Discover django CMS 3.2 version

django CMS 3.2, the brand new version of django CMS has been recently released. Let's discover the new features and improvements in this version.

Basically the community is working hard to make django CMS a content management system you can easily manage from front end side and specifically on portable devices such as tablets and smart-phones. Three major features have been introduced to achieve this: the content wizard, the full touch support and a user interface with a brand new graphic layout.

CONTENT CREATION WIZARD

In django CMS 3.2 version you can now create a new page -or any kind of object, for that matter- with a single click from the toolbar: “Content Creation Wizard” it's the one-stop feature that allows to create pages and django CMS objects (blog posts, events, whatever) in a customizable lightbox: each object has its own form and fields, which makes creating object even easier that before.

This, coupled with the existing “Page type” feature, which allows to save entire pages -with plugins- as ready-to-use examples, makes content editors' life much easier.

Want a blank page? Click “Create”, “New Page”, presto!, the new page is there

Want a page filled with plugins? Click “Create”, “New Page” and pick your page type.

Want a blog post? Click “Create”, “New Article” and there you have a blog post.

Likewise for any object type you use in your Django project.

By providing content editors a coherent interface and a streamlined workflow, django CMS sets the bar in terms of usability for CMSes for Django.

FULL TOUCH SUPPORT

While part of the content editors workflow requires complex interactions which are only sensible from a proper workstation, editing content on the go or with the devices of choice are more and more a vital part of the content editing.

django CMS was already on a good path, but still had a way to go, and with version 3.2 tried to address a good part of the touch / mobile editing issues.

Adding proper responsive behavior to the django CMS editing interface and the graphic “skin”, rethinking some of the forms and menus to be touch-friendly, were some of the tasks the team solved in 3.2.

Improving editing experience it's a continuous task and expect more improvements in the next releases!

GRAPHICS

Adding touch support allowed the team to rethink the appearance of the interface: bigger affordances, clearer contrast and a more modern design makes the new interface easier to use, less distracting and more welcoming for novice editors

SPEED

While similar in how it works, the new editing interfaces has been vastly improved in terms of performance, and it's now snappier to make the editing experience enjoyable and painless.

Some backend optimization also helps in terms of rendering speed, both for editors and end-users.

Do you want to try it? djangocms-installer (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/djangocms-installer/0.8.3) it's the best tool to start exploring and developing with django CMS: try the tutorial (http://docs.django-cms.org/en/develop/introduction/install.html) and discover the features of django CMS.