Farcry Not just a game anymore…

What is Farcry?  Farcry is a Content Management System (CMS)  It is designed to separate the jobs of site creation/design from content population (allows site owners to manage their own content and programmers to focus on code)

Who uses Farcry?  Many people!  Anyone who wants to have control over their own content and regularly change content will want to use Farcry  Each site can take a divide and conquer approach (i.e. different jobs within the site [news, events, pages, site admin, etc])

What is Farcry Good For?  Sites with lots of changing content  Sites with news or events pages  Sites with many contributors  Sites wanting to automate things such as RSS feed generation

What is Farcry NOT Good For?  Application based sites: if there are too many applications being integrated into Farcry, it could end up being more tedious than a normal CFML site  Flash sites: it is possible to run an entire flash frontend on Farcry’s backend (not without custom programming)

Installing Farcry  We need the following: –A database –A data source in CF Administrator –An IIS/Apache site set up WITH a virtual directory mapped to the Farcry admin –A web browser  Demo

How to navigate the webtop  The webtop is the admin section of Farcry.  There are several tabs by default: –Overview –Site –Content –Admin –Reporting –Security

Webtop: Overview Tab  The overview tab provides an “overview” of items that might require your attention  Shows content items pending approval, in draft or items up for review.  Also where you manage your profile

Webtop: Site Tab  This is where the structure of your site is stored.  Tree layout to visualize and preserve parent/child relationships  Folders are Navigation Nodes (These are the links for your site nav)  Pages are content items associated with the navigation node

Webtop: Content Tab  Contains all other types of content: –Media Libraries –News Items –Events  Contains a different way to view your site tree  Contains utilities for use with content (i.e. RSS Generator)

Webtop: Admin Tab  Contains tools to manage the site: –Config Files –Verity –COAPI Management  Contains other tools useful for rebuilding tree structures (beware)

Webtop: Reporting Tab  Various reports on browsing and searching history  Similar to Log File reporting  Can be turned off to increase speed

Webtop: Security Tab  Allows you to manage Users, Groups and Group Policies  Group Policies are a powerful way to limit access to certain types of content or certain nodes of the tree

Code Structure  Core vs. Project  Anything built into Farcry is in the core  Anything customizable is in the project

Project File Structure  config: project specific application variables  customadmin: extensions of the webtop  includedObj: include files go here (They are stand-alone applications that can be “plugged into” Farcry)  packages: custom types and rules go here, including CFCs and all files included by CFCs

Project File Structure (cont’d)  system: further system configuations (dmConfig and dmCron)  webskin: display templates for various content types (re-skinning a site involves creating new display templates and plugging them in)  www: web root. Images, files, xml, etc all go here. Images and files directories are used in the image/file libraries.

Extending Webtop (Custom Type)  Let’s say you have a need for something that is not built into Farcry, such as a photo gallery. What do you do? - Go through custom types and install photo gallery.

Resources  Website:  Downloads available on Downloads page  Community support links are also available on this site.  Wiki and bug tracker links available on website as well.  Wiki:  Bugs:

Resources (cont’d)  Mailing lists (farcry-dev, farcry-user, farcry-beta, farcry-de)  farcry-dev is probably the most active of all the lists: dev/ dev/ dev/

Questions?  Feel free to contact me with questions or concerns or visit my blog: Jake Churchill x103