Thanks for the explanation, Terry. Sounds like what I've been considering...giving control over to the clients...even more so than I do now with CF "Modules" for adding, updating, and deleting content.
I build many of the same functions you describe into my sites, but I've been building them one at a time...mainly because each site is for a different company. I would like some "Real Estate Agent" sites or something similar that caters to specific markets where clients can choose options and customize their sites according to budget, etc. I'd like to build complete sites that contain all functions a client could want, then let them choose ala carte the functions they want at anytime. (CFC's or some of the new functionality in CF 7 would come in handy, huh?) I've thought about doing it, but it is so much more work to build something like this than to keep reproducing the sites one at a time. I know it would be more efficient if I would just take the time to do it. Then I could just tweak the functionality. Haven't used any rich-text editors...haven't wanted to give clients that much control over the look of their sites! ;o) 6 different fonts and 4 colors in 100 words... ;o) I think I just need to catch up on current work, take a vacation, and come back and tackle this thing...no vacation in 3 years makes Rick a dull boy...not to mention coder. Rick -----Original Message----- From: Terry Troxel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 9:34 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Constructing multi-user/multi-site applications... I work for a company that manufactures sunrooms and we have a network of dealers all over the country. I created a template for our niche market which consists primarily of contractors who might just sell our product but lots of times has other services unrelated to sunrooms. I built a template that allows them to take control of some or all of the content of their site. They can add products on the fly which then adds: 1..A product page for that product to the submenu for products 2..A photo gallery page for that product to the submenu for galleries 3..A checkbox in their request for info page for that product They have an rich text editor for every header of all their main lever menu pages, home, about us etc. and in some cases the header is the complete page content like say the about us page. They also have a meta tag area to enter their page title, meta description, and keywords for each of these pages. They have that same rich text editor to use to create their product pages and also the same goes for those pages meta tags as above. They have an upload page that allows them to upload the gallery images and select the gallery they go to. I use the imagecr tag to resize any Image that is greater in size then a size I set in the config. They have a before/after page that they can upload up to 4 images of a job they have completed anlong with text describing that job. There is a share this page with a friend button on these pages to allow the homeowners who go online to see their home on the internet share their pictures with friends, which drives in referrals. They have a contact use page which adds below the contact us header for them to add any public email addresses they want. They have a slideshow flash object that allows then to upload pictures that are then resized to fit and are added on the fly to the xml file that controls the show. They have a scroller object where they can add any time sensitive text to a scroller on the home page. Now here's the part that I like that make the site zip along....They have a button to rewrite all the pages to HTML which usually takes under 3 seconds to run and they have search engine friendly html pages for everything except for the request for info page that sends a cfmail. I have had very good success with this approach and am adding features all the time. All I do to create a new site is copy the template folder to where I host it and change the domain name variable and a couple other things like make the main level menu to go with the color scheme of their logo and a footer which puts a search engine friendly text menu at the bottom of each page. If anyone wants to have more detail on this approach I am not against sharing as long as you don't plan on competing with me <smile>. BTW I host it on 5,6.1, and 7 without any issues yet. Terry Troxel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:258212 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
