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SITEMASON NEWS
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Thanks to the wonderful folks at Emma we have just launched our new Sitemason monthly newsletter. Sign up to get Sitemason updates mailed to you directly. We'll be publishing regular announcements, tips & promotions in an effort to connect with our users and community. So sign up already!
Missed our first issue? Read it here.
We've added some fields to the new tools that give users additional control over that oh-so-coveted <title> and <meta> data that SEO specialists crave.
In tool Setups, you now have the option to define both the navigation title, e.g. the name of the page in your site's navigation menu, as well as the window title which appears atop your browser window. This allows you to specify a more detailed page title which helps to generate added descriptive titles, which search engines love.
There is also a new "SEO" tab in the tool setup windows which gives space to add meta Descriptions and Keywords per page.
Additionally, the Sitemason back-end has been reworked in regard to meta data, so that descriptions & keywords are generated from a variety of sources including tags, summaries, as well as page & section meta fields Posted by Billy White at 2:35 pm on 2/19/2010.
Tags: development, new feature, news feed, page builder, seo, tags
The Page Builder got a huge new feature today. We rolled out Callouts, which are additional content areas available on demand per page.
Callouts are often used for embedding additional content in a page like a quote or excerpt or just another content block. You don't have to use them for just text though. Since each callout gets it's own editing toolbar, you can add images or Flash files, etc. This means you can easily add fields on demand for things like a header image that changes per page, or a sidebar with a Flash video pertinent to the content on the page.
The application possibilities for this are extremely powerful, so ask us how you might incorporate them into your next project.The beta of Google Chrome for Mac is now available. It boasts speed, security, and stability.
Thanks to its use of Webkit, the browser rendering engine used by Safari, it is fully compatible with the new Sitemason interface.Adding your content to Facebook just got easier. The Sitemason News Feed and Calendar tools now include integration with Facebook, accessible directly from the Sitemason administration interface.
Here's how it works:
Add an article or event to your website using Sitemason, select the article/event, then click "Post to Facebook Wall" (from the Article or Event menu) to have the title, description, and image added directly to your Facebook account's wall. That's it!
Look for further integration with Facebook in the coming months.Posted by Sitemason Dev Team at 1:45 pm on 11/19/2009.Sitemason's new PHP template library is slowly growing and we wanted to outline a few favorites. Visit our Developer website to learn more.
printNavAsList
One of the most oft-requested and certainly the most helpful methods is the new printNavAsList(); This single call publishes all of the menu items for a site as unordered lists, including nested if more than one level of navigation exists.
For example, for a site with two levels of navigation, using this call with the parameter to display all navigation items:
$content->printNavAsList(array('display_all' => 1));
Will output those navigation items as an HTML nested unordered list:
<div class="sm_nav">
<ul class="l1">
<li class="current"><a href="home" class="current">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="blog">Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="about">About Us</a>
<ul class="l2">
<li><a href="about/overview">Company Overview</a></li>
<li><a href="about/history">Our History</a></li>
<li><a href="about/staff">Our Staff</a></li>
<li><a href="about/contact">Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="links">links</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Some other parameters for printNavAsList let you declare a maximum or minimum number of levels to display, or even to skip the first item in navigation altogether (often useful for landing pages you don't want to appear in the navigation).
printTagCloud
Tag Clouds are always fun, and now Sitemason allows you to create one in a single line. It outputs the cloud within an HTML class and gives it a specific font-size relative to the other tags in the cloud.
<div class="sm_tag_cloud">
<h3>TAG CLOUD</h3>
<p>
<a style="font-size: 18px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Article" title="Article">Article</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Interview" title="Interview">Interview</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Tutorial" title="Tutorial">Tutorial</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Community" title="Community">Community</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Education" title="Education">Education</a>
<a style="font-size: 14px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Relief" title="Relief">Relief</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Support" title="Support">Support</a>
<a style="font-size: 18px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=Volunteering" title="Volunteering">Volunteering</a>
<a style="font-size: 10px" class="tag_cloud" href="tag_cloud?xtags=WRAP" title="WRAP">WRAP</a>
</p>
</div>
printPageHead
Take all of the work out of editing the <head> of a template, and add this simple line. It uses the Sitemason shared template to populate the title, meta descriptions & keywords, as well as shared javascript and style sheets.Webkit is the open source browser engine behind Safari, Google Chrome, Apple Mail, the iPhone, Google Android, Palm Pre, and possibly new Blackberries. The latest version of Webkit is available as a special version of Safari at webkit.org. Aside from just being able to try out the very latest features, like CSS masks, CSS transitions and animation, CSS 3D transforms, and WebGL, the Webkit Inspector has become one of the slickest and best tools for web developers for debugging HTML, CSS, and Javascript. As of yesterday, it just got even better. You can read the full posting about it, which is pretty long, or use the links below to jump to the section you're interested in.
With the new Webkit Inspector, it is a whole lot easier to edit HTML, CSS, and colors on the fly and see immediate results. If you ever do anything advanced with Javascript, the new event listener section, improved breakpoints, and AJAX debugger are invaluable. There are other minor updates, like syntax coloring on CSS and embedded Javascript and CSS; it only did HTML and standalone Javascript before. The resource loading timeline and console have also been improved.Tim Moses, one of the founders of Sitemason, spoke at the Nashville Mac Users webSIG on Sunday. Topics ranged from what it takes for a graphic designer to get started producing websites to how a content management system makes managing web sites easier to how web servers work.
Sitemason is proudly sponsoring BarCamp Nashville this Saturday. BarCamp is a digital and technical community that has roots in many major cities across the United States.
The free conference includes a series of speaking sessions from community members and local tech professionals on a variety of topics.
Based on working daily with website managers from Nashville and beyond, Director of Technical Support, Nate Baker, will share some of the most common and global issues people have with updating their website or blog in the the following session:
CMS 101 - Tips and FAQs on using your "content management system" to update your website or blog.
Sign up for free for this session if you want to brush up on your website editing skills in a workshop atmosphere.After an overview of CMS and common issues, you'll have a chance to ask Nate and/or the audience specific questions about updating your website or blog with your CMS.
If you have the opportunity to make it out, we hope to see you at our session and at many of the other free sessions available.
BarCamp Nashville begins 8:00 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at Cadillac Ranch in downtown Nashville and is free to the public.
We hope to see you there!Posted by Sitemason Support at 5:22 pm on 10/14/2009.Sitemason just announced their beta group for the new and highly anticipated PHP Templates. That means anyone who knows the least bit of PHP can develop their own custom Sitemason template. If you are interested in testing out PHP Templates, please contact developer-group@sitemason.com. We have lots of resources on our Developer website, which brings us to our second announcement.
Sitemason Developers Group and website just launched!
developer.sitemason.com
Our new developers website has lots of resources for those who want to go beyond the user tools, and get into the nitty gritty details of template development and custom sites. Sitemason PHP Templates are exceptionally simple, and anyone with just a little bit of programming knowledge can whip out a template in no time.
If you want to participate, join the Sitemason Developers Google Group.110 30th Ave North, Suite 5 | Nashville, TN 37203 | 615-301-2600 | 888-349-5578