Hydrogen CMS – Demo now available!

Until this moment, we’ve only been able to describe the Hydrogen CMS experience of instant, direct in-browser website editing.

We’re now pleased to be able to let you try it for yourself.

While viewing the web page in your browser you may:

• Edit text by simply clicking on screen to place the cursor, then typing or deleting
• Drag to highlight a section of text and then click an option:
• Choose left, center or right alignment, or justified text
• Make text bold or italic, underlined or capitalised
• Change text size between paragraph and several headings
• Insert a link at the cursor’s location by simply selecting the link option and entering a web address
• Place an image at the cursor’s location by selecting the Insert image option
• Left, center or right-align an image instantly, and see the surrounding text wrap around neatly
• Resize an image by dragging a corner, and see the surrounding text fall into place
• Delete an image with a click
• Click and drag an image to reposition it as you wish

Click the image to try the Hydrogen CMS demo...

A simple user guide:

1. Move the pointer over a heading, paragraph or image and note the cross-hatching indicating the current target.
2. Click on something to select that element to be edited.
3. Either type as you wish, or select from the buttons to manipulate the current selection.

It’s that easy! Your changes will remain on screen until you leave, or refresh the page.

Note: this is a single test page from the alpha version of Hydrogen CMS, and so there are several features which are not yet available in this demo.

In the full version of Hydrogen CMS, the options will be constantly available from a menu that remains at the top of the screen, rather than the buttons embedded in the page in this demo version.
There may also be bugs using the demo with certain browsers which will be resolved in the full version.

Hydrogen CMS – First screen shots

Hello again. Today we’re able to show you some of the first shots of the Hydrogen CMS actually in use, to start to give you an idea of just how this system not only makes managing and updating your website easy – it can become a true pleasure; the dream of anyone who has attempted to update their own website in the past.

1. To change a heading, simply click on it, then type the new heading.
2. To edit a paragraph, just click on it, then type.
3. The only interface on screen when editing your website with Hydrogen CMS is the slim menu bar across the top of the page.
4. Hydrogen CMS has just about every feature required for quick and easy web page editing, including a built-in spelling check.
5. Hydrogen CMS allows you to easily upload and insert almost any type of file into your pages for others to view or download.
6. When happy with your updates, simply click the button to publish your changes to the live website.

Updating a text heading with Hydrogen CMS

Editing a paragraph with Hydrogen CMS

The Hydrogen CMS menu bar

Spell check your pages as you go

Easily insert images, documents or media files into your pages

Publish changes with a click

Check back regularly for more details as we reveal them…

Hydrogen – it’s the future!

Hydrogen power may or may not be the future of the motor car, but it is undoubtedly the (near) future for website content management, and in the coming weeks we intend to show you why. For now however, we can only try to explain why you should be interested…

These days, the web is a big deal. Practically everybody is on the web in some way, but few are making the most of what an online presence can offer.

If you have a website but feel it isn’t making much of a difference to your business, you should be considering why that might be.

Probably the most common problem is a ‘static’ site, which may have been built several years ago and barely changed since then.

Ask yourself, what reason is there for someone to make a return visit to my website? Or even to visit for the first time? Perhaps visitors returning regularly to your website may not seem that important, but how about customers returning regularly to your business? A  little more interesting? You need at least to make an impact – to be memorable, or what hope is there of any potential customer remembering you at all?

Hydrogen is designed to help make your life so much easier; to represent you or your business online in the most effective way possible. With Hydrogen, your website can look as professional as any on the internet, with an important difference – you are fully in control, and able to manage, edit and update your site with astonishing ease.

To find out exactly what we mean, you’ll just have to come back soon.

H-Bomb…

Hydrogen CMS is a Content Management System being designed with the following principles in mind;

Simplicity

Good interaction design is at the core of the efficient and elegant interfaces for developers, designers and authors.

Efficiency

A small software footprint with support for static and cached dynamic output allows many sites to be hosted on a single low-end hardware solution.

Purpose

Providing a web content management tool for individuals and SMEs is the primary goal of the project. Other commonly associated applications such as CRM, Email marketing, E-Commerce, and the like are intentionally not part of the roadmap.

The developers working on the project have backgrounds in a number of web-related industries, and include individuals from both the commercial and academic world. Read more about the development team…

The first websites built using Hydrogen CMS are set to go live at the end of this March. Though we are exceptionally busy on the project it is our intention to keep the blog updated as often as possible – at least once a week!