Introducing Quick Tags and Flash

Note: This is the final in a three part series leading up to the release of PacerCMS 0.5. You can start building for the upcoming version by downloading our preview release.

Simple HTML for the masses

HTML Quick Tags allow users to add formatting without the fuss.

In addition to our nifty installer, we borrowed another feature from the WordPress crew (more specifically, Alex King) in the form of Javascript Quick Tags. This utility bar appears at the top of of a few places in PacerCMS that accept HTML markup, such as the article and section editors. The way it works is fairly straightforward: You can either select the text you want to format, or click the buttons to insert the opening tag at your cursor position.

We culled out a few of the options to leave you with the most basic formatting options for a standard news story. You can now bold, italicize, make lists, insert inline images, create links and set a body of text as a block quote.

Now you can bring Flash to your news

You can post Flash content to PacerCMS.

The ability to have Flash files display in your articles has been "in the code" so to speak for a while now. With this version of PacerCMS, we are finally making it available for attaching in the Media Manager. Like any other document, you must have the link to your media file handy before beginning. You can embed flash videos from a YouTube-like service, or create your own if you have Macromedia (Adobe) Flash available to your newsroom.

We are looking into the many options out there to manage our linked media. PacerCMS currently only supports linking to content that you have uploaded through other means, or any content that is widely available on the Web. It is our goal to integrate an upload and management script in future releases.

Remember, to use this feature you will need version 0.5 or higher. Have a question about using the new template engine? Just shoot an e-mail to our developer community and we will be happy to assist.