SiteCM Release Notes

SiteCM 3.1.1.0: February 1st, 2010

This was largely an administrative release with improvements focused on license administration and database efficiency to handle the growing SiteCM customer base.

A couple of new components have been added for end users and Resellers.

News Manager

The major new component of the release is the News Manager.  This is available for all licensees of SiteCM Lite and up, and is available at an additional cost for SiteCM Micro licensees.  The News Manager has many useful features based on customer requests:

• sorts news stories chronologically
• generates an RSS feed
• allows users to schedule the release of stories
• auto-archives stories after a user defined period

Twitter Status Reader

The RSS reader released in the fall gives uses the ability to include Twitter updates using RSS, but we have also now integrated the Twitter API for users who want to include Twitter status updates in their sites.

Designer Controls

We added a couple of new designer controls to make it easier for Resellers to include advanced functionality in their designs.

• Quick Links DC: Selects all links on a page that have declared tool tips and can add them to a Quick Links menu in highlight panel
• Language Switcher DC: Makes it easier for visitors to use a multi-lingual site by remembering their language selection
• Show/Hide DC: It enables content from a content block to appear on the page when a link is clicked

SiteCM 3.1.0.0: October 1st, 2009

RSS feed Reader

The SiteCM RSS Feed Reader gives users the ability to have an RSS Feed shown within their site content.  This new Drop-In application lets the Content Owner set the number of articles to display and the content can be styled to fit you site seamlessly.

The component does not create a feed from your site content.

Newsletter subscription improvements

We continue to improve the SiteCM Newsletter Component based on feedback from our users. 

You can now create and manage subscriptions to multiple newsletter lists around specific topics.  It has always been possible to create topic specific newsletter lists with SIteCM, but the control only allowed subscription to a single global list.  Site Owners wanting to manage subscriptions to multiple lists had to use the Feedback Form and create and manage subscriptions manually.  The new newsletter subscription drop-in control is available to all licensees of the SiteCM Newsletter Component and allows Content Owners to decide where or how people can subscribe to specific lists. 

The Control also allows for a simple thank you message for the Subscriber or it can take them to a specific SiteCM page.

We have also improved the un-subscribe functionality so users that opt out of all lists  cannot be added back inadvertently.

Google Map

With the Google Maps drop-in control, site managers can add Google Maps  in the control on your site and setting up all the properties within the page itself.

The drop-in control lets you set:

• Height & Width
• Centre point with marker & content bubble
• Multiple locations
• Visibility of zoom
• Ability to go to Google Earth

The Google Maps Control is available to all SiteCM Licensees but the ability to have multi-point maps requires the Resource Manager to store the XML files.

Google Earth

The Google Earth drop- in Control is available with the Resource Manager in SiteCM. The Google Earth application requires the use of either KML or KMZ files to actually set up location files within Google Earth which have to be stored in the Resource Manger.  This feature is incredibly useful for anyone involved in guiding or back country activities that are hard to put an address to.  Watch for it on www.wiegele.com

Image Rotator

Image Rotator is something that has been requested by number of SiteCM clients who have been using the Headline Rotator component and some hard work to achieve similar results.  The new Image Rotator will make their lives much easier.  This drop-in allows users to put a rotating image within their site content. The images are pulled from a category of images that you specify and it will fade for one image to another. It is possible to have these images show in random order or based on the order that they are in the category within the Image Library.

The control allows you to set

• Background colour
• Time between images
• Height & Width

With the width and height of the rotator set, any images that are displayed will be scaled to fit into the area of the Rotator. If images are smaller than the area of the Rotator they will remain the same size.

This is included in all SiteCM licenses.

Random Image

The Random Image drop-in allows the user to set up a series of images to display randomly within a page when the page is loaded.

Users can select the source image Category and specify the height and width of the displayed images.  Like the Image Rotator, larger images will be scaled down to fit the size, and smaller images will display at their actual size.

This is very useful if you have a group of images relative to content, but you want to have a different image show each time the page is loaded.

This is available to all SiteCM Licensees

Random Content

The Random Content drop-in is very similar to the Random Image giving SiteCM Content Owners the ability to set use a category of Content Blocks to show up randomly within page content each time the page loads.  The Content Block can contain images and text providing a great deal of flexibility.

You can use the Random Content control to feature different case studies, testimonials or calls to action

The Random Content control requires the Content Blocks feature available in SiteCM Lite and larger licenses or as an upgrade for SiteCM Micro Licensees.

Media Players

While many of our customers using video on their sites use You Tube, some prefer to load video and other media content to their Resource Gallery and serve it from within their sites.  In the past full integration has required support or simple customizations.

The Media Player drop-in application allows users to place multimedia files within their content.  . Supported files include QuickTime MOV, WMV, MPG, and MP3.. Content Owners can set the width and height of the player, auto-start and the default volume.

To use the Media Player drop-in, Licensees must have the Resource Gallery to store their media files.

Flash Player

Like the Media Player the Flash Player makes it easier for Content Owners to embed animated files within their site content using the two flash formats; FLV and the SWF.

Content Owners can use the control to set

• Height & Width of the player
• Autoplay
• Looping

To use the Flash Player drop-in, Licensees must have the Resource Gallery to store their Flash files.

New Simple Product functionality

The Simple Product control available with our Simple eCommerce component has been used to sell 1 to 10 units of a single product with a single price.  After listening to our customers and learning how they were using it, we have made a few improvements

• Flexible pricing: Many non-profits and charities were using Simple Product to collect donations.  With the price set at $10, a donor had to select 5 units to donate $50. Now it is possible to have the price as a text box where donation amounts can be entered in.
• Flexible units: The control would limit a shopper to purchasing a maximum of 10 units using a drop down menu.  The Content Owner can now set the control so shoppers can enter their desired quantity up to 999 units into a text box.
• Quantity Limit: Prevent shoppers from purchasing more than 1 item if two will make no sense.  Useful for taking subscriptions or donations.
• Flexible Attributes: Instead of having attributes appear in a drop down (Small, Medium, Large) you can now have your shoppers set their own attributes.  This can be used for donations in honour of someone, or for selling tickets to an event.  A shopper can purchase 3 tickets and enter the names of the attendees as attributes.

These improvements are available for all licensees of the SiteCM Simple eCommerce Control.

Image Slideshow

Image Slideshow is an application that was part of SiteCM 2.5 but was replaced with the Image Gallery in V 3.0 which includes a slideshow.  Due to popular demand the Slideshow has been upgraded and brought back with more flexibility and ease of use.  

The Slide Show lets you control:

• Display on page or in a pop-up
• Display the first image as a link to the pop-up or use a text link
• Set the size of the image anchor and the pop-up. Application scales the images to fit your settings
• Include Image Alternate Text as caption

The Slideshow is available for all SiteCM Licensees

Miscellaneous Tweaks & Improvements

These are almost too numerous to mention and include more fixes and improvements to Newsletter, Link-To’s, Image & Resource Gallery.  The most noticeable for most users will be:

• Photo Gallery: You can now include the alternate image text as a caption in the slideshow and we fixed a bug so the slideshow now displays all images in the gallery, not just the active ones on the page. 
• Headline Rotator: Corrected the Display time so that it accurately displays the transition time