Articles

Contegro Article

With a new look and tons of interface improvements,  the release of Contegro Version 4, comes a Window’s style desktop that will make even first-time Website CMS users feel like experts.
Contegro 4 continues the goal of completely removing the developer from the website life-cycle, and empowering designers with the sole power to create and manage functionally rich websites. “Contegro Version 4’s interface brings simplicity and usability in Web CMS to a whole new level,” says Contegro founder Vaughan Reed. “The Window’s Desktop interface is already familiar, so for users every action is intuitive.”
Contegro Version 4’s new Interface and multi-tasking workspace concept is set to revolutionize Web CMS. Take a look at the following key feature releases.
A completely transformed CMS interface
Contegro v4 removes the need to open up multiple browser tabs to manage many different areas of a website or even independent sites; everything can be managed from the new interface. “It makes multi-tasking so simple,” says Reed. “The increase in productivity that can be achieved when setting up and managing sites by using the new interface is really exciting.”
<img style="max-width:427px" title="Contegro 4 - 1" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/browserstack-live-pricing.jpg" alt="Contegro 4 - 1" />
More specific interface features include the following:
Smart Desktop Shortcuts.
A quick click on a desktop shortcut enables you to access/manage files, categories, website members, and edit content. Or simply go to the Contegro Start Menu.
<img style="max-width:346px" title="Contegro 4 Context" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/02/wordpress-homepage-featured-image.jpg" alt="Contegro 4 Context" />
Streamlined Task Bar.
Just like the Windows Desktop environment, if a new application is opened it appears as a button on the Task Bar. You can quickly and simultaneously switch between tabbed windows keeping them open. A right-click minimizes the window and can it be relocated onscreen to suit your requirements.
Informative Notification Window.
The Notification Window keeps you in the loop. See your latest edited pages; pages within your workflow approval queue, product updates, feature releases and training videos. Pages can be open from within the notification window directly from the desktop.
<img style="max-width:391px" title="Contegro 4 - 2" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/02/wordpress-logo-homepage-featured-image.jpg" alt="Contegro 4 - 2" />
Further Developments in Contegro Version 4 include:
An Advanced Workflow.
The Contegro Workflow provides a flexible three-step workflow process with Submit, Approve and Publish steps to make life easy. The workflow can be configured to a one-or-two-step process if required. To keep uniformity, one single workflow can be established as a global site-wide process. Conversely, multiple workflow scenarios can be established within sections of a website.
Site Tree Enhancements.
Drag ‘n’ Drop and right-click functionality makes it easy and efficient to manage the site structure, create pages, copy pages and assign permissions and workflow.
Updates to the Site Tree include the clever automatic creation of 301 redirects when moving pages from one section to another. This eliminates broken links within search engines and external linking to moved pages.
<img style="max-width:173px" title="Contegro 4 - 3" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/sitecore-featured-image-2.jpg" alt="Contegro 4 - 3" />
An Intuitive Editing Workspace.
With a streamlined workspace that takes advantage of the new Window’s look, the Site Tree, Page Attributes and Content Editing Sections have been combined within a single workspace. Key features include:
<ul>
<li>Ability to open and edit multiple pages simultaneously and copy and paste content between pages.</li>
<li>Drag and drop modules – add, remove or drag modules around the page to add functionality.</li>
<li>View all page attributes – plus listing details, publishing and revisions at the same time.</li>
<li>Workflow steps – ensure pages are edited, approved and published by the correct staff.</li>
<li>Maximize your workspace – Editor and Attributes and Site Tree panels all individually minimize.</li>
</ul>
Superior Administrator Control.
The Administrator Control has also been modified to include
Unlimited Administrative Groups and greater control around the management of the Administrator group permissions. The level of access that each account has can be completely customized to your staff requirements and ability.
Control Administrator access to sections of the website via the site tree. Lower levels will inherit both member and administrator permissions set in the parent page.
<img style="max-width:314px" title="Contegro 4 - 4" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/image010.gif" alt="Contegro 4 - 4" />
Contegro Version 4 is available now. With the simple usability of the new interface and new key features, the potential for greater productivity and creativity is almost endless. Discover the new face of Contegro today.
<h3>For More Information</h3>
Please visit <a href="http://www.contegro.com">http://www.contegro.com</a>

Contegro v4 Released - Introduces whole new interface and usability improvements

mike-johnston

Contegro has launched an innovative online Discovery Room that lets people experience the power of Contegro first hand.  Visitors to the site are able to interact with the Web CMS, watch online training videos and participate in live chat discussions. To celebrate the launch, all CMS Critic Readers are invited to trial Contegro by simply visiting <a href="http://www.contegro.com/discover">http://www.contegro.com/discover</a> and entering this special access code: cmscritic
The founder of Contegro Vaughan Reed developed the Discovery Room to showcase Contegro and its benefits.
<blockquote>“We’ve continually stated how Contegro is both easy-to-use and hassle-free. Now customers and potential Partners can experience this via our website without the need to contact us first – it makes things so simple.”</blockquote>
Reed explains that visitors to the Discovery Room are lead to a demonstration site where they can delve into the heart of Contegro.
<blockquote>“This presents users with an opportunity to play and experience Contegro’s innovative Window’s style desktop and vast functionality.”</blockquote>
Reed believes that the Discovery Room will be of interest to web designers in particular.
<blockquote>“We hope web designers will instantly discover just how hassle-free Website Content Management can be for them and their clients. What’s more, there’s no need to compromise on functionality, says Reed. “Anyone who wants to see a smart and easy-to-use web CMS in action should check it out.”</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegrodiscoveryroom_c-online-580x320.jpg" />
Interested in checking out Contegro? Visit <a href="http://www.contegro.com/discover">http://www.contegro.com/discover</a> and enter this special access code: cmscritic

Contegro offers Free Trials through new Discovery Room

Contegro is a commercial Website CMS solution for medium to large organizations that is targeted at design focused Web Design, Graphic Design and Advertising agencies looking for a high end Website CMS for their clients.
Contegro’s key point of difference over other Website CMS systems is that it removes the developer from the website lifecycle. Allowing design focused companies to deliver functionally rich websites, without the need to employ developers for any coding. This is achieved by building in an extensive level of control within the User Interface, providing partners with all the control they need to produce functional, high end websites while providing their clients (the end-user) with total control over the management of their content within a very user-friendly interface.
In a nut shell, it simplifies the website development life cycle while delivering a feature-rich, technically advanced website solution for their client.
Due for release on November 17th, Contegro's fourth rendition of their popular WCMS is still in testing but we've been granted a chance to dig deep and see what this system is made of.
Contegro has a number of addon modules that can be used to extend the system to allow for additional functionality. The modules available include: Blog, Directory, Document Library, E-Card, E-Commerce, E-Commerce Lite, Email Marketing, Form Builder, Image Gallery, Investor Relations Suite, Microsite Ability, Podcasts, Product Catalog, RSS reader, Seminar, Store Locator, Vehicle Booking and Voting Poll. For more descriptions, see <a href="http://www.contegro.com/Contegro-CMS/Add-on-Modules/default.aspx">Contegro Addon Modules</a>.
When you first log in to the Administrative Interface for Contegro, you are greeted with a familiar look and feel to what you would expect from a Windows Desktop:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-management-console-mozilla-firefox_2010-11-19_09-13-57-580x407.jpg" alt="Contegro 1" />
Double clicking on the editor on the Contegro web desktop pops up an editor that allows you to browse the various aspects of the site and edit them.
Within editor view, there are three icons located on the right side of the window that allow you to switch between the various modes:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-management-console-mozilla-firefox_2010-11-19_09-16-05.jpg" alt="Contegro 2" /> 
The icons in order that they appear are: Preview, Compact Edit and Preview Edit.
Preview mode should be pretty obvious. It shows you a preview of the site without any obstructions. Compact edit shows the site layout with the individual module boxes and no previews available:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-3-580x242.jpg" />
Lastly, Preview edit shows the site as you see below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-4-580x300.jpg" alt="Contegro 4" />
Right clicking on any of the pages on the left pane brings up a context menu with various options:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/joomlacode-mozilla-firefox_2011-03-24_09-48-03_fwbwtg.jpg" />
Do you wish to change the order of your pages? You can do so by simply clicking and dragging the page to it's new location directly from the left pane of the window in the screenshot above.
Should you move a page to a new parent page, you will be prompted to create a 301 redirect to ensure that you maintain your search engine visibility. This is a handy and well thought out addition that makes rearranging your site's structure less daunting.
Modifying the individual modules is easy to do as well. You simply click on the wrench icon and a new window with the various settings for that module appears. Let's say you want to change the categories to display by order of popularity instead of by name. Simply click on the wrench for the category list:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-6-580x459.jpg" alt="Contegro 6" />
There is a dropdown menu available called “Group Items By:” that you can simply adjust to use popularity. It's as simple as that. As you can see, there are plenty of options and ways to customize the individual modules to best suit them to your needs.
Each area of the template can be given a specific set of design rules or CSS attributes and you can see how this works very easily. Simply drag your module from the left pane of your website to the middle pane and the module will automatically reskin itself based on the CSS attributes of that pane. This saves you a ton of time when it comes to making adjustments to your site's appearance.
Adding modules to your site is also fairly straight forward. To add a module to an area, click on one of the green + signs beside your module name:
This will bring up a dropdown box for you to select your new module from. In the drop down box are a number of modules for you to select from.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-7.jpg" />
Editing content and settings from here is as simple and straight forward as clicking on the appropriate icon. Should you wish to edit content, for instance, you can simply click the icon for editing and up pops the window:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-8-580x394.jpg" />
Right now, the editor shows the full set of available options but can easily be restricted to show only specific buttons, should you wish.
The file explorer can be found by clicking on the Document icon on the Contegro desktop. This window allows you to browse the hierarchical structure of your documents and images as well as manage the contents within.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-9-580x353.jpg" />
As you can see in the screenshot above, you can also edit the metadata of the individual documents as well as their access levels should you choose to do so. One thing I encountered and I initially found a bit inconvenient is that there does not appear to be a way to upload multiple documents to the repository from this application. It seems to only allow you to upload them one at a time.
I was informed, however, that there is a document Library add-on module that is used for managing large volumes of documents as it takes away the manual linking. The Document Library includes an import feature that allows you to zip all documents and import as one file and is ideal for managing from 100 – 10,000 + documents.
When it comes to managing images, you can easily select and upload multiples in one go and it uploads them quickly without issue.
Moving to the security management aspect of the product, I found access permissions to be quite easy to configure with numerous restrictions that can be applied quickly and easily:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-10-580x438.jpg" />
What I especially like is the ability to modify HTML Editor Permissions. Often in my consulting work, I am asked if the systems that are available can be made as simple as possible and this is a great way to do so. You can restrict the toolbars within the editor to only show the basics so as not to overwhelm those who are not as comfortable with technology. This is a great addition and you don't have to hunt and peck around the software to find it, which is nice.
Developers will love the template management that Contegro offers as well. You can add, move, replace quickly and easily from the template menu. There is also the ability to lock the module in place so it cannot be moved, allow or disallow additional modules to be added to a defined template area and allow or disallow module deletion.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-11-580x351.jpg" />
Creating new templates is quick and easy and you can specify custom CSS files to use for each template within the system. Contegro also allows you to create and add snippets of code into your templates quickly and easily. To find your available snippets, simply click on the Contegro start menu, Content, Snippets. You will be able to see all prepopulated snippets and be able to quickly and easily insert your own.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-12-580x446.jpg" />
Once you've created a snippet, adding them to your template is as simple as selecting the template area you wish to add it to and selecting it from a drop down list.
Workflow management is an integral part of any CMS and Contegro is no exception to the rule. It has an extensive 2 &amp; 3 step workflow process that can be managed down to page level. To setup workflow for different groups, click on the Contegro Start Bar &gt;&gt; Accounts &gt;&gt; Administrator &gt;&gt; Group Permissions.
Do you need the ability to manage multiple sites? Contegro can easily handle this as well. New sites can be created directly from within the CMS using the following menu item:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contegro-13.jpg" />
Once created, switching is as easy as selecting the new site from a popup on the right side of the screen.
Conclusion
In summary, if you are a developer or designer looking for a stable product with plenty of functionality that offers scalability, ease of use and excellent security management then Contegro is a great choice.
With it's easy to use template system, ability to integrate code snippets and multi-site management capabilities.. Contegro is sure to be a hit among the design community.
Do you wish to learn more? Check out these videos showcasing Contegro's capabilities:
<ul>
<li>Content Editing plus Image &amp; Document Upload – <a href="http://video.ushost.contegro.com" target="_blank"></a></li><a href="http://video.ushost.contegro.com" target="_blank">
</a><li><a href="http://video.ushost.contegro.com" target="_blank">Introducing Contegro –  </a><a href="http://video.ushost.contegro.com" target="_blank">http://video.ushost.contegro.com</a></li>
</ul>
Alternatively, you can peruse their user guide here: <a href="http://www.contegro.com/UserGuide/" target="_blank">http://www.contegro.com/UserGuide/</a>
Website: <a href="http://www.contegro.com">http://www.contegro.com</a>

Contegro Review - A review of version 4.0

Explore a wide range of informative articles on Contegro, 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

News

Contegro v4 Released - Introduces whole new interface and usability improvements

Contegro offers Free Trials through new Discovery Room

Contegro Review - A review of version 4.0