An intuitive and powerful CMS review for non-techies and web enthusiasts alike
September 04, 2014
An intuitive and powerful CMS review for non-techies and web enthusiasts alike
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Cascade Cloud
Overall Satisfaction with Cascade Server
Cascade Server is being used both by my department and in most other academic and administrative units across campus, both for generating new web content and for updating existing pages on a regular basis. Common examples include creating and updating event calendars, informational resources for academic advising and other programmatic content, financial aid, tech support, university news, and various interactive and informational pages for accounting and HR-related purposes.
- The user interface provides a clear, easily navigable way to work on web pages, both insofar as small-scale edits and the wholesale generation of new pages are concerned. Any given site's hierarchical structure and your current position (if any) within it is clearly visible in the sidebar at all times, which makes for efficient work.
- Powerful context menus that allow for easy editing of existing pages, the generation of new content, adding new files, deleting, moving, and publishing assets.
- The overall editing interface is fairly intuitive and easy to use, including both GUI-style elements and the ability to write or edit in HTML mode for more precise page creation and modification. Videos and links can be easily embedded as well.
- Copy/cut/paste shortcuts triggered via the editing context menu don't work in Firefox, although the corresponding keyboard shortcuts are fortunately still usable (for example, CTRL-C/X/V). This is a bit annoying, although not a deal-breaker since I normally use keyboard shortcuts anyway, but it would be good to see this addressed in future builds.
- It would be nice if there was an actual drag-and-drop move function, in addition to the context menu's "move" function. It would certainly simplify some of the basic recurring website updates, and particularly when older files and other embedded content needs to be moved to another area for archival purposes.
- It's nice that the CMS will check your edits for seeming-errors when you go to publish, but many of the error messages are unclear insofar as exactly what they mean. Since I have only limited fluency in HTML, more instructive error feedback would be very helpful.
- It's become much easier to generate more complex pages in less time, and then to keep them up to date.
- It's also far simpler now to instruct new users on basic CMS functionality, since the UI is much more akin to the file explorers seen in Windows or OSX-based operating systems.
- Its more modern toolset and functionality allow for easier integration of video and other semi-interactive content, which makes our pages more useful and easier to navigate.
- WebCRMA
Cascade is a significant improvement over WebCRMA in virtually all respects: more powerful and intuitive user interface, better multimedia integration, and a a greatly improved function set in terms of editing, reviewing, and publishing content. Although I did not play a role in selecting Cascade Serve for use at our university, I have increasingly come to appreciate our IT department's selection over the last couple years.