocks: Increased Control Over Design</h2>
Danny Halarewich, LemonStand's Co-Founder and CEO, made the announcement in an <a href="http://blog.lemonstand.com/new-lemonstand-feature-content-blocks/" target="_blank">enthusiatic blog post full of news tidbits and examples of content blocks in action</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editor-contentblock-e1426117447815.png" />
In the post, he said:
<blockquote>
“This flexible CMS features allows you to set up content on your website any way you like, then easily edit it whenever you want. You can use it to manage the content on pages like About Us, Contact and more. You could even use it to manage more complex content like lookbooks or a list of product distributers.
We will be adding content blocks to all of our <a href="https://lemonstand.com/themes">eCommerce themes</a> very soon. In addition to that, we’ll be releasing a bunch of new themes that will also use content blocks!”
</blockquote>
<a href="http://blog.lemonstand.com/new-lemonstand-feature-content-blocks/" target="_blank">Visit the LemonStand blog</a> to find out more about content blocks, or <a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank">check out their website</a> to start your online store.

LemonStand Unveils Content Blocks

CMS Summit 26

Find out at CMS Connect 26, August 4-5 in Montreal, Canada

What's ahead for CMS in the agentic era?

WordPress is a monster in the CMS industry, to the point that it's almost unfair how many websites are powered by the popular open source CMS. With a whopping 23.4% of the web running WP, it's amazingly popular and far surpasses any other CMS in the world. Today, I'm going to share with you my thoughts on why WordPress beats Drupal and Joomla. I'm going to do so by sharing what I consider to be the 8 ways it does this.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/header_image-2500x0.png" alt="8 Ways WordPress Beats Drupal and Joomla" />
<ol>
<li>
<h2>Ease of use</h2>
When it comes to ease of use, WordPress is definitely the king amongst these three. Not only does it have one of the simplest and most straight forward interfaces, it far exceeds Drupal and Joomla when it comes to usability (in my humble opinion). WordPress has been used by many projects as a model for how to do a proper user interface and continues to improve with each new update. For an overall writing experience, it also offers a very unique distraction free writing mode which allows you to focus solely on your writing. Drupal, for instance, has an interface that fosters confusion and feels too complex. It doesn't feel as fluid as I'd like to see from such a powerful CMS. Joomla has some oddball ways of navigating the menus and accomplishing simple tasks and still needs some work (although over the years I've seen some good improvements).
</li>
<li>
<h2>Ease of Installation</h2>
WordPress is incredibly easy to install, the entire process is very, very straight forward and requires little knowledge. Having said that, services like Fantastico have made it much easier to install all three of these CMS with relative ease. Without Fantastico however, WordPress is definitely the simpler of the three. Even better, if you are using a hosting service like <a href="/bluehost">Bluehost</a>, it couldn't get much easier with their automated tools and WordPress managed hosting services.
</li>
<li>
<h2>Word of mouth</h2>
This is rather obvious but given the popularity of WordPress, it gets more word of mouth than Joomla or Drupal and is far more likely to be recommended as a solution than the other two. This can, however, result in people using WordPress for purposes outside the products means so it's a double edges sword in some cases.
</li>
<li>
<h2>Theming options</h2>
Sure, themes aren't the end all be all but for those looking to start a new website from scratch, they are certainly a huge help and with WordPress as popular as it is, there are literally thousands if not millions of themes out there to choose from. New theme development agencies are popping up every day offering more and more options to choose from which again, leads to more and more adoption of the CMS. Joomla is second to WordPress when it comes to theming and the situation with Drupal is just bad. There might be one or two decent Drupal theme companies out there but the work is often poor or unappealing to the masses (feel free to correct me if you know of some I'm unaware of).
</li>
<li>
<h2>Community</h2>
The WordPress community is nothing short of massive. With a huge number of blogs running on the WordPress.com hosted platform in addition to the downloadable version, WordPress has a community of millions of users around the world. This allows for a much quicker turn around for support questions and it's much much easier to find someone with the ability to assist in either developing plugins or a theme for your website. With a community this large, there are definite advantages.
</li>
<li>
<h2>Integrations</h2>
Almost any type of web software available has an integration with WordPress already in place or is working on one. This saves significant time working with code and allows users of the platform to benefit from the ease of use it's best known for. When integrating with a third party service involves a quick process rather than editing code, the world becomes an easier place for those looking to expand their websites with new functionality. Furthermore, with a massive directory of plugins, it's easy to accomplish new things and expand your website by simply installing a new plugin.
</li>
<li>
<h2>Niche Adoption</h2>
Since WordPress was a blog platform first and foremost, there was little competition other than Blogger to contend with. As a result, WP was quickly able to establish itself as the king of hte ring in this arena. As blogging became more popular, more of those individuals who first started out using WP for their blogs started to look at how they could continue their love affair with the plaform by adopting it to other niches. As a result, WordPress now can be used for far more than just blogging and continues to grow in capability.
</li>
<li>
<h2>Ease of Development</h2>
WordPress is a very simple CMS to use to develop websites. I've worked with it for years to build a number of sites including originally using it to power this very website you are reading this on. We are now powered by Processwire but I used WordPress to begin with to help me get this far. In addition, I built my wife's website, <a href="http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com"> http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com </a> (through which she ended up signing a book deal with Random House) as well as a ton of others such as <a href="http://www.baconhound.com"> http://www.baconhound.com </a> and many others. I find the development process very straight forward and since I am self taught in PHP, easy to pick up and understand.
</li>
</ol>
Now that I've shared the number of ways I think WordPress beats Drupal and Joomla, what are your thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments below (but please do play nice!)
~Mike

8 Ways WordPress Beats Drupal and Joomla

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