Getting Started

What is fCMSPro?

fCMSPro (Flash Content Management System Professional) is set of Adobe Flash components that allows Flash designers and developers to create Flash websites that use content stored in a database. Websites that are created using these components, can be updated directly on a live Flash Web site by simply loading the site in a browser, logging in and editing.

How fCMSPro works

The fCMSPro components connect to the database to store and retrieve content. The fCMSBackend application runs on the web server, allowing communication between Flash and a mySQL database. The fCMSBackend application is written in PHP and packed together with components.

About 'Documents'

The basic building structure of fCMSPro websites is a document. The documents are used to present information. For example, a document can be a news article consisting of a news title, news text and the date of publishing. Alternatively, a document can be a song which would include the display of the song title, the author's name and an mp3 file to play. A document can also consist of an image with a description.

It is possible to have an unlimited number of documents. Every existing document is defined by the following:

id - a unique number that is created automatically when a new document is stored (it is not possible to have two documents with the same id number).
document type - name of the type used to group documents with same structure
creation date - date and time when the document is first created
modification date - date and time when the document is modified
fields - basic building block of the document

About 'Fields'

Fields are parts of the document where the content is stored. There are different types of fields for different types of content (text, number, date, file etc) The number of fields defined inside the document is unlimited.
The fCMSBackend retrieves a query from Flash and returns the related content from the database. The queries for standard requests are already built into the fCMSPro's components. You can construct your own custom queries using the fCMSPro Application Programming Interface (API).

About 'Groups'

The fCMSPro components can be divided in groups:

fMaster component (used as a connector for all components)

Query components (communicate with the fCMSBackend by sending queries and retrieving data)

fTemplate - displays documents one by one, or defines document types

fIndex - displays a list (index) of documents

Field components (used for both presentation and administration of content and controlled by the fTemplate component)

fString - defines text content
fText - defines rich text content
fNumber - defines number content
fDate - defines date
fFile - defines file
fImage - defines image

Document relation components (used for creating relations between documents)

fTag - allows tagging of documents (tags are a special kind of document)
fRelated - allows creation of relations between documents

Helper components

fMenu - navigation component that can use tags or other documents as a source
fPaging - used for paging of content within fTemplate, fIndex or fText

Different ways of presenting content

When planning a fCMSPro powered website, it is important to distinguish between 3 ways of presenting the content. These differences are similar to what is called 'static' and 'dynamic' content in HTML based websites, but differ in fCMSPro.

Banners, front-page only elements, section titles, etc.
This type of content is standalone without the need to be sorted or compared with other content.
When any Field component is not a part of a movieclip targeted by fTemplate component, it will automatically have the 'document type' named '_STATIC' assigned. This is a special document type that contains only one document. As other documents, the number of fields contained is unlimited as long as you name them differently. The limitation is that this content cannot be searched and it is not displayed in the HTML presentation of the fCMSPro website.
Standalone documents with same structure (for example "Company History", or "Mission Statement" or "Contact Information")
By setting 'allowNewDocument' property of fTemplate to 'false', we can limit the number of documents for a certain document type to the number of documents already stored inside the database. This way, administrators will only be able to edit existing documents of that document type (without the ability to add new ones).
Dynamic, sequentially added content that can be sorted, grouped or tagged
By allowing administrators to add new content, a website can be constantly updated with new documents.

The second and third solutions are almost the same, however, by disallowing administrators to add new documents, we can be sure that certain documents will always exist, therefore we can create static navigation for these documents.

Examples

Here are a few real life examples:

A common use for _STATIC content are static banners. There is no need to have them as part of a document or to include them in search results. For example, place the fImage component where your banner will be and set the 'field' parameter to something like 'myBanner'.
Common information such as "Company History", "Mission Statement", "FAQ", "About Us", etc. can be presented with the same structure, by displaying the section title and rich text content. Create a movieclip containing an fString for 'title' field and fText for 'content' field. Target that movieclip with the fTemplate component and set its documentType to 'common'. Then create a new document for each one by only inputting the title of the section. After that, set the 'allowNewDocument' parameter of fTemplate to 'false', administrators will only have the ability to edit existing documents. Then you can build a static navigation for those pages by sending a query like this: Fetch document of documentType="common" where title="History". To be sure that the title is not changed (so that the query will work), set the 'editable' parameter of fString to false.
A good example for dynamic content are news, where you need to allow the addition of new documents. There, you will want to be able to build queries that will return news created on certain date, from certain author, etc.

The solutions described above are only recommendations. The flexibility of fCMSPro allows you to do things in many different ways, depending on your needs.

Reserved Words

Special fCMSPro document types always begin with the underscore sign "_". Please avoid naming document types with words starting with underscore.

What to read next?

Beginners should read the First Run Tutorial. Advanced users can jump to the Basic Tutorial.