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Updated 2 months ago

A simple built in CMS

At a glance

A community member suggests adding a basic CMS to WebStudio to simplify website migration and content management, noting their experience with ycode.com. The discussion reveals that WebStudio currently uses Ghost for their blog, with several members advocating for Ghost as a superior blogging solution rather than building a basic CMS into WebStudio.

The conversation evolves into a discussion about content authoring experiences, with WebStudio working on a Notion-like static page content authoring system. Community members compare Notion and WebStudio's approaches, highlighting that while Notion excels at document creation with its limitations leading to simplicity, WebStudio focuses on web design with more complex layout capabilities. They note that using Notion as a CMS might work for simple projects but would be limiting for professional web design needs.

The consensus seems to be that rather than building a potentially inferior CMS into WebStudio, the focus should be on better integration with existing specialized tools like Ghost, while developing their own content authoring experience that maintains WebStudio's web design capabilities.

Useful resources
WS can connect to many CMS systems. This is great but I've hit decision fatigue and have yet to determine which is "best". They all have their pros and cons. For simple blog type sites, having a basic built in CMS would be a huge benefit. I know WS is a small team so I was hesitant to even bring this up until someone mentioned they were using ycode.com for this exact scenario.

The CMS option and being able to put the editor into dark mode are my two favorite features. I have no intention of switching as I'm 100% behind the WS team and the WS community. If WS had a basic CMS, it would allow me to move a bunch more websites over without the extra hoops it currently takes to connect up to an external source.

Just throwing it out there as a wish list item.
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Blogs is not simple, there is an entire company doing just that and we use it for the blog https://ghost.org/
I doubt using ycode they have a great authoring experience and blgging functionality
But its also clear that setting up 2 tools is pain.
Templates we have help though
maybe an easier way to integrate with great tools is the answer
instead of building in shitty tools into the platform
Ghost is what I'm using stand-alone on a couple of sites. And far too many WordPress sites than I care to mention. Both integrate with WS but I'm an even smaller team than WS (just me, lol) so trying to prioritize what to move, what to leave alone, and what to make hybrid.

Agreed that when you try to do EVERYTHING with a platform, you don't really do anything all that well. With a small team, that dilution happens even faster. So I get the lack of desire to bolt on a sub-par solution to WS.

I'll work with Ghost some more and see how that goes. At this point, I'd like to exit the WordPress ecosystem entirely and avoid that whole drama.
Great content authoring experience is very hard, so that's one problem
having some data table backed in webstudio isn't a huge problem, can be done
but that won't solve a great content authoring experience
well unles we find some really great UX approcah
for now we are working on notion-like static page content authoring experience
this is solving content authoring, but isn't solving large collections etc
Im also mainly a WordPress user but Ghost is the top for blogging. I totally get your point and even questioned myself why I’d use WS if Ghost already handle the front as well, including SEO and all.

My own answer is that WS helps to keep a common workflow for anything backend, and continue to includes best practices. I’m feeling tempted now to move my Ghost frontend there, it may be a good way to start to practice with WS. Now I know even WS blog uses Ghost as backend, I get an idea what could be the result.

I think there is some challenges also regarding SEO, but if your Ghost is private it’s not a problem anymore.

One thing I would like to do as well in future is WS with Notion a backend. There is some needs for wikis in some communities but most wiki systems feels boring or complicated while Notion is really noob friendly. This is something I may explore in future.

Anyway, all interesting ^^.
Ofc, blog is us usually only part of the website
reg notion - for tables yes, but for notion content you will need a backend additionally, many want this, but webstudio can't deal with notion's api design
well unles we find some really great UX approcah
The other day I ran into editor.js – which might match your idea of "Notion-like" .

The site has a floating button at the bottom to have a play. https://editorjs.io/
One thing we were just discussing yesterday is the difference to notion:

  1. Notion has a simple vertical layout, it always inserts vertically before or after. Not so in Webstudio, where you can have any complex nesting and directions via flex
  2. Notion inserts a new line and a caret first only then you choose the block. Notion is kinda text first, while Webstudio is block/instance first
So we were wondering if it makes sense for Webstudio to insert a text block and caret when clicking plus button
Notion lets you build column layouts (via Context Menu, or simply by dragging - second screenshot).
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Yes, but can you build a layout inside the column?
Very limited. You also have no control about the way column content re-flows for mobile devices.
yeah, there must be lots of limitations, hence notion is not a design tool
the beauty of notion is actually the fact that all these limitations lead to simplicity for making good looking documents
but when it comes to web design, it is inevitably going to lead to serious limitations
so the fundamental difference between notion editing and content mode in webstudio is that we make it close enough to notion, but still for web design, not for documents
which is btw also why all te attempts using notion as a CMS for the site are going to fail for any pro-level projects
simple pages with simple layouts - sure, will work, but then what's the point of using webstudio that aims to provide full web capabilities, you can just use notion to publish those pages, it can already do it
I haven't tried any, but I believe the better tools that build sites from Notion-data transform whatever comes from Notion quite a bit. They see e.g. columns, recognize the design intent and redo this properly.

My editor.js input was limited to offering an authoring experience within your content edit mode. My understanding was that an admin controls which tools a content editor gets to see. Having this + icon with options might be a flexible way to handle this. I also like draggable blocks in Notion. That's handy when developing concepts.
we are already there, it works with instances, will send a preview today into #︳builder-design to get feedback
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