New in cuTheme
CCMS vs cuTheme
With the update to cuTheme you can expect changes to the look, feel, and functionality of your sites. Here is a look at the major differences and tips to help you transition from CCMS to cuTheme..
1. Content Blocks
Likely the biggest change that you will notice is content blocks.
Whereas ccms had one area where you pul all of your content, cuTheme uses multiple content blocks to build a page. There are paragraph blocks, image blocks, banner blocks, listing blocks, and much more. There is basically a “block” for each kind of content you want to display on your web pages.
As a whole, the blocks provide a lot more flexibility. It is a change in how you think about building your pages but we think you will love the new options. We will be going into great detail about blocks and how to use them in training.
2. Flexible Home Pages
cuTheme gives you a ton more flexibility when it comes to the design of your home page. You can build your homepages using any combination of blocks – the sky is the limit! Use page banners, headings, columns, images, and more.
3. Top Menu
With cuTheme, we have moved to a top-of-page navigation menu.
Here are some of the benefits:
- Creates consistent user experience across the Carleton domain.
- Allows the use of the entire width of the screen for content (more real estate)
- Makes for a better mobile experience (simplified, limited number of top items)
- Becoming industry standard across the web
- Simplifies our template. This streamlines development and creates more capacity to work on community-requested features (cool things for you!)
We know this may be a big change and we are happy to help you work on your menu structure to fit this format. Have a look at the following for tips:
- Menu Magic: Create a Great User Experience
- What’s on the Menu? Tips for Building Effective Website Navigation
Video Tutorial
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Hello and welcome to our introductory module in cuTheme. In this video I’m going to go over some of the main differences between our older themes such as CCMS and Framework, and this latest version called cuTheme.
The three biggest changes that you will notice are the use of content blocks, flexible homepages, and the move to a top navigation. I’ll go over each of these at a high level in this video and throughout the training we’re going to go into them in great detail.
First up is content blocks. This is probably the biggest change that you’ll notice. In our older templates you have just one content area to work in.
For example, here’s a page on our CCMS website and in here you’ll notice that there’s just one content area. You put your headings, your paragraph text, images, and everything all in one area.
Whereas cuTheme is a block-based system where you use a variety of blocks to build a page. If we look in the backend of this page in cuTheme, you’ll note that each area is a different block.
For example, this is an image and text block, or text and image block. Underneath we have a heading block and then here, this is called a list block. It’s a big change from the way we’re used to adding content in WordPress but once you get used to it we think you’ll find that blocks provide you with a lot more flexibility in designing your pages.
Which brings me to our next point and that’s the flexibility that you now have on your homepage. In cuTheme so you can build your pages using a combination of any blocks. Whereas before in CCMS you were limited to the blocks that we designated for the homepage, in cuTheme you can basically use any type of block to build your homepage.
You can use combinations of blocks – page banners, headings, columns, images and more. Really the sky the limit. But there are a few common elements and things to keep in mind.
For example, you want to make sure that you have a little bit of an introductory paragraph so that both Google and your visitors know what your site is all about. We also recommend that you have some kind of call to action so your visitors know what to do on your home page.
It’s a good idea to sort of organize your information in a hierarchy – use headings use subheadings, images and white space to guide your reader through the content on your homepage. And in the same vein make sure to refresh these images once in a while so that it’s current and it keeps your site from looking stale and dated.
And the final big change that you’ll notice in cuTheme is the move to the top navigation menu. Before, in CCMS, we had a side navigation menu and framework had a top navigation menu. But in cuTheme everyone will be using a top navigation menu.
This has become standard across the internet and the aim is to make for a more consistent user experience across all of Carleton websites. The top nav lets you use the entire width for formatting so you’ll notice you have a lot more real estate to add your content.
And you can see that the menu goes three levels deep. Here we have the top level – getting started, then editing essentials and logging in.
This change May mean that you have to rethink your top-level navigation if it’s particularly long. We’re happy to help out with that. If you need help reorganizing your menu, please feel free to get in touch with us in Web Services.