Review: Day Software’s CQ5 WCM

Several gray hairs and “at least an honorary CQ5 developer certification” 😉 graciously extended to me by Day later — I am happy to share my thoughts on Day’s new WCM product version.

Overall, it’s fine. When the Almighty was giving out patience, I was the last one in line. And you need a lot of that patience thing when installing and working with CQ5. It is buggy, it is slow, it is not extremely intuitive and it takes time to iron things out — those things that are supposed to be accomplished with a “single click.”

Top 5 Things I like about CQ5

1. GUI — it is nice and clean. Very airy, sleek and open. Not that AJAX is any new, Day did a good job with the new interface.
2. DAM and Web 2.0 aspects
3. Inline editing with drag-and-drop and Sidekick
4. The idea of a Quickstart file, esp. as it applies to backup, recovery and customer support hassles
5. Day’s CQ5 WCM entire technology stack. Many Stone-Age-stuck CMS competitors (and their developers) will be jealous 😉

 Top 5 Things I Dislike About CQ5

1. GUI — and new browser windows, lots of them. Every single breath you take in CQ5 (or even an intention of such) results either in multiple pop-ups or new windows. Depending on which mode you’re working in, you are doomed to (sooner or later) be buried under a massive amount of browser windows. Not good. That’s why God invented tabs and other clever ways of designing GUI’s.
2. Until things change, you will not be able to install CQ5 without customer support holding your hand, which can be true with any WCM system. I was lucky to have some help, but, gee, was the process far from how it is described in the documentation. BUT, it was in fact the fastest WCM installation I have ever seen.
3. Speaking of the devil… Documentation. I’ve suffered through much poorly-written WCM documentation. Compared to competition,  Day does a decent job. However, given the fact that the entire software package ships in a single executable .jar file, it is kinda silly to overburden it with duplicate documents in two formats: HTML and PDF. As far as I am concerned, HTML belongs on the Web. Downsize the docs, the new product is overwhelming as it is. 
4. Workflow design and user management are a tad convoluted. Yes, you don’t need to design it in Visio or Eclipse and, supposedly, any business user can design a workflow; but it is so granular, yet flexible, it is almost unusable. I like the AND and OR split functions though. User management imho should be less willy-nilly with more structure, thought and BPM rules behind it.
5. The fact that I didn’t have more time to play with CQ5 before publishing this review.

In general, my initial excitement about CQ5 has paid off. It is much fun exploring new product versions. Esp., when you get a chance to play many user roles from sys admin to end user. Thanks to Day and, esp., to Cochrane for taking me along for the ride. It’s an admirable move for any CMS vendor to allow this type of media access to a hot-off-the-press build. 

Full article on CMSwire: Day Software’s New CQ5 Web CMS Has Arrived [WARNING: This is about the longest darn thing I’ve written since my Master’s degree thesis, stock up on snacks 😉 ]