The big six – the promised breakthrough in Quick.Cms
We had been eagerly awaiting this version of Quick.Cms for many reasons. OpenSolution had announced that its development would be spread out over time: not all add-ons would be available straight away, and some of the more advanced ones would appear in a version labelled EXT +. Following the January premiere of Quick.Cms EXT 6, a version has finally been released that delivers improved counterparts of all the features of version 5.5 and – a very pleasant surprise – a host of new functionality.
Good old scripts.
Until version 6 arrived, Quick.Cms was regarded as a CMS for small websites, business-card sites or, at most, medium-sized ones, partly because of its database, which consisted of flat files. The advantages of this solution, appreciated by many webmasters, were very low requirements, easy installation without any advanced configuration of the published scripts, and a simple, almost intuitive interface. Within a minute the script could be up and running anywhere that met what were probably the lowest hosting requirements of any CMS. The scripts were very cleanly written and modifying them was a real pleasure.
What has changed in the new version?
In my opinion, everything – and the consequences of these changes will be huge for both users and webmasters. Fortunately, most of these changes are extremely positive. To begin with, an enormous amount of effort has gone into the documentation. On the principle that whatever you cannot discover intuitively will certainly be in the documentation, detailed descriptions have been written for the configuration variables, most of which have been left in the config.php file, slimming down the admin panel. Each variable is also described with a link to the relevant line of the documentation, along with examples of possible and default parameters. Flat files have been replaced by an SQLite database, which allows for far more advanced functionality, achievable more simply than with flat files. The admin panel has a completely new layout – much more functional and, one might say, up to date. Add-on handling has been completely redesigned: once installed in a convenient panel, add-ons are now configured using widgets. Banners are now handled by the newly written Quick.Slider, which, thanks to its well-thought-out simplicity, runs stably and loads very quickly. The file structure is fairly similar to that of version 5.5, but there have been some significant changes, partly due to the different type of database. This version introduces page caching, rebuilt forms and HTML5, with a strong focus on widgets, which now not only add variety but also allow add-ons to be changed and configured. They make it possible to display lists of pages and content anywhere, on any subpage, and to embed features in content such as forms, menus, galleries, sliders and additional scripts. There is also an extensive TAGS add-on, ideal for running blogs. Managing the SQLite database itself makes it easy to modify content and settings quickly using tables and SQL commands.
What will the consequences of these changes be?
The consequences of the changes in the new version could be huge – and all of them positive. Building a website now takes at least twice as long. First you have to work your way through the extensive documentation. However, the end result you can achieve using this script to build a website is something quite different from what we could offer until now. Quick.Cms 6 EXT and the extended EXT 6 + version are still fast, but certainly no longer very simple. Even the developer describes it as a "versatile and easy-to-use content management system", and that is true. The simplicity of the earlier scripts has carried over into the admin panel, which is now even simpler and faster to use. The scripts are not noticeably slower on a small website, while on large ones they should undoubtedly outperform their predecessor. Either way, other solutions on the market are falling behind. The ability to build larger websites gives webmasters plenty of scope, allowing them to pursue more interesting and ambitious goals and to deliver higher-quality websites – and, consequently, greater satisfaction.
The new versions of Quick.Cms are a great option for those who no longer offer only small websites. In the future, developing at the pace we are seeing, these scripts may become a better alternative to solutions such as Joomla or WordPress, as users are increasingly aware and more and more often look for tools that are fast, stable, easy to modify and, above all, secure. We can certainly confirm that the breakthrough promised in the new version has arrived, and it is very promising.
Quick.Cms EXT 6 (PLN 449 net) and Quick.Cms EXT 6+ (PLN 599 net) are now available in our offer.
