One of the top content management system software applications available is eZ Publish, an application that earns our TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award. Some users might consider this intricate framework quite complicated, but the general consensus is that eZ Publish stands out due to a variety of unique features ranging from workflow management to heavily customizable features. If you want to create your own custom site on a solid framework, this CMS could be right for you.
This system lets you easily publish content such as files, photos and articles directly from your web browser using the Website Toolbar. When you log in, you will see the toolbar that gives you the option to publish, move, replace or even translate your content. This CMS takes a while to become familiar with and learn to use, but after spending a week or so, we felt it was indeed "eZ" to publish and use. The rich text editor is WYSIWYG, which means you don’t need to know any code to create text content.
We can see why this style of interface might seem foreign to users of Drupal, Joomla or similar CMS software – it looks different and doesn’t behave like a typical dashboard. However, if you want a CMS with flexibility and scalability, eZ Publish really does offer it all as far as the many elements we’ve reviewed here are concerned.
When it comes to built-in applications, if it's not included with the eZ Publish content management system, it’s available as a free add-on. Extensions, as they are called in this system, are numerous and easy to download from the developer’s site. From the Downloads page, you can browse through extensions that were created for each version of the eZ Publish application, ranging from the 4.5 BETA to older versions like 4.0.7. While the extensions are all ready for immediate download, we felt it was somewhat detrimental that clicking on each extension didn’t navigate us to a page that would describe what the extension did. Users don’t want to download something when they don’t know what it does. We could certainly guess what capabilities were offered through the “ezsurvey” extension, but we didn’t know what all of the features were without having to install them first.
Almost all the management elements in our side-by-side comparison are covered by eZ Publish – from content management to the workflow engine. You can upload many photos at once and store them in a gallery; the system automatically scales, formats and resizes photos according to their content type and destination. This is a huge timesaving feature.
The administration interface is comprehensive, offering content management and editing, site management, configuration, customization and development. Yet from the perspective of a typical user, this product has a steep learning curve. While the capabilities of this CMS are quite extensive, the peculiar layout and management tools made using it a slightly difficult experience.
Before creating content, a user or similar items, the software always asked us what language we wanted to use to create our site. After a while, this feature felt like it was getting in the way and would have been better suited as a simple setting that you could change from the editor screen. The content manager is curiously designed and requires some navigation in order to create an article. The buttons for adding or editing content are strangely set at the bottom of the screen rather than the top.
One feature that sets this product apart is its workflow engine. It has a built-in collaboration system that allows an administrator to pre-define a sequence of actions to be performed in a specific order after an object is published. After defining the actions, all objects will be pushed through this process prior to publishing.
All of the main security features typical to CMS software, in addition to sandbox testing, are available in eZ Publish. Sandbox testing is not often offered as part of the initial product, except in the case of this CMS software. We found this especially useful due to the level of coding freedom it allows through the interface.
From a usability standpoint, we felt eZ Publish was quite lacking. The learning curve associated with this application is somewhat high and we found ourselves frequently referring to user documentation in order to figure out how to perform a task. Apart from publishing content on your site like blog entries, most aspects of the software required some understanding of PHP, server configurations, and more.
When you click on the icon to add new content, it gives you a dropdown menu of numerous other options for content that can be created. After locating the option to create a new article, we had to select the native language it would be written in (for us the only option was English, though it still made us pick), and then we were navigated to the content creation screen.
Strangely enough, the publish button was located on the right-hand side of the screen and required us to scroll down another page length to find it. It simply felt like the layout and structure of eZ Publish was not designed with non-technical users in mind. Even though programming wasn’t required to fulfill the most basic of functions through this CMS, it still felt like this application is a CMS intended for programmers.
The eZ Publish content management system software offers full support, both online and off. If you can’t figure out the system on your own, try reading the online documentation and forums. The developers also offer commercial manuals, support and training if you’re looking to implement this system throughout your company.
eZ Publish offers a unique and expandable solution. Even though it has something of a high learning curve for non-technical users, if you have experience in web design then this software will be more suited to your needs. As a CMS, it fulfills multiple roles while still allowing you to expand its features. If you have a large company with a professional web developer, using eZ Publish CMS could be the best decision you ever make.
