Patrick Shaw’s Weblog

There are a lot of compelling reasons to use a content management system. Here at NPower Seattle, we’re using Plone to implement websites (of both the simple and the complicated variety!) and one of the features that we like a lot is the way that Plone handles rules based items, such as news and events (or calendar) items.

For example, Plone can automate your news data. You fill out a form (with as little or as much information as you like) and that event can START publishing on a certain date, STOP publishing on another - and Plone can automatically create a link in a box on your home page if you’d like:

And clicking on one of those items will display the detail:

Calendar items work in a similar fashion - you complete a form, can choose to display a link on your home page, and can have additional information about that calendar event:

You can also choose a bigger calendar, if you’d like - one that looks more like this:

Using simple forms and easy to manage rules mean that you can quickly and efficiently update your website - and don’t have to worry about leaving an old news or calendar item on your website! You can find out more about Plone and calendar and event features at www.plone.org