Content Management Systems
Written by: Ilbra Abramian
Source: Shipyard
Skill Level: Novice

Citydesk

Citydesk is a Windows CMS, released by Fog Creek Software. As mentioned, it runs on Microsoft Windows computers and requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01.

The first thing you notice when using Citydesk is its simple and un-cluttered GUI interface. There is a straightforward tutorial to get you started in the right direction. Another convenient feature is the sturctured folder hierachy listing which gives an idea of the content of your website in one glance. Creating an basic template is simple enough, however, making it look the way your boss said is another story.

In Citydesk, you can either import html files which serve as your template, or create a new template and write/copy your html code into that, however, there are certain difficulties you will face when importing or copying html code into Citydesk. For starters, original references to images and files need to be changed to reflect their new location in the Citydesk directory structure.

Alternatively, you can use the "magic name" feature which allows you to completely forget file pathnames, provided you refer to them using their magic name.

What I loved about this feature was how easy it made it to move images and files around in citydesk without breaking anything since their magic name was always the same.

Of course, Citydesk was not all happy-days. The first major obstacle i encountered was being able to maintain some sort of navigational state for the website. Basically, I wanted to be able to be show exactly which pages I had visited to get to my current page.

Seems easy enough right?

• What's a CMS?
• Citydesk
• Postnuke
• Conclusion

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