In general I am a EE lover so I hope all of this is possible to make.
I have just sold a site to a travelling agency specialised in south-africa.

To make it all real I would really really love to use EE because its so flexible.
I have allready made a couple of relatively simple websites with it but they want all kind of things I am not sure of if its possible with EE.

-Two languages.
Is that doable without having to create two templates for every page?

-Have them to add pages themselves and give it a location in the menu.

-The editor in EE seems a little difficult to use for end users. So I always implement TinyMce. But it doesn’t quite work well in my opinion. It always appears different when published for some reason. Like missing enters, or to big enters. Enz enz. Is that something that can be solved easily?

-After filling out a contact form they want the website to automaticly send information in PDF format. There will be about four different ones and based on a pull down menu one is sent.

Ok, thats about what I am worried about I think.

Is all of this possible?

Thanks

Two languages is no problem- I’m working on one with 10+.  Take a look at the multi-language section of the wiki for some approaches.

Adding entries is no problem- either via cp access or the standalone entry form- depends on your preferences.  I’m not sure about ‘give it a location in the menu’- I personally try to automate that via categories- but there’s also the pages module and some plugins to create navigation out of that.  And there’s a third party navigator module I haven’t played with.  In short- I suspect the answer is probably ‘yes’- but it’s really going to depend on the needs/setup.

I’m not a big fan of WYSIWYG editors because- well, they tend to do exactly what you describe.  You could try a different editor- see wiki, but tinyMCE seems as good as any.  You might try limiting the options you give them- thus limiting the damage they can do.  You might also look at this cleaner plugin, as it might help.  The other option is to not use a WYSIWYG editor- go with textile, something along those lines.  But sounds like your clients like them- so limiting what they can do with one and attempting to clean the output may be the best option.

Now- the pdf thing- that’s the only bit that I see needing some custom code.  Maybe.  Probably not a killer- I’d probably poke at Solspace’s ‘Freeform’ module- use it for the contact.  There are hooks in there- and IF you could tap into it, could do a check on one or more of the fields and route it to an email template that attaches the proper pdf.  Would still take some custom work- but the basics are all there- the form, the email templates that can be sent to the person who filled out the form- the hooks to tap in.  I think it would be doable- but you’d need some php to manage it.

That help?

Hey great! Thanks for the fast reply!

I will check out the multi-language section. I already am convinced this is no problem then.

About the menu’s issue. I have heard about the pages module. But i don’t know how to have the enduser pick a location. I will have to dive in to this.

It’s not so much my clients would like to have a WYSIWYG editor, but they are not very familiar with computers and the internet. So I want to deliver a product that is as user friendly as possible. Especially when they want to ad a page themselves they want to ad pictures and tables or something and be able to resize them. I think there is not other way but a WYSIWYG editor or Html. Or am I wrong? They don’t know a lot about computers but they do know MS Word. And I think a WYSIWYG editor is most similar to that. I will most certainly check out what the cleaner plugin can do. And limiting them sounds like a good idea. Thanks!

I am not afraid of a little custom coding for the form. I will look into the suggestions you have made.

I have forgotten one issue that is also very important to them.
They want to be able to send e-mailings to people that subscribe to it. I know EE has a mailing module but they want to be able to add pictures, links and all kind of stuff you expect in a e-mailing in HTML format. Lately I have been playing with the mailing module but found the template fairly limited. Is there a way to have them make mailings with pictures, text links and different articles?

Somebody please?

This might help you -

http://leevigraham.com/cms-customisation/expressionengine/lg-multi-language/

By coincidence I ran into that this afternoon. I will most certainly check it out! Thanks.

Is there somebody that can answer my mailing question please?

Hi, Sanity - sorry about that!

They want to be able to send e-mailings to people that subscribe to it. I know EE has a mailing module but they want to be able to add pictures, links and all kind of stuff you expect in a e-mailing in HTML format. Lately I have been playing with the mailing module but found the template fairly limited. Is there a way to have them make mailings with pictures, text links and different articles?

You can include images and format your text however you want.  Including weblog entries and the would require a custom add on, though here are feature requests for that.  You could easily create a template to output what you want then paste the rendered information into the mailing list template, though. =)

Hi Lisa. Thanks for this reply! By all means I didn’t mean it in a negative way , I just wanted to keep the forum alive so someone would see it.
Good to read all of this is possible. It seems EE can do everything I need for the site. I think I will use this project to enhance my EE skills and work a little longer on it then planned. That’s good for my client also. Middle March the project starts. Then I will be buying another license. Next week I have another project where I will be buying a license for. I also promised them to have it possible to add pages and give it a place in the menu. Maybe I can use that project to try it. Thanks for the support!!!

Is there somebody that has a good solution for the text editing thing? There must be more peolple that have clients that are allergic to anything that looks like html? For them, looking at a simple image tag has the same complexity as looking at the EE source code… if you get what I mean.
At this moment they have a program that is called Netsite factory. The software doesn’t fit their needs but it works with a WYSIWIG editor the seems to work for them. I don’t want to give them the feeling they are moving one step backwards with editing their pages. I rather give them the feeling they have made a huge jump forward. Or am I wrong about the standard editor in EE?

You can find a list of WYSIWYG options here.  The other option is to use a Desktop Blogging Client to write articles in local software. Those work with the Metaweblog API to post into EE.

I still can’t seen to find any reliable way to generate PDFs from pages/entries. Any progress on this front? New 3rd party plugins perhaps?

I’m not aware of a plugin of the sort that has been released, tikistyle.  Others may be, though.  You could certainly develop one, or hire someone to develop it for you.

If I have followed this correctly then I would also mention taking a look at the excellent Multiple Newsletters extension. This will allow you to send any of your templates as a newsletter, pretty sure it will work with full URLs to entries too so that you can send exactly what you seen on a web page via an e-mail. You will obviously still need to pay attention to formatting for e-mail clients though but hopefully that should help a bit.

Best wishes,

Mark