It is something we sort of dreamed up and it works great as a partial CMS - very much like SimpleCMS where you can specify what exactly on the page needs to be managed by a CMS. This allows you to mix your CMS static content with your dynamic content.

There were quite a few changes that were required to get it working with rails 2.1, so they are in the repository now.
So to install, you pretty much follow the same instructions from before.

The only thing I have not completely resolved is the use of the simple_cms_item partial that sits in the plugin's app/views/shared directory. I tried forever to use append_view_path to share the partial over. That worked, as in it found the partial, but the application layout went away, so instead, you can just copy the partial to your RAILS_ROOT/app/views/shared directory for now.

Additionally, you can install it through github: script/plugin install git://github.com/pullmonkey/simple_cms.git
And of course, a lot of you have asked how to just plain download it, well you can do that here, find the download button and click

Let me know how it goes.

We are continuously adding to and changing the Simple CMS Plugin so here is a little rundown of what has been changed so far:

Major Changes:

• I have updated to rails 2.0.2 so if you are using an older version you will need to change a line in each of the controllers.

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# Where it has: self.view_paths << File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'views') # Must be Changed to: self.template_root = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'views')

• The acts_as_versioned plugin is now required for the revisions. I added this quite some time ago. I did change the rake task to install this plugin as well as the rest.
• You now have to pass a :prefix if you have one. This is to ensure that all content such as images, media, smiles, etc. work correctly. If your base path is a standard path then you do not need to worry about this.
  For example: I was running 3 rails applications under one domain so it looked like this:

  my.domain.com	/blog
  	/forum
  	/demo

  So I would call my Simple CMS content like this for blog:

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<%= render :simpleCMS => "MyBlog", :admin => true, :prefix => "/blog" %>

• Now you can make content viewable and editable from multiple pages by passing :reusable => true. This defaults to false. Your label must be the same in each place you use it. This is very useful for layouts, such as header and footer.
  *NOTE* If you already have content here and you change this variable you will lose all that content as it gives the content a new id and changes the params and how the content is called. For example if I have :reusable set to false and I have content there and I set :reusable to true then it creates content with a different id so I will not be able to use the old content until I change it back to false.

Minor Changes:

• When you click on a revision you are taken back up to the top of the page instead of having to scroll all the way down a list of 100 revisions, clicking on one, and then manually scrolling all the way back up to the top to see if you even picked the right revision
• I have added code highlighting and this requires the coderay plugin, which has been added to the rake simple_cms:install_dependencies, and a coderay stylesheet so you need to add that to your application layout. I have included it in the rake simple_cms:install

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<%= stylesheet_link_tag "coderay" %>

• I have also changed many things in the javascripts inside the tiny_mce editor so it would be safest just to use the rake tasks that are built in:

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rake simple_cms:uninstall rake simple_cms:install

I have updated the tutorial with all the changes as well.

There is also a demo that you can use to play around with it and ask questions.

Please let us know what works, what does not work.

Thank you.

Created by Slaive and PullMonkey (December 2007)

Check out the demo - http://pullmonkey.com/projects/simple_cms

This is still a work in progress so feel free to notify me of any bugs, problems, or suggestions of how to make it better.

This plugin is built for rails 2.0.2. So if you are using an older version of rails then you will need to edit each of the controllers

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From:
  self.view_paths << File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'views')

To:
  self.template_root = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'views')

Imaging Processor

For this plugin to be fully functional you will need to install one of the following Image Processing gems:

• ImageScience - A light inline-Ruby library that only resizes images.
• RMagick - The grand-daddy, both in terms of advanced image processing features and memory usage.
• minimagick - It's much easier on memory than RMagick because it runs the ImageMagick command in a shell.

Any one of these gems will work.

Install SimpleCMS and Dependencies

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ruby script/plugin install http://svn.pullmonkey.com/plugins/trunk/simple_cms/

The simple_cms plugin requires the attachment_fu, responds_to_parent, acts_as_versioned, and coderay plugins as well. To make this easier I there is a built-in rake process

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rake simple_cms:install_dependencies

However if this doesn't work then you can do it the normal way:

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ruby script/plugin install http://svn.pullmonkey.com/plugins/trunk/attachment_fu/
ruby script/plugin install http://svn.pullmonkey.com/plugins/trunk/responds_to_parent/
ruby script/plugin install http://svn.pullmonkey.com/plugins/trunk/acts_as_versioned/
ruby script/plugin install http://svn.pullmonkey.com/plugins/trunk/coderay/

The Javascript/css Files

This plugin requires a great deal of javascript and css files that will need to be copied to the corresponding folder in your public/ directory. These files are located in the simple_cms/assets/ directory.

These files should have been copied over when you install the plugin. However, I built in a couple rake task commands to help you out installing and uninstalling these files if you need to.

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rake simple_cms:install
rake simple_cms:uninstall

Creating the Tables

You will need to create 3 tables in your database.

• simple_cms_items
• simple_cms_images
• simple_cms_media

To have the migration tables generated for you use this command:

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ruby script/generate simple_cms_migrations

The tables should look like this:

create_simple_cms_items.rb

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class CreateSimpleCmsItems < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :simple_cms_items do |t|
      t.column :params,     :string
      t.column :data,       :text
      t.column :position,   :integer
      t.column :created_at, :datetime
      t.column :updated_at, :datetime
      t.column :created_by, :string
      t.column :updated_by, :string
    end
    SimpleCmsItem.create_versioned_table
  end

  def self.down
    SimpleCmsItem.drop_versioned_table
    drop_table :simple_cms_items
  end
end

create_simple_cms_images.rb

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class CreateSimpleCmsImages < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :simple_cms_images do |t|
      t.column :parent_id,    :integer
      t.column :content_type, :string
      t.column :filename,     :string
      t.column :thumbnail,    :string
      t.column :size,         :integer
      t.column :width,        :integer
      t.column :height,       :integer
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :simple_cms_images
  end
end

create_simple_cms_medias.rb

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class CreateSimpleCmsMedias < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :simple_cms_medias do |t|
      t.column :parent_id,    :integer
      t.column :content_type, :string
      t.column :filename,     :string
      t.column :thumbnail,    :string
      t.column :size,         :integer
      t.column :width,        :integer
      t.column :height,       :integer
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :simple_cms_medias
  end
end

There is one more migration file you should have. It's called change_items_data_colmn and it looks like this:

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class ChangeItemsDataColumn < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    change_column :simple_cms_items, :data, :text, :limit => 10000000
  end

  def self.down
    change_column :simple_cms_items, :data, :text
  end
end

This is a change to the simple_cms_items table data column. This allows you to store up to 10 megabytes of text instead of the 65 kilobytes it defaulted to.

Remember to rake your tables into your databases once you have generated them.

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rake db:migrate

Javascript and css Include Tags

You will need to make sure you have javascript include tags for your defaults and simple_cms and stylesheet link tags for the simple_cms and coderay stylesheets. Your app/views/layouts/application.rhtml should look something like this:

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<html>
  <head>
    <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults, "simple_cms" %>
    <%= stylesheet_link_tag "simple_cms", "coderay" %>
  </head>
  <body>
    <%= yield %>
  </body>
</html>

In Your View

Having the simple_cms plugin show up is really pretty simple. Anywhere you want to have the simple_cms to show up you put one line as simple as this:

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<%= render :simpleCMS => "YourLabel", :admin => true %>

Here is another example with more options:

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<%= render :simpleCMS => "label", :admin => true,
                                  :user => "UserName",
                                  :prefix => "/whatever/your/prefix/is",
                                  :reusable => true %>

• :simpleCMS takes a label. Changing this label means losing all your current content and creating a new one. However, you can always change it back.
• :admin takes true or false. The default is false. If you pass true then when you run your mouse over the content a blue highlight box will appear and you will be able to click on the box and edit the content. If you pass false then you will only be able to see the content but not edit any of it.
• :user is optional and it takes any string you pass it.
• :prefix is optional. This is where you pass your prefix if you have one.
• :reusable takes true or false. Default is false. Set this true if you want to use this same content on multiple pages. The label must be the same on all pages you are using this content. *NOTE* you will lose all current data for this content if you change this as it gives the content a different id and changes the params of how it is called.