webdesign.vassar.edu
“sample site”
staffing: director, assistant director (& partner in computing), 4 designers, one developer
“condensed core” in cascade. they do use includes for (some?) navigation so they can make system-wide changes w/out republishing all.
they do custom designs for every site. but at the same time, they’re working on the content in the sample site design in cascade.
they post about projects on their blog.
Communications “site” is assets outside Cascade, plus “Secure”, plus “Internal”, plus site-specific — would do it differently, only two sites, if they did it over.
“Announcements” go to database publish. How odd. I guess this is where I’d look at setting up a WordPress and having a block to include.
Regions in sets of 3: pre, actual, post.
PHP server variables. Where we’ve done weird things with the folder.
Man, everybody uses index blocks for navigation.
[system-view:internal] -> “you won’t see this here but it’ll be on the live site”
[system-view:external] -> some php stuff
They don’t use workflow or publish sets.
Publish everything to a database “CMS Audit”, but they call it “Leave this checked” so people leave it checked. 🙂
Their announcements are organized by year in every site, but they’re published to a database.
Override URL (for links directly to other sites) — that’s intriguing.
It’s all very tidy.
server variables in the htaccess file. how curious.
They do everything on its own domain (english.vassar, etc), and then something quirky for testing.
“Template” is only visible to web team, basically a style guide.
They use PHP to include little bits of catalog, etc., with that internal bit having a note explaining what’s happening. (This seems a lot like what we have in various places.) I’m not sure how I feel about that. Common block of typical business hours. Would that work for us?
reporting – since everything is also written to mysql, all the reporting comes from there. also includes history of redesigns.
gets an email every day of what pages were published, by site, highlighting what’s new, oh hey with a link directly to the CMS!
why secure site for common assets: was particular for a specific project.
their alum site is both Cascade & Harris, together. will have to ask her about that. secure site, then, is to avoid mixed content errors.