Flash CMS

[silverado]

Hi,

I've designed some sites in Flash, but now I also want to offer my clients the possibility of designing a CMS in Flash.
I would appreciate if you could tell me where I could find good documentation, tutorials...to ge started in Flash CMS.

Thanks in advance.

[Cota]

A basic CMS is nothing more than passing text back and forth from a database. However, security is an issue. Advanced CMS stuff gets a lot more complicated. I doubt you're going to find tutorials on exactly how to do it. You will find information to point you in the right direction. I say, just jump into it. Lay out a good work flow for yourself and take a run at it.

[CyanBlue]

FlashLoaded has fCMS and fCMSPro... Maybe you could easily use those rather than building one by yourself???

http://www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/fcms/
http://www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/fcmspro/

[Cota]

Which is always a better plan than building your own, beause thats no easy task.

[silverado]

I've read some info about fcms and also from flashblocks (http://flashblocks.com). Has anybody tried any of them?

Don't you think that maybe they are a bit "limited"?

Thanks

[CyanBlue]

Well... Simply put, you either have to work with the existing product so that your site works, or you have to create your own as it goes with anything and everything...

[fx.barrett]

@ Cyan and Cota: you guys really think that fCMS and fCMS Pro have any advanced security features ? Because IMHO they have none... And btw, you were talking about "advanced security" which would mean what ? Because there's really not much you can do when PHP sends data to Flash or vice-versa... the only "serios" securty stuff cand be added when PHP is talking to the DB...

Correct me if I'm wrong... because I'm not really a security pro but I have some experience in it...

[CyanBlue]

Um... I don't know if those components have any security feature included, but what Cota is saying is abit more generalized version which basically says that you have to take care of any security issue when/if you are creating your own CMS page... It could be anything from user login to database injection prevention and whatever else out there...

Maybe I am not fully understanding your point... If you have any specific idea you'd like to talk about, I'd love to hear them... ;)

[fx.barrett]

No specific point... Obviously you need to take care of injection when doing stuff like that and add some encription to your data and so on... but what other stuff is considered "advanced security"... because I didn't deal with other stuff than injection and ecription...

As I said, I'm not a security expert but since he mentioned "advanced security" I was curious to know what exactly falls into the "advanced security" category... and for what other things must we pay attention besides encription and injection. :)

[CyanBlue]

I think that actually is totally separate topic... Why not create another thread for it??? ;)

[ASWC]

Unlike Cota said, a Flash CMS does not have to be linked to a database for its contents. It all depends what you want to offer has editing options for the Flash website. A simple Flash website can be completly controled by a simple XML file which is exactly how my new website works (still not finished). A PHP CMS that I wrote updates my XML which in turn update my website. Each texts, even button texts, are controled that way like dimension of some objects. For a more complex website then database storage is more appropriate but the principle is the same. Creating a CMS is really easy code wise, what's not that easy is to offer attrative editing options like html editing (adapted to what FLash can handle), text editing (Words like) and such.

[silverado]

Going back to the origins of this topic... what about using Flex? They've told me it's better for creating CMS.

[CyanBlue]

Who's 'they'??? The functionality of the CMS should be the same no matter what type of technology you are using...

[fx.barrett]

Who's 'they'??? The functionality of the CMS should be the same no matter what type of technology you are using...
I think that by "better", "they" meant that it's much easier to drag and drop components and connect them to some script than use Flash where you have to start building your own stuff from almost 0 and get the same result ( or maybe a bit worse ) in 3 times more time...