Content Manager Plugin

Important notice

This plugin is being deprecated to new users, please consider using the weceem plugin instead. Currently, I am building a migration plan for any current users that will help to get content from our database form into weceem. If you are using the plugin and need assistance, please contact me via one of the methods below, or via the grails user mail group.

• Twitter: davejcherry
• contentmanager grails plugin blog
• Linked In profile

Are you looking for helpers

Yes, please. Any help is appreciated. Contact me either through the mail group or my groovy, grails and java blog

How can I host a Content manager solution?

You can host it in any J2EE container that supports Grails.

Further, I intent to make content manager compatible with the multi-tennant plugin soon. It would be on the single database per domain model, and would need minimal changes to the code. I will aim to do this before 1.0 release.

You could also run several content manager applications from the same app-server. Given that most of the executing code is known to be inside the plugin, and with a good security manager in place this could be a viable cheap hosting option. Even a moderately power box could run many low volume instances. Any companies wishing to collaborate on this drop me a line via My Groovy, Grails and Java blog

Does contentmanager support database caching for heavy use.

Yes, most domain objects have “cache true” set in their mappings along with caching being enabled for relations. You can easily enable 2nd level caching and size the object stores according to need. For most sites I recommend a very small cache for all the objects. In future releases I will tune the caches once I've seen heavy production use. I'ld be glad for feedback on this subject too.

What is content manager designed for

Content manager is designed to make it easy to add depth to sites, by providing quick easily editable content. It organises the content into directories (Content groups) which can be nested. To the external user, these look just like regular HTML links would if served from apache in the same directory structure. This plugin also provides breadcrumbs and navigation assistance.

Once version 0.3 is released, it will also provide a dynamic method to all controllers, so that any controller will be able to render a content managed page. Pages saved will act like GSP pages and there will even be the ability to place a code block that must be executed before content (like a simplified controller), adding code blocks will require permission above the editor role. Version 0.3 will also allow images to be stored along with the content, a new domain CmsContentData will be added that will support saving binary data to the database.

From version 0.4 show user and show keyword functionality will mappable to your own page. This will leave even fewer hardwired pages. Internationalization will be introduced around here too.

Currently, search support is not added – but could easily be integrated. Personally, I believe that for smaller to medium sites (where this plugin is initially aimed) using Google custom search is better.

Do you have any sites running on content manager

We are currently in the process of moving two sites to run on this plug-in, they will be released to the public along with 0.3 the release. The main reason for delay is time constraints.