I’ve been keeping a list of the features to include in the next version of Rainbow Live Flash CMS thanks to feedback from users and my own personal vision for what clients and developers need in a Flash CMS.
In my opinion the best Flash CMS does not equal the biggest CMS or even the most powerful CMS, but should be measured on priorities and requirements for the end user (both developers and clients). In a lot of ways with Rainbow Live the focus has been on rapid development which seems to be in-line with the nature of a lot of work in Flash ecosphere. To that end Rainbow has been built to allow almost instant CMS functionality to XML data in a format entirely dictated by the developer. As you want a more fleshed out solution you are able to spend time building templates and setting preferences to allow uploading, thumbnail creation, sitemap generation and automated SEO HTML backup creation. Put briefly, you can be up and running with Rainbow Live in a matter of minutes but you also have the option to really make use of all the extra features in Rainbow to build a unique and custom CMS for your needs.
What’s Next
Having achieved the goal of rapid CMS development for your Flash Website, the next stage for Rainbow Live is to build a more capable and presentable solution for Flash website developers that caters to some of the common requirements for this sort of development. So, here’s a list of what the planned new features for Rainbow 2.0 are:
- Export mulitple XML files per project
- Translate the interface into new languages
- Restricted font list, set by the developer
- Styles (css based)
- Single interface to access different website projects
- New look and feel (a more presentable alternative to the node view)
- Dedicated node types (image, sound, video)
- Custom help screens
- Interactive image cropping
- Optional developer defined dropdown lists for node attribute values
- Multiple file upload
- Improved text editor
- More branding customisation
While this isn’t an exhaustive list, nor is everything guaranteed to make it to the final build, it’s an indication of the path Rainbow is taking to give it more real-world functionality that’s required by Flash website developers when looking for an XML CMS for their projects. Feel free to let me know of any other features you’d like to see.
Get Rainbow
You can test drive Rainbow 1.5 right now with a free 30-day trial – Install it here
