Eero

Challenge:

At TOKY, we tried a number of content management solutions for clients. We tried Drupal, Expression Engine and a number of others. The all had their pros and cons. We wanted a system that would allow us to really push design, while ensuring that our clients would still be able to edit and create content in a very user friendly way. In our opinion, none of the systems we tried did both of these things well.

Solution:

We created a system that has a very user friendly interface and handles the majority of things that all content management systems require: user management, permissions, caching, page creation, media management as well as site hierarchy. Eero doesn’t come with a default theme or template. Therefore, it’s not an off-the-shelf solution. It requires a developer to complete the remaining 20% that is unique to each site. It is guided by MVC principles, but it doesn’t follow them completely. To put it simply, it is a series of PHP classes and functions that has routing capabilities, while also allowing hooks for a developer to jump into the code wherever it is necessary. It gets out of the way to allow the developer to accomplish the best solution as quickly as possible. If a page template requires just a couple wysiwygs, then it only requires a couple lines of code. However, if a template requires loading in Google Maps for the client to create a custom map, then it gets out of the way to allow the developer to create a custom HTML/javaScript interaction within the administration area.

It lets me do what I enjoy, which is building user interfaces that are smart, simple and gives the power to the user.