I have just purchased Joe Workman’s Easy CMS… have read the guide page and watched some video tutorials.
But — and this is probably because I am new and ignorant of some CMS basics — nowhere in any of these resources is it explained just what the function of the admin page is (after publishing), how it is accessed by one needing to edit content from, say, a browser… and how that function can be protected from use by unauthorised persons.
Is it simply that the admin page(s) are published but do not appear in the site’s menu — and perhaps the page name is “secret”… This seems too simplistic and open to abuse.
I am really surprised that this very, very basic aspect of a CMS system seems not to be explained in any obvious place!
Can anyone explain this aspect of the use of Easy CMS to me?
You have to create an Admin page yourself and protect it from access in some way. Joe’s Page Safe is ideal to do this or you can password protect the page if your host provides this service or capability.
Normally you would put a link from the a main page to the Admin page. The Admin page is and must be published but when it is password protected nobody else will be able to see its contents.
I think the confusion stems from the decision not to include a way to protect the admin page as part of the EasyCMS suite of stacks. As @webdeer says you can use PageSafe or I believe it’s possible to protect a page via the control panel of your hosting service - though I’ve not done this yet.
Once you get into it EasyCMS is geat and surprisingly powerful.
Thanks webdeer and robbeatie for your explanations.
It is as I thought.
Easy CMS seems a great product, but it so obviously needs password protection for its admin pages, it seems to me rather cynically profiteering to make that a separate $30 product rather than a Easy CMS feature. (Is that too harsh?)
The RW community site provide an excellent tutorial on how to password protect a page for free. Not as robust as Joe’s solution, but the price is right!
Thanks for all the help. I have looked onto the .htaccess options for protecting a page/folder (from free sources), but have determined that my time and convenience is probably worth Joe’s $25 price-tag for PageSafe. (I guess Joe judged that just about right! — But still think it should have been a feature of Easy CMS… even if it pushed the price up a smidgin.)
