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webwatchman

Member

Registered: September 17, 2015

Posts: 2

BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

I am new to BigTree and I am considering to adopt this CMS to create my sites for my users. I work at a multi-site church that has many needs. I need to know several things. I have read about BigTree and reviewed the site, but not all of it. I am really interested in BigTree because the company seem to be experts in a direction that I want to be professional in myself (using PHP/JS/CSS/HTML towards Wordpress and Drupal customization). Does BigTree.....

- Give the option for me to create +400 accounts so users can log into their own private small group pages to edit them as needed?
- Give me the option for embedding my own video player? (How about JPlayer?)
- Schedule release of specific pages after I have updated them on my backend/dashboard first? (e.g. sermon pages?)
- Embed a rotating banner?
- embed forms?
- embed google maps?
- embed a video that is browser-wide?
- create a mobile redirect for users towards our app who access our sites via mobile phones?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 974

Re: BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

- Give the option for me to create +400 accounts so users can log into their own private small group pages to edit them as needed?

Yes, there are fine grained permissions on the page tree so that you can give users access to just a single page, a whole branch, or the entire site tree. They can be editors or publishers. There is no limit to the number of users.

- Give me the option for embedding my own video player? (How about JPlayer?)

BigTree uses TinyMCE 4 for it's WYSIWYG editor. The default behavior of the editor in BigTree 4.2.7 (latest release) is to not strip out any tags, so embedding JW Player would work fine. We generally recommend using a YouTube or Vimeo embed in our sites as it helps with SEO and keeps the load off of your server.

- Schedule release of specific pages after I have updated them on my backend/dashboard first? (e.g. sermon pages?)

Yes, you can schedule pages to go live using the Publish Date field. You can also set Expiration Dates to have the pages be removed from the front end after a given time.

- Embed a rotating banner?

If it's a banner using Javascript it should embed fine into any WYSIWYG / HTML field. If you're using an ad network you'd probably want to actually make it a part of your template files. BigTree makes no restrictions on what your front-end markup is.

- embed forms?

The Form Builder extension lets you and your users build forms that submit to a database and can be exported to CSV files. You also have the option of having an email alert sent upon form submission.

- embed google maps?

Embedding Google Maps should work fine in the HTML fields.

- embed a video that is browser-wide?

Sure, again, BigTree doesn't do automated drawing of the front end markup for your site so there are no limitations to presentation.

- create a mobile redirect for users towards our app who access our sites via mobile phones?

Yep, you could use some simple PHP code in your header files to create a mobile redirect. The BigTree::redirect method works well there.

webwatchman

Member

Registered: September 17, 2015

Posts: 2

Re: BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

AWESOME!!

Now here are some more questions..

You said I can use your form builder. Does your CMS work well with Wufoo?

Can I enable users to edit the website using a front-end page editor like PageCloud?

Is it easier to learn how to use then Expression Engine? Learning new custom tags all over again, drives me nuts. I am still learning PHP/JS as I write this post.

Why is there a page on this site for downloading BigTree that says "speak with a developer." Is it that complicated to set up?

Can I move the BigTree system from my local server to a live server without a problem?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 974

Re: BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

You said I can use your form builder. Does your CMS work well with Wufoo?

It's been a while since I've worked with Wufoo. If I remember correctly it uses Javascript embeds. It should be fine.

Can I enable users to edit the website using a front-end page editor like PageCloud?

No -- there's no in place editing, but there is a "Front End Editor" interface that users can use. When a user is logged into a site's admin area they'll have a BigTree toolbar. That bar has an "Edit Content" button that will pop up a dialog where they can quickly edit things and see the changes when they save. We find that in-place editing is a very cool technology but rarely lends itself well to complicated layouts.

Is it easier to learn how to use then Expression Engine? Learning new custom tags all over again, drives me nuts. I am still learning PHP/JS as I write this post.

I believe that the actual content administration for end users is much more user friendly than EE. As for building sites, developers are expected to be comfortable with PHP. For basic templates you really only need to understand how to echo variables and loop through arrays. For using module based data (i.e. News, Events) you should be comfortable with PHP classes.

Why is there a page on this site for downloading BigTree that says "speak with a developer." Is it that complicated to set up?

It's pretty easy to setup. You generally just need to know your MySQL credentials and BigTree will create the database for you (and install an example site if you'd like). Not sure which page you're referring to. Sometimes marketing stuff gets added into the site by other people on the team and I miss it, hah!

Can I move the BigTree system from my local server to a live server without a problem?

Yep! BigTree maintains "internal page links" when saving content. When you move a page or go from development -> live all of the links update automatically. All you really have to do is update your /custom/environment.php file to point to your production database and URL and you should be all set.

visconti

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: May 22, 2015

Posts: 27

Re: BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

@Tim, how fun is it to say YES to about every question he has . Another confirmation that bigtree is a great cms solution!

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 974

Re: BigTree able to support a large Small Group Church?

I actually built my old church's website on BigTree way back in the BigTree 3.0 days: http://www.lansdownealliance.org/
Thanks for the kind words!