Client Spotlight: Revolver Entertainment

Revolver Entertainment, a film distributor primarily operating in the UK/Ireland, recently launched their new site powered by Caribou CMS.  The website offers the Revolver films in DVD and BluRay format in an online store, has a members-only Press area, a streaming video section for trailers, and a news section all managed in one integrated Caribou control panel.  In this blog post, we'll examine how this site went from a default Caribou CMS installation to the massive, fully-customized site it is today.  This document can also serve as a guideline for completing any customization project with Caribou, whether you hire Caribou for professional services or do it yourself.

Step 1: Planning

The first step in any project is planning.  One must answer the questions:

• What do I want the site to do?
• Who do I want to use the site?
• How do I want the site to look?
• What is my timeline for releasing the site?
• What is my budget?

Revolver Entertainment wanted to update their old UK distribution site with a full-fledged online store, a complete database of film information and packshots (or boxshots, for North Americans), a members-only press area, a streaming film trailers section, and static HTML page management.

Their audiences were 1) the general public and, 2) film press (reviewers, critics, reporters, etc.) who want access to press-only images, trailers, and content.

With this information, we were able to figure out a reasonable budget and timeline and begin work on the project.

Step 2: Control Panel Modifications

The primary focus in any Content Management System is, well, content management.  So, we began this project by building the administration panel modules that will manage Revolver's new content types: films (cinema/DVD/BluRay), the Tom Recommend's section, the Highlights section, competitions, and the movie trailers and stills (a modification of the Files and Image Galleries components).

This process is a combination of programming for the control panel software as well as database modification for the backend.

Once we were satisfied with the way content could be managed in the backend (control panel), it was time to move on the frontend.

Step 3: Frontend Modules

Parts of the site were implemented as full-fledged modules.  Modules are accessible at /[modulename] and usually have unique templates associated with them that they output.  In this case, most modules included a listings function/template which outputted a listing of content (DVD's, BluRay releases, films, trailers, etc.) as well as an individual viewing function/template.  This functioned to show an individual piece of content within the module.

Furthermore, there were many content items or sections that needed to be included across the site.  Because these can be accessed in any module, it's best to create template plugins for these sections.  Then, when creating/editing a site template, you can just place code such as {recommendations limit="5"} to pull the latest 5 recommendation content items into a list.

Step 4: Templates

Once the frontend content was being displayed across the site properly, it's time to change the way the design looks.  With mainly CSS and JavaScript (more specifically, jQuery), the site was changed to both look and function beautifully.  It uses a variety of user interface elements that make browsing the site faster and more intuitive for the end user.

The entire site design is simply a modification of a standard Caribou theme.  This is possible because the Caribou themes are built for easy CSS modification.  Furthermore, every bit of HTML code is editable so if CSS isn't able to do everything you want or you need to add new content items/plugins into the templates, you can edit the HTML itself.

Step 5: Completion

After sufficient bug testing was done and all of the content was added into the site, it was ready for launch.  Visit Revolver Entertainment's new website to see the finished product!

Interested in starting your own Caribou-powered website?  Contact us with your project specifications and any questions you may have.

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