as some of you already know, I am developing a CMS for Blocs App - Volt CMS. It’s dedicated especially for Blocs App and targeting the market of a simple to use and inline editing CMS system.
It comes without the bells and whistles of Wordpress for example. You are currently not able to create a blog with it. Depending on user feedback, this might come later.
It contains just basic text content and styling, image uploads, and photo galleries.
There is a clear separation between design (which is done inside Blocs App) and content creation (online, inside Volt CMS).
In addition, it is flat file, so no database needed. The content is stored on your server. It is a one time purchase without subscription, unlimited websites included, to make it easy to consume. It will cost 99€ (± foreign currencies).
The CMS system is now feature complete, and first beta tests have been successful. Therefore I am now slowly starting early access to Volt CMS.
How will that work? Just write me a direct message here in the forum, and I will include you in a early access users group. I will provide a discount for the first 10 users (first come, first serve).
Hello, I want to just put out an endorsement for Jannis (Instacks) and Volt. I realise as I’m new here my words carry no weight, as is right (respect is earned not demanded), but I build commercial sites for clients and use many addons from Jannis, they are all about the best in class.
Many of my clients ask for CMS, but with CMS comes power, and few know how to wield it! I find the Volt approach far better: You define the design and content areas, the clients populates these areas, getting to change them as often as they wish. Most of my client sites include such areas.
I’ve used Volt, in fact it and Blocs will soon form the platform for a new CMS solution I plan to offer to clients, and I can say it’s very good. IMO it’s offers just what you need in a clean and simple to understand interface.
I’m new to Blocs (I got it to work with Volt) so will be asking plenty of daft questions over the next few weeks/months/years, so please don’t judge my endorsement of Volt on my other posts
As I say, I’m not for one second making any claims about my own level of expertise in anything, I’ve been blagging it at this web building malarky for the last 20 years, but I do have a pretty good understanding of what clients (and so general users) want, and I think Volt is going to fit in perfectly.
Finally. someone working on a simple solution. Many web designers will look forward to putting this to the test. IMO though, I think it cost is way too much, even Blocs which can do so much more cost less.
I strongly disagree that a CMS system for 99€ for unlimited websites and no subscription is too much. Let’s take a web designer using Volt CMS for 10 clients. It’s 10€ per project. Other CMS solutions cost $99 per domain.
I am not a fan of cheap software. You get proper support, and it must be fair at the end for both sides.
Nice, good luck with the project! I’ve been working on something very similar for the past few days actually. I think this is a good way to go in terms of meeting the need for Blocs users.
I just purchased this today. Fantastic, easy to use and great value. Thank you so much for creating it. It will make such as difference to the way I create websites and finally give my clients a simple and fast way to update areas of their website without me having to do it for them.
I have been really busy with client work and only just found some time to experiment with Volt for the first time. I’ve thrown up a quick demo page at https://liubliu.co.uk with a short explanation of how it works. It’s no great work of art as a website, but it took less than hour from scratch and this is the first time I have sat down to consciously try to build something with Volt.
A couple screenshots for you here. This is how it looks for editing inside the web browser before saving:
I found it very useful working with the web browser and Blocs open at the same time, so changes could be previewed and compared. At that point I was able to make adjustments to spacing etc in Blocs and upload revised versions. Once the page layout is settled it could all be done inside the web browser.
Some more practice will no doubt help but I fully expect to use Volt regularly with the added improvements that will be coming. It is really quite easy to use and intuitive once you understand the basic concept and learn to work with that inside the editing canvass of Blocs.
I have a site at the moment, that’s ready to go live, but the client sucks at returning my request for content. So, this could be a good motivator for these customers, as they see something before them and they can directly add their content.
