Official Launch of New Website Features

With the upgrade to our latest version of WMS Software, version 3.0.1, we can now implement additional addons including the new blog module! WMS has been an ongoing project at our studio for about 5 years now to allow designers who are not very experienced in PHP to be able to launch their own dynamic website and focus their attention on what they do best - Design websites.

What is WMS?

This software makes it easy to create and launch new dynamic pages in easy to follow blocks of code. Let's look at an example of how simple it is to create a page and load dynamic content into your templates following these easy steps!

1. Obviously you need to setup a copy of WMS on your web server. You can download a copy (when it's available) of the latest version right here at www.directwebsolutions.ca/wms.
2. Create a new script, well make one called demo.php.
3. Sign in to your admin / editor portal.
4. Create a new page object and load the template files into it.
5. Edit demo.php and load the global.php file, create an object, and inject some variables
6. Render the page object.

That's all it takes and you have a PHP engine running behind your static website - creating dynamic content doesn't get much easier than this. It also means you can convert your previously static website to add some cool features like user authentication, contact scripts, blogs, and more (or less) as you see fit. The expansion and release of our software will allow us to develop customer websites much quicker and gives you more control of your website after the fact without needing us to do it for you — if you don't want to that is.

Here's an example of creating a page and injecting a language specific Hello World onto the page — Did we mention this new version has multiple language support? Because it does!

<?php
// This is the code you place into demo.php
include_once("global.php");
$wms->template->create_headers();
$page_object_id = "website_index";
$wms->template->create_page_object($page_object_id);
$wms->template->prepare_object($page_object_id);
$wms->template->inject_variables("main", array($wms->language->userdefined->hello_world), "html");
$wms->template->cleanup_variables();
$wms->template->render_object($page_object_id);
$wms->close();

And that's all it takes. Behind the scenes, our templating engine is reading and storing the HTML or SQL versions of your templates, which makes them easier to edit and manage, and injecting content into the page using numbered variables, denoted with {variable:#} to show the dynamic content you want.

What does this mean for DWS?

Obviously this is a big upgrade for us and our customers but just what was added and why do you care? One big reason to be excited is we now have full support for user accounts including an upgraded login system that supports logging in with Google using one click. If you have an existing customer account you can also link your Google account and save having to remember your login details for multiple systems.

We have upgraded our contact system to allow users to select the department they are looking for — This should get you a quicker response from a team member who actually works in the department you are trying to reach and improve our customer wait time. The upgrade of the contact system includes and upcoming support system as well where you will be able to reply directly with your support agent without ever having to leave our website. Pretty fancy stuff!

Non-English speaking users will now have an easier time browsing our website, as well as any customer running WMS, with the new multiple language support option. You will have to do some work to support this feature beyond what comes out of the box as we currently include French, German and English options of our default content but ongoing content will need to be created by you. Not to worry - The language files are easy to use and understand we promise.

Developing all of these things doesn't just benefit us though. Because we have built them (and our own website) using WMS Software, we can now pass these services on to our customers (That means you!) without having to rebuild the wheel every time we launch a website now. This is the main benefit of building our systems in a modular way in that we can release smaller addon packages to extend software as you want and reduce costs. Want a single page website with just a contact page? Easy. Want to add a photo gallery? Just import the addon. Blog? Addon. It's an exciting time to get into the online market.

With the launch of the new website engine and features we are releasing, we are one step closer to our online store being relaunched as well. From here you will be able to purchase and review products we offer such as Cellphone Boosters, Link Systems, and more. Remember to keep an eye out on the store webpage to see when that launches — Well be sure to post a blog post as well.

Thanks for reading and have a good one! Remember to share your comments on our Facebook or Twitter pages to give us feedback on our products to continue improving. There will be a comment section released on the website shortly as well, it's just not quite ready for eyes yet!