Welcome to the home of novella, the content management system that was built from the ground up to help developers give their clients the ability to update their content without any technical knowledge.

Novella is easy to setup, use, and, most importantly, completely free. It is built for the .NET 2.0 framework and uses SQL Server 2005 Express (both free) as its database. The software is free to use, extend, and customize for both personal and commercial use. I hope that you find the software to be useful and simple to implement with your clients.

To learn more, or to get your hands dirty feel free to click on any of the tabs below. I also write about the ins and outs of novella on my blog creativeUI.com.

Does the world need another Content Management System? The answer is yes, and here is why...simplicity.

There is an easier way.

The other CMS software packages that are out there are great if you have a technical mind and like to wade through page after page of options and doodads. The problem is that most clients that web developers run into are not technically minded at all and think that computers run some form of voodoo (course...if they didn't, then they probably wouldn't have hired the developer in the first place) . Clients want to manage their content as easily as they write an email.

Another problem is that most CMS packages require you as the designer/developer to "build a template" and jump through hoops in order for things to look just the way you want it to. A better way is to design the site without worrying about the CMS system behind it. Imagine the scenario where the client wants to have a blob of updatable text above his product catalogue. This would be an absolute nightmare with most CMS apps. With simpleCMS you can put the content wherever you want it.

Novella was built out of necessity. Over the years, as I was building sites for Visionary Online I found that I was "reinventing the wheel" over and over again. Clients would want a fancy design with all sorts of custom animations and such and still want updatable content so I would end up building yet another CMS. A few months ago I decided that enough was enough and began to consolidate the functionality I had built before and bring it all together in a simple and friendly package. The end result is what built this very page...

Everything you need...nothin' you don't.

Here are some features:

• Unbeatable Flexibilty: With most CMS packages it becomes the website. When you design your site you have to take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of your CMS rather than just building the site that you want. Novella is the opposite. Design your site however you want and then place the content wherever you want.
• Developer control: Other CMS software has two levels of users: Admin and Contributor. Novella adds a third, Developer. The developer is the person who is building the site so they have ultimate control as to how the content is used. They get to decide what the admins can and can't do, such as being able to add new pages or users.
• CSS Zen Garden-esque: I am a big fan of CSS Zen Garden, and I am not ashamed to admit that I used their style of CSS as a foundation for this tool. The administration side of novella was designed to be completely customizable using only CSS. There is no formatting in the markup so you as the developer have complete control if you need to rebrand or customize the tool in any way.
• The basics: Adding, updating, deleting content...autosaving...uploading files...rich text editing. All the standard stuff that clients need to use and maintain the site is here and easy to use.
• All .NET: Microsoft's .NET platform is kind of the red headed stepchild of the open source world. In the past this made sense because all of the tools were very expensive. Nowadays the big gorilla releases a lot of their development software completely free. As a way to encourage the .NETers out there, I built this tool using ASP.NET 3.5 (there is also a version that works with 2.0) with Ajax, C#, and SQL Server 2005 Express.

So there you have it...simple and easy. That is kind of my motto...

Ready to give it a whirl? Click on the download tab below and get the latest version and install documents.

If you need some help getting up and running, the best thing to do is download the help and setup file (.NET 3.5, .NET 2.0 or 3.0). This should get you up and running.

Soon I will be adding forums to the DevMade.com site for people to ask questions and stuff, but for now if you need help feel free to email me at david at visionaryonline dot com.