One of the hardest challenges in the web design field is designing and creating a site that will be managed and updated by someone else. That someone else will eventually put on the hat of the webmaster - independently adding, updating and removing content often with little or limited web experience.

Proprietary and open source tools abound for developers, but often require many hours if not weeks of technical implementation out of the hands of the designer - who is often left to find a local developer to address the technical task of cutting their design and then setting up web servers and databases. Frequently the end result is an expensive system that does not encourage proper design reuse and still requires server maintenance and training of the end users themselves. This gives the CMS industry a bad taste in the mouths of many designers.

Set to release the first build of their AIR desktop application, Konductor is a new content management platform that simplifies the deployment of content management into websites. It does this by combining an extensible service with a Dreamweaver plug-in and an AIR based content editor to create a seamless workflow from site designer to content owner. The designers workflow remains intact and uninterrupted - Dreamweaver can still be the tool of choice for creating the websites design and page templates. After templates are created and published to the software-as-a-service server - eliminating server setup and maintenance altogether - content management tasks are accomplished with the Konductor AIR desktop application.

Dreamweaver Extension
To start, a web designer installs the Konductor Dreamweaver Extension. A nice feature is the automatic site configuration that takes the guess work out of site set up for the designer - no more having to search for passwords and directories as the server settings and transfer details are set for you.

Once installed, the extension takes advantage of the native functionality in Dreamweaver and extending it to allow for additional information containing content, menu and form restrictions to be added, doing so with no additional code being added to the design.
For most designers who use Dreamweaver, the extension is a nice and unobtrusive addition to their workflow. Designers are not required to learn something new - in most cases they will be familiar with Dreamweaver templates if they have experience creating sites where content management is a consideration.This is also great for past sites built in Dreamweaver that are requesting content management, since the time to deploy would be almost instantaneous. Below is an example of how a designer in Dreamweaver would declare a region to be a specific type of an editable region, such as region that should contain a menu:

Konductor AIR Application
Once templates are created and uploaded, content owners can begin managing their site with the Konductor AIR application. Even at the initial start of the application, its easy to tell that its geared towards a non tech savvy audience. Short, simple instructions provide the user with direction - avoiding the end result of abandonment caused by frustration. Managing content is divided into three major categories - page, menu and asset management.

Page Management
Page creation is as easy as associating a new page to a designer defined template of editable regions. Pages can be added, removed, and modified.The application supports a list and grid view, where the grid view shows actual thumbnail snapshots of the rendered html page it represents.

There are several ways available to help a user organize and find pages. A search filter allows the user to filter the list of pages based on the name which makes it easy to manage and find specific pages in large sites. The concept of groups - allows the user to organize pages in whatever way is most intuitive to them. A user might choose to organize according to page type (product page, forms etc), sections, etc; the organizational method and structure is flexible as the user can create, remove and edit their own groups. Adding a page to a group is a simple as dragging and dropping it onto the group. Selecting which page is to be used as the home page is as easy as checking off a checkbox and can be changed at any time without fear of breaking anything.

WebKit
Page editing adopts the WSIWYG approach by making extensive use of WebKit to provide a real time html editing experience. Incomplete integration of the DOM in the AIR version of WebKit posed many challenges which could only be solved by extending upon it. In page editing mode, users have the standard text formatting capabilities such as applying styles and alignment with strict enforcement of proper XHTML. Editing modes are identified and highlighted so the average user can easily determine what they can and cannot edit.

Links of various types including mailto, external, asset and anchor links can be easily created, referenced. Links to internal pages, for example, are easily created by providing a visual list of all the pages within the site, guiding the user to select one from the list, as shown:

Image assets can be added and removed during this process, as well as resized - which can be accomplished either through manipulation of the properties in the asset properties panel, or by dragging the visual resize handlers on the image when you select it in the page. Changes a user makes can be saved and then previewed in the browser.

Asset Management
Assets that are used in the site, such as images, pdfs, word documents, videos, are made available through the asset library. Users can add assets to their library one of two ways - by manually adding them through the file OS browse window while in the asset library or, thanks to AIR, by selecting the asset(s) from the desktop and dragging it into the asset library. Adding an asset to the image library effectively uploads it to the server and it takes care of the file pathing and management for the basic user. For image assets with a large file size, image optimization is presented as an option allowing the user to down sample the image prior to it being uploaded - no more trying to teach a marketing manager why and how to optimize an image. Future releases intend to support basic image manipulation and editing features such as the application of color filters or cropping.

Menu Management
Menu management allows the user to create contained navigation systems to be used by the site. Menus consist of items that can link in a variety of ways including : to an internal or site specific page, external or outbound page, a traditional mailto, an anchor in an internal page and to an asset such as an image or zip file. Creating a menu is as easy as adding a new menu group, and then adding menu items to it. One nice workflow feature is the ability to drag items located within the site such as pages or assets onto a menu to add it. Menu items are reordered by dragging them to the position that you want them to appear and have different icons to help identify what type of menu item it is.

One caveat is that a content owner can't just decide to add a menu anywhere at any time - the templates created by the designer dictates designated areas where a menu can be placed. Areas where a designer has indicated a menu can be placed is indicated by a menu icon, allowing the user in page editing mode to easily change what menu they want to use in that region.

Form Management
Form management is another robust feature of the application that takes the guesswork out of creating a complex form. As with the menus, regions for forms must be designated by the designer in the template. Once a form region is identified, the content manager can easily create a fairly complex form by using the form builder - which allows them to add radio buttons, checkboxes, and all the traditional inputs one would expect in a form. Users can determine if fields are required and dictate basic properties such as the max character input. In addition to managing the creation of a form, the content manager is also given control over how the form is going to be handled in term of its submission. A user can decide if a thank you page will be shown or if they will receive an email for example. Since Konductor is software as a service, the user may also choose to save the submitted form information into a database to export to CSV at will, with no database setup required.

Third Party Developers
In terms of the Konductor platform, third party developers will have complete access to the services used by the application itself as the Konductor service includes a REST API, allowing them to create their own applications or widgets. Such as integration into Constant Contact, your favorite Blogging service or even Sharepoint documents. This could be an application exchange similar to the iPhone or Salesforce.com, but for websites.

Future releases plan to have workflow improvements, advanced image optimization/editing features along with better support of plugin media such as Flash and video.

Although Konductor has yet to release any official pricing for the Konductor Platform, it has been suggested that there will be no charge for developers/ designers, with a monthly service fee of $25.00 paid by the site owner.

So whether you are a designer looking for a solid alternative to the current CMS options or an RIA developer looking to play with a great AIR application, go and check out Konductor. They have a couple of videos showing the application in use and demonstrating some of the features. An open beta is currently in progress and they are always looking for some feedback.

Read more from Stacey Mulcahy.