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Prismic.io: a developer-focused approach to content management (prismic.io)
57 points by mrspeaker on Oct 3, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 31 comments


Ok we're seeing these ones popping up quickly these days (osmek.com) here's my thoughts,

Short: not bad!

Long:

What we need here is not osmek or prismic or insert-random-new-thing, but it is a sane interface.

If you think you are good go solve that problem.

The whole point (mostly) of these services is to decouple content from presentation yet when every new service designs their own revolutionary API you just end up tying yourself to that specific provider.

The major problem is to get people to agree on the same thing of course.

But if that does happen then imagine the kinds of freedom it will bring to you.

A very simplistic one could be defining standard JSON objects and then building a CMS that works with those objects, then allow people to bring their own data.


That video is unbearable and my brain intervened within 30 seconds and I found myself browsing another site.

Is there any textual info on this anywhere or do I have to force myself to watch that video?


There's some here https://prismic.io/tour/writing-room

I also find the recent trend of introducing things via videos, often with no text alternative, massively irritating.

Particularly when it's something developer-centric and code-related. Do you really think I'm illiterate? That I am browsing with sound on? That I want to sit through minutes of marketing guff waiting for you to get to the point? You can't skim-read a video.


I agree: the talking head against a white background is overdone.

That said, I've always thought this is a product/project opportunity: the reason most startups rely on talking head videos is because anything else gets more costly and time consuming. Making it easier to produce a product demo would be a huge help.

Edit: cleaned up grammar. I can has words.


Hi guys,

Worth noting that prismic.io is created by the same creators of the http://playframework.org


Whoever decided to play that music at that volume over the entire video needs to have their computer taken away.

Overall, from the marketing, that's all I can smell here, marketing. If this is targeting developers, there is a major branding error all over the site.


Compare with http://osmek.com/ which was also recently submitted to Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6481766


"Is it compatible with my project?

Yes, it is. As long as you do things right on your app, (...)"

um, so that's probably a no. I prefer technical description of a product than marketing nonsense. Also, I'm not going to watch your marketing video to find out what it is.


Yep sorry... falls under "english fail", which we're working on, promise. This first release is kind of marketing-y in nature - but we are putting together some articles on the architecture, technical decisions, and some of the technical features (like crazy-amazing diffs of structured documents) that will hopefully be more relevant to your interests.


I look forward to it then, thanks.


if you want to introduce a product, please, please supply a working demo, and not some bad video full of marketing. _especially_ if you're targeting developers.


Fully working example in different programming languages on github https://developers.prismic.io/examples/UjBmm8uvzeMJvE5V/les-...


FWIW, the fonts on the example site don't render correctly on Chrome 29 on Windows 7 and look like crap.

When will people start testing fonts on windows and not just go with whatever looks good on a mac?!


The video looks more like a parody than a serious video...


I definitely can get behind the statement of intent that the 'content' part of a CMS needs to be managed better.

Unfortuantely, I think it's only one of the problem areas that cause developers to constantly reinvent the wheel when it comes to CMSs to fit their own needs.


I think the solution is just layers on top of Django, Rails etc.

Django's admin is a pointer towards a solution and with some refinement that solves part of the problem.

Easy-to-use modular objects that are geared towards typical content types helps another aspect of it.

And some mix of http://startbootstrap.com/ with http://bootsnipp.com/ would tackle a third part of this.

So - essentially we don't need a CMS - we need a CMS toolkit that enables building a custom CMS with a minimal amount of glue code.


For anyone researching about making a better CMS, this is the single best blog I have followed for years: http://gadgetopia.com/cm


Very slick site. Noticed some typos, that probably arose from fr to en conversion.

https://prismic.io/pricing => Should be "Gb of storage", not "Go of storage".

https://prismic.io/tour/writing-room => "Additional informations" (in the screenshot for the structured editing section) should be "Additional information".


Thanks for the heads-up. Like all good start-ups, everything was put together at speed: the final FR->EN conversion is a current WIP and will be getting some love shortly!


Should probably be "GB" of storage. Are they talking about bytes or bits?


I have been developing a product unrelated to yours (I think at least, the video wont play because of all the traffic you're getting and your site really does not explain it too well) and I had thought prism was a good base for a name also, but then the whole NSA thing happened and I promptly switched the name.

Definitely not trying to be a jerk, but I'm wondering if these guys are concerned about this at all?


The video is hosted at vimeo, I don't see why you think it's related to the traffic these guys are getting.

It plays just fine for me.


You're right, it could have been for any reason. Anyway, it didn't work at the time for me but now it does.


Another gray font on gray background website. I think I'll just give up and order a new monitor. I can't read all these new fancy websites. I get it that developers have usually good monitors, but is it really necessary to use a light gray on a gray background?

Edit: Hold your downvotes, I'm talking about the website. Not the blog! The website does have some hard to read gray-on-gray.


I was curious about this.

The grey on white has a ratio[1] of 8.6:1 which should be perfectly fine.

The footer, light blue on dark blue, has a ratio of 3.8:1 which fails WCAG.

I can read both fairly easily. Contrast ratio maybe not a good measure?

[1]: http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/


Thanks for the link and research. Some of the text is #acb2b6 which is really difficult for me to read. It's not like this website is particularly bad. I've hold back on commenting before but I guess I just felt like ranting today.


Content management in the modern world = i18n focus = translation service provider integration + test hooks for proof reading + translation memory + (for high value releases such as intial marketing push to new culture/language) potential focus group process hooks

There is absolutely no way any of these US-centric startups are doing this stuff right. No way.


What tools are used to make the main prismic.io page?

I've been seeing tons of new-ish sites with the scroll down structure where it's like there are multiple viewing frames stacked vertically. Is this because everyone is using the same toolset/template?


A "developer-focused" approach seems like overkill for most sites, but I could see it finding a home in large institutions (universities, companies, etc) that have dedicated development teams.


So is Prismic.io a database as a web service? With a focus on storing content?


His hair is unnervingly tall




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