When I started creating a website with Business Catalyst I found a huge amount of information out there by Adobe… and one article by a guy who hates Business Catalyst (seriously… search google for anything Business Catalyst and his article will show up on the first page).
But what seems to be lacking is information by the masses. So I figured I’d write a quick introduction to Adobe’s CMS for people who are trying to conquer that learning curve.
The Basic Stuff To Know
Business Catalyst is a Content Management System created by Adobe and subscribed to for a monthly amount. If you already subscribe to the Cloud, you’ve already subscribed to it.
You don’t have access to the actual database. You use the user interface created by Adobe. It can do a lot, but you definitely don’t have the kind of power you have with CMSes that you install on a hosting account.
The learning curve isn’t terrible, but it’s really difficult to find specific information. The user core isn’t as large as WordPress’s and apparently many of them don’t blog about their solutions.
The sign in page is website.com/admin.
It’s built using ASP.
Organization
Adobe has a pretty good setup for most of the website.
The Site Manager is where you’ll find the basic setup. You can create multiple Page Templates, inside of which you can include Content Holders (like Headers, Sidebars, and Footers), Menus, Web Forms, and Modules. When you create a page, you choose the page template.
Personally, I set up my sites like this:
PAGE TEMPLATE
content holder = header
content holder = sidebar
{page content}
content holder = footer
Inside of the Header and Footer content holders, I add menus.
The cool thing is that there are a bunch of templates already created for you. They’re kind of a cross between WordPress plugins and templates, really. They’re called Modules in Business Catalyst; some examples: shopping cart, FAQ, forum, affiliates. There are multiple options underneath each, like for the shopping cart there is the actual cart, a list of items, and more.
Initial Setup
There are a few things that are not so great when you set up your new website.
First, the included stylesheet sucks. I mean, really sucks. If you’re creating a design on Business Catalyst, you’ll need to fix the stylesheet. There are quite a few options out there, but you’ll need to normalize it and reset it.
Unfortunately, upon normalizing and resetting it, you’ll need to load your own stylesheet. And then you’ll realize that you can’t add your stylesheet to the page head because you don’t have access, so you’ll need to add it to a content holder. Which means you’ll need to use FTP. (kind of like If you give a mouse a cookie…)
And, just as a side note, including a stylesheet in the body of the page is messy.
Second, the menu setup also sucks. You can work around it, but overall, it just isn’t that great. After you normalize and reset the stylesheet, it’s not as bad, but it still can be difficult to customize with CSS.
Summary
If you’re trying to decide whether you want to use Business Catalyst, here’s the two arguments I’ve heard:
1) Unlike other “install yourself” CMSes, Business Catalyst has automatic updates and customer service.
Rebuttal: Most CMS updates are not that difficult, and I’d rather have community then trying to get a hold of some sort of customer service. So the extra money BC costs isn’t really worth it.
2) BC provides a ready-made shopping cart and lots of other ready-made options.
Rebuttal: They do provide these. But WordPress has tons of plugins that also provide this. So the choice is yours.