SiteTree-less Sites

or:
How I learned to stop
worrying and love ModelAdmin

Who Are You?

Stevie Mayhew
Technical Director @ Little Giant

stevie.mayhew@littlegiant.co.nz

Why ditch the site tree?

• Complicated for simple solutions
• Large administration cost for clients
  • Clients are excited to click every button
    • everywhere
    • all the time
• Training is hard and expensive
  • Videos
  • Images
  • In person

What else then?

MODEL ADMIN

Types of Model Admin

• Data Object
• Single Page
• Catalog Page

Options?

• Versioned Gridfield (https://github.com/icecaster/silverstripe-versioned-gridfield)
• Gridfield Pages (https://github.com/micschk/silverstripe-gridfieldpages)
• Lumberjack (https://github.com/micmania1/silverstripe-lumberjack)
• Catalog Manager (https://github.com/Little-Giant/silverstripe-catalogmanager)
• Single Page Admin (https://github.com/Little-Giant/silverstripe-singlepageadmin)

Our Method

• Catalog Manager
• Single Page Admin
• Custom LeftAndMain Member Admin
• Lots of DataObject Admins
• Secret Sauce (GroupedCMSMenu)

Configuration

Can be simple.

Or not

(continued)

CMS Menu

Catalog Manager

Catalog Manager

Single Page Admin

Pitfalls

• Not as fine tuned control
  • Solution: developers need to be smarter, IA needs to be better
• Expansive sites with lots of custom routes harder to achieve
  • Solution: developers need to be smarter, IA needs to be better
• Clients contact you less
  • Bonus: love your clients

Benefits

• Easier to manage large catalogs (products, blogs, etc)
• Site structure cannot be messed with by clients (or account managers)
• More money to spend on cool stuff (because clients love you)
• Minimize risk

THE END

Thanks for listening. Here's a picture of a beautiful rabbit.

Questions?