Hello my name is Chris; I’m a Graphic Design + Junior Web Designer from London who is interested in starting a new flash CMS project. I enjoy working on voluntary projects in my spare-time to produce beneficial assets on the side, I’m also involved with a game project that is currently progressing.
The purpose of this request is to find an experienced web developer to assist me in designing the system, to organize and support its production and to help operate its website when completed. We will both work on developing the production strategies and tactics per milestones whilst recruiting volunteers and me paying (where necessary) for elements of the system to be produced. You will need to focus on the technical side of the project, while I’ll take care of the graphical and hosting side.
There are a small handful of Flash CMS solutions out there in the web market, some of which are very limited in features and some don’t look very professional. The best Flash based CMS system I’ve looked at so far is fCMS, not only does it provide Live onsite configuration and fully dynamic text and art content; it also looks professional.
A few of the principles I always think about when planning is that people don’t really care what work goes into making tools, but they care about ‘what’s in it for them’ or how well the tool can help them and how well it works, however; the customer can often make the decision to bypass a feature packed tool for something else that looks more ‘professional’ or ‘cool’. fCMS offers great features whilst having a professional looking interface and identity. Flashblock’s also another good system, but there isn’t a great deal of flash CMS systems out there, and there are a number of features that I haven’t seen included, like RSS feeds or database modules, the list goes on.
Before I discuss the objectives of the system, I need to establish the requirements of the developer by letting you know about issues with this project:
- This is an un-paid project that requires a lot of spare time and resources to work on. This is the worst kind of project to work on, but for some people who are employed, this provides an alternative hobby with benefits and learning experiences.
- You need to be available for online communication 7 days a week, and within 4 hours of the GMT+1 time zone for convenience.
- This project will take a long time to build, because free volunteers are hard to come by, and often can only offer a few weeks work. So you need to be available for the lifetime of this project.
- You need good PHP and MySQL skills and experience in order to supervise and help with the building of database elements of the system.
- The front-end will be Flash based, so strong Action Script skills will be beneficial, although I feel dedicated Flash developers of the future team will focus more on the front-end.
- XML experience is necessary to utilize it, as I feel it offers the best way to for technical minded clients to configure the system on the fly, without having to touch ActionScript or PHP. For non-techincal clients, a WYSIWYG editor is necessary.
- You should have strong enough experience to take the lead in providing technical design and support for the project, expect to have to tell a lot of people what to do and to interview, support and dismiss MANY volunteers.
- A rule needs to be established that all code needs to be tidy and commented; each group of lines of code performing a relative task needs to be commented, so that even a code novice (like me
- You need to be well organized, because I can’t pay for work; the volunteers will only be coding small elements of each feature, so you need to help arrange things so that new comers can easily finish off what old members have started. Probably by inspecting the code and making sure it is all tidy, accurate and well commented.
- A keen interest in the project and the future of Flash, PHP and the web is needed to maintain your motivation.
- You need a friendly, non-sexist/racist attitude to avoid causing major conflicts and problems in future teams.
- Your ideas and contributions need to be focused on the technical aspect of the project, so as not to conflict on my graphical ideas and contributions.
We will need to make a signed NDA between the both of us along with
2 proofs of name and address to maintain the trust between us.
Once you meet those requirements, and are agreeable to my terms and I am agreeable
to yours, we can get started planning out the following objectives:
Primary Objective: Develop and sell a comprehensive Flash+PHP+MySQL CMS
First Milestone: Project Planning, Application Design and Recruitment.
- Develop a long list of features and modules useful for such a system. Including Database integration, quote calculations, paypal integration, music playback, XML defined layouts, GUI animated templates RSS feeds, WYSIWYG editors etc etc.
- Decide on which features and modules to include.
- Develop a strategy for developing each of those features and modules.
- Breakdown the strategies into technical tasks and tactics to be carried
out.
- Decide on an available, easy to remember and appropriate name for the system.
- Decide on what versions to break it down into for novice, intermediate and advanced uses.
- Plan the next milestone based on the devised project plan.
- Recruit and gather the needed resources to take on the work.
I will try to get dotProject or another task management system installed online for us to organize the project.
If you are serious in helping out, please contact: c__d__t@hotmail.com (double underscores between cdt)