Blog

July 19 - Advanced Theme Development

Learn to develop powerful themes with the use of PHP.

Covered Topics

• Accessing, displaying and acting on custom attributes for current page
• Displaying User specific information
• Wrapping blocks in Custom Templates
• Including Custom Logic in Templates
• Choices in architecting flexible themes

(Class no longer available for registration. Check back soon for more discount classes, or visit our training page to sign up for a standard class.)

Learn basic theme production and advanced theme development from the concrete5 CTO Andrew. Classes will start at10 AM Pacific and cost $95 each(that's $200 off the standard training class price). Instructions for connecting to the training classes are emailed out the day before the class.

July 17 - Theme Production (basic)

Learn how to turn a basic HTML chop into a concrete5 theme. Prerequisites:Understanding of HTML. Willingness to learn basic PHP commands.

Covered Topics:

• Starting, setting up and installing a simple concrete5 theme
• Referencing assets in your theme, including images, stylesheets and JavaScript
• How page types and template files relate
• Adding template files to your theme
• Ensuring your theme can be used by add-ons and custom development

(Class no longer available for registration. Check back soon for more discount classes, or visit our training page to sign up for a standard class.)

Learn how to extend concrete5 with Single Pages and custom Controllers.The class isJune 27and will start at10 AM Pacific and costs $95(that's $200 off the standard training class price).

Covered Topics

• Single Pages
• Controllers
• Working with User Accounts
• Programmatically adding files to concrete5
• Using Page Types & Custom Attributes as data objects
• Creating custom forms with concrete5 widgets like color picker or page selector
• Creating add-ons: the package format

Prerequisites

Understanding of concrete5 architecture and an intermediate understanding of PHP.

(Class no longer available for registration. Check back soon for more discount classes, or visit our training page to sign up for a standard class.)

According to piwik.org,Piwik is a free software alternative to Google Analytics that is used on more than 320,000 websites.

If you are interested in using Piwik with your concrete5 site, check out Adrian Speyer's informative article about how to get the most out of your Piwik installation when you are using concrete5.

Read the full article at Stat Story:http://www.statstory.com/concrete5-and-piwik/

concrete5 community member Cali has been working hard to coordinate some concrete5-related events at the upcoming RMLL 2012 inGenve.

Events take place on July 9, 2012:

• concrete5 conference session from 3:20 to 4:00 PM
• concrete5workshop from 4:20 to 6:00 PM
• and after work, there's a party from 7:30PM to 1:00 AM

Links for more information and to share with your friends and colleagues:

https://www.facebook.com/events/344379025633953/

http://meeting.concrete5.fr/index.php/eventsys/events/

July 19 - Advanced Theme Development

Learn to develop powerful themes with the use of PHP. Advanced Themes Class Details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

The Last CTO Developer Training Intro was such a success that we talked Andrew into doing a series of Last CTO Trainings for developer topics. (Andrew is passing his training duties to Matt after this series is complete.)

All classes will start at10 AM Pacific and cost $95 each(that's $200 off the standard training class price).

May 30: Basic Blocks

Learn how to make a simple block from beginning to end. Basic Block Class Details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

June 7 - Mastering Auto Nav

For production developers who need to build highly styled navigations, learn the details behind the Auto-Nav block and how it can help you build just about anything. Auto Nav Class Details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

June 20 - Advanced Block Development

Learn how to make a more advanced block with a Dashboard settings page and Single Page interface. Advanced Block Class Details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

June 27 - Basic Application Development

Learn how to extend concrete5 with Single Pages and custom Controllers. Basic Applications Class Details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

July 17 - Theme Production (basic)

Turn a basic HTML chop into a concrete5 theme.Theme Production class details.
(Class no longer available for registration.)

Fike over on the webdevRefinery.com forums has some great things to say about concrete5 for anyone looking for a CMS.

He writes, "Ireallyrecommend this for people who need a robust (hence "concrete"), stable and super-easy to use CMS...did I mention its free and open source?"

Fike found plenty of content management systems that were too simple or too complicated, but he found concrete5 to be just right for his needs. "When I tested concrete5 out, it was just what I was looking for. Simple for end-users/clients to manage themselves, yet powerful enough for developers to make addons and "blocks" that are easy to use for the end user," he writes.

Check out his full post, or add your thoughts in the comments, athttp://webdevrefinery.com/forums/topic/11396-concrete5-zend-based-cms-for-developers-and-designers-alike/

Also, he called our user interface "sexy." Just saying...

"It's the perfect tool for building a single-page site, a simple landing page, or just the opposite, a huge site supporting an entire online community," Softpedia says about concrete5.

We agree.

Read the full article at Softpedia:http://news.softpedia.com/news/Script-of-the-Day-concrete5-267849.shtml

The Last CTO Developer Training Intro was such a success that we talked Andrew into doing a series of Last CTO Trainings for developer topics.

Next up is Basic Block Development.This class teaches developers what they need to know to make a simple block in concrete5.

This class will be taught at 10 AM Pacific on May 30 (date changed). And, it's an amazing deal at $95 (that's $200 off the standard training class price).

Covered Topics

• Block architecture
• Files included in a block's directory
• Block add/edit templates
• Multiple view layers with Custom Templates
• Including JavaScript/CSS in a page's header when that block is on the page
• How the data model works.

Prerequisites

Understanding of concrete5 and an intermediate understanding of PHP.

Earlier this month, Round the Bend Blog did a post about why they chose concrete5. Instead of just picking a well-known CMS, Round the Bend decided to make a wish-list for what they would like in a CMS platform and then dug in to do some homework. Their needs led them to use concrete5.

For Round the Bend, critical functionality included:

• Built-in Features: They wanted to be able to add a form, set up a blog, add new pages, delete pages, manage images, and more with relative ease, right out of the box.
• Add-on Features: They wanted a good selection of add-ons available for a nominal fee.
• Security: They expected solid site security and fast updates for critical issues.
• Ease of Use: They needed a CMS where technical and non-technical users could create a web presence with ease.

Read more about why Round the Bend uses concrete5: http://rtbtemplates.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-choose-concrete5.html

Earlier this month, Adrian Speyer wrote a great blog post about why he prefers concrete5 to WordPress. Adrian still likes WordPress, but he thinks "if non-technical user content manipulation is a major concern, Concrete5 is the best option."

Some of the features of concrete5 that he loves:

• It's super easy to build with, once you get the hang of things.
• It has fine granular control for user permissions.
• Upgrading is smooth.
• It's extremely user friendly for the non-techincal user once it's set up.
• The Marketplace. There are tons of things free for use with the core Concrete5, including themes and add-ons galore. The prices are more than fair and reasonable. If you are a coder yourself you can sell or offer for free your own upgrades as well.

Read more of Adrian's thoughts about concrete5 on his blog: http://blog.mark8t.com/2012/04/09/concrete5-the-cms-option-you-are-looking-for/