RedDot CMS is a POS
by Jim Gay
Quite possibly the worst experience I’ve had in working with a content management system is with RedDot CMS. I’m currently working with a client to update their site which is built in RedDot.
The manufacturer of RedDot claims to be “The Content Experts” but perhaps they exclude user experience from that.
I’m using RedDot, which is apparently old and has been replaced with an newer version with a new name. Hopefully they’ve updated everything about the user experience which is a mess of pop-up windows and cryptic ways to search for and link to images and content. One of the worst offenses, is that hitting the return key after entering text into a form to search for content for a link the page goes blank… Blank, because I hit return, and didn’t click on the custom search image button which is the only way it seems to submit the form.
An unofficial blog asks the question, “Is RedDot CMS Dead?”. Sadly, no. Even though it’s been replaced, there are probably many customers out there of RedDot resellers who must suffer it’s existence.
Being a developer and user of RadiantCMS makes me look at this from a particular perspective and will help me guide development of Radiant. With this experience, I’m officially picking a fight with other CMSes. I hope to learn a lot from other solutions and give my customers a better experience, but mostly I think its important to talk more about what is considered “enterprise” and show that the emperor has no clothes.
If you’re looking for a CMS, it should be easy to understand and easy to update. If you’re considering RedDot, or some vendor that provides it, think again for your own benefit.
Comments
Markus Giesen
said on Wednesday, December 16, 2009:
Dear Jim,
thanks for the SEO linkjuice by linking to our blog.
I agree to your point that older RedDot versions were far away from an ease of use usability award.
The latest version 10 was a big step forward and fortunately removed a lot of benamed popups and unnecessary clicks.
I had a look at your suggested substitue. I logged in into your demo site and checked the 'available tags' link, which comes up with a nice overlay (isn't that just a popup within the current window that you can't even MOVE?).
Then I tried YOUR 'Search Tags:' I entered 'child' because this should point me to 'children' elements (a thing that editors certainly will get in an instant) then I tried to hit return and NOTHING happened. Hmm, ok, now I searched the 'search'/'go'/'submit' button for this input field. Unfortuntely there is NO BUTTON to submit the search.
I know you try to jump on the band waggon here with your post and a little critic but please – go back to your playground and do your homework, add a WYSIWYG editor, an option for workflows, internationalization and if you have some time left a connector to SAP and IBM.
Then come back and lets discuss this on a professional level.
I don't doubt your skills, I think to come up with a new CMS which is meant to beat RedDot CMS you have to put some more work into your software – let's say about 1-2 years.
I believe that your current installation is outdated and the implementation is therefore probably also outdated. It always depends on the partner agency you work with. An experienced partner will come up with a great solution.
Good luck to you with your new CMS and even more luck to your client. I hope that either they have not too many enterprise requirements or your demo version is as outdated as the RedDot version you describe above.
Markus
reddotcmsblog.com
Markus Giesen
said on Wednesday, December 16, 2009:
Just a quick question: When I don't see my comment anymore marked as 'awaiting moderation' does that mean it hasn't been approved yet or that you did delete it?
cheers,
markus
Jim Gay
said on Wednesday, December 16, 2009:
Markus, I didn't suggest a substitute, and several of the things you mention are available but just aren't in the demo.
RadiantCMS is not designed to be all things to all people and it is very young.
My experience with RedDot so far has been cumbersome and I think it's horrible. As I mentioned, there's a new version about which I know nothing.
Markus Giesen
said on Thursday, December 17, 2009:
Glad to hear that your CMS is expanding. I wouldn't mind to have some insights in the latest development.
Which RedDot CMS version are you referring to?
The latest is v10 SP1 at this stage with a completely overhauled UI as mentioned above.
Jim Gay
said on Thursday, December 17, 2009:
Thanks for your comments Markus. I appreciate the conversation.
I believe it's RedDot version 9.
RadiantCMS is being developed slowly. Many things could be put in there quickly, but the approach has been to only put in what is necessary and leave the rest to extensions (many of which are listed here http://ext.radiantcms.org and most of the rest are at http://github.com) So the demo is plain Jane. It shows no extensions to the system, so it's a bit misleading.
Your criticism of Radiant is well-placed. I also dislike the javascript overlay. The search for tags is a javascript update; they are all loaded and then trimmed down as you type for tags with your search phrase. But you bring up a good point that it should be more obvious that this is the behavior and you don't need to submit any form.
I was at my wits end working with RedDot because simple changes take so much time. In this version, I need to click a dot and wait for a page load to get an "Edit Body Content" link which I click and wait for a window to popup and the javascript to run for the WYSIWYG editor to build. Then, after that, if I want to change the source of an image I have to click the image button and wait for the image editing window to open, and then click another button to change the source as I wait for another popup to load, etc, etc. It's an awful experience just to make a few changes to some text and change an image.
Tom Jackson
said on Friday, December 18, 2009:
This is an interesting post – thank you for it. Apparently you're not the only one who has struggled with RedDot. Check out this blog post from a few years ago by a (very) unhappy RedDot developer. http://reddot-cms.blogspot.com/ It's pretty funny.
software developer
said on Monday, January 04, 2010:
Nice post,
This is great…
Keep up the good work