Ok, so lately I've been real busy, adding extra functionality and more usability into the Freebird Content Management System.

It has been a long time coming and while the changes may seem trivial, as you all know I try to keep this monster as easy to use as possible, so these changes were totally necessary in order to make your lives easier.

Please see below a list of changes and updates:

1. Content pages are no longer contain styling and layout.
   All content pages now draw from a database, and can contain many different "Regions" so all you have to do now to add content, is click in the area, modify the content and move on.
2. WYSIWYG Editor Changes
   The wysiwyg editor toolbar is now no longer attached to each form field, it floats to the top right hand side of the page out of the way, so that multiple regions can also use the same editor toolbar.
3. Member Module Changes
   The User List for the Member Module, can now be sorted by any of the columns.
4. Templates have now been integrated
   So now you can choose a different template to use for different pages without having to copy and paste the html code into the editor each time you create a page.
5. Media Manager
   A Media Manager link has now been added to the main administration menu so you can use a stand alone media manager rather than using it only from within editing a content page.
6. Settings page
   Settings categories are now collapsible so you no longer have to scroll down a long page to alter settings.
7. Various new Javascript libraries have been added.
   Ive added an additional type of lightbox, slide gallery script and also a fade image rotator. These can be called by using the {widget} tag in content areas.
8. Blog Post Count
   You can now restrict how many blog posts are shown on the index page, category pages, and the latest blog posts widget right from the settings area.

I hope you all enjoy the new features.

I dont know about you, but I kind of like the option of news websites out there,
I also don't like the fact that my ISP may still legally be able to filter the websites that I visit.

Lets say I like to read my news from a particular website.
However, let's just say that my ISP is taking kickbacks from another news website to become
the only one that I can visit. That is filtering.

Whilst Net Neutrality has not come to pass, this new bill opens up a loophole for ISP's to use
their discretion basing their filtering on inappropriate or otherwise "non conforming" information.

Sure, some sites are downright wrong in their views, but who am I to judge?

If I want to block something from my kids, shouldn't I be the one responsible for the content that
they view? Not the government!!

This new censorship bill, whilst promoting safe surfing, and the removal of illegal comment, all
of which I do totally agree with, will still restrict your rights and freedoms.

Another example of the "Nanny State" come to pass.

If you're like me and believe that you have the intelligence and good state of mind to determine
what you will read, and when you would like to do it, visit this site from the button below to find
out how you can help stop this bill from going through.

Blog Post Title

This is a Test blog post

Well, this has been an ongoing thing for me of late.
I love SPAW Editor, but I have had trouble integrating it into my CodeIgniter CMS.
In particular, the quicklinks to link to my database pages.

After much deliberation, it seems, Ive been going around it the wrong way.
First off I used this fellows custom integration, which seemed to work well out of the box, but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to integrate the quicklinks.

Easy solution:

After loading the library in your 'Controller', call it like this

//    Load up Spaw Editor
$config = array(
'name'    => 'content_data[body]',
'caption' => 'Images',
'content' => $data['content_data']->body
);

$this->load->library('spaw', $config);
            
$quicklinks = $this->admin_content_model->get_quicklinks();
$this->spaw->setConfigItem("quick_links", $quicklinks, SPAW_CFG_TRANSFER_SECURE);

Obviously you will have to create a function in "admin_content_model" model to pull the links from your database.

Basically just 2 lines of code in the Controller passing the Spaw instance back to the view.

Worked a treat!

Found this blog post today, looks like a good list of tutorials on splicing Photoshop designs.

Take a look!!

Top 10 Tutorials To Learn PSD to HTML Conversion