Exciting blog news from the creators of CushyCMS

Friday, 26 April 2013

April Updates!

Hello dedicated CushyCMS users! You may have already noticed changes to the site of late. We thought we'd make a list of the more interesting ones since our last update. Many have been on the site for a couple of weeks already:

  • File rename. This icon: is now visible next to each page in the CushyCMS Control Panel. Pro users may also give "rename" (and "delete") permissions to their Editors, including pages they create themselves (from now on) with the Clone tool. Also, it should be noted that renaming and deleting of pages *only* rename and delete inside of CushyCMS -- this will in no way affect your live site. Editors can not delete live pages, only the association of that page within Cushy.
  • Cushy will now (finally!) remember which sites in your Control Panel you had expanded and collapsed.
  • You can now add multiple pages at once. When adding a page, simply select as many files as you want from the list. Images and other non-html files are now removed from this list to make it easier to find your HTML files. When adding multiple pages, Cushy will do it's best to determine the name of each page to save you typing in many names. If you wish to change them, use the Rename button mentioned above after adding them.
  • Designers and editors can now message each other directly in the CMS. We don't intend on Cushy to become a full blown email client, since that wheel has already been invented. So things like attachments and subjects we felt were not required. We also limited each message to 1000 characters. You may like to use it for basic instructions (in case the system is not easy enough for Editors!). This message feature is currently "opt in". All existing users have the feature disabled. Go in to your Preferences and switch it on, and perhaps request your editors turn it on as well. New users will have it enabled by default.


  • The "publish queue", on the home page of the Control Panel, simply gives the user some feedback of how their Publish & subsequent file upload is going, and when they can expect it to be live. Confirmation and error messages will also appear here; if you or your client is experiencing issues, they can be more specific if they need to approach their Designer for help.


Lastly, I'd like to point out that most of these features came from our uservoice suggestion board. I'd really like to encourage everyone to have a look at it and make any suggestions you feel would improve your Cushy experience, or assign some votes to existing ideas that take your fancy!

In the mean time, happy Cushying to all, and a gentle reminder that there is still 4 days left on our EASTER2013 coupon for yearly pro at a heavily discounted rate.

Friday, 29 March 2013

Have a Happy Easter with coupon code EASTER2013

Happy Easter everyone!  Have an Easter discount on us: Yearly Pro subscriptions are USD$260 - that's 22% off (or 2½ months free) for both new AND existing Pro subscribers, when using Coupon Code "EASTER2013" upon signup.  Sign up / upgrade via www.cushycms.com/static/pro.

Please have a safe holiday (if you're lucky enough to get one), and spoil your family rotten with chocolate!


Not familiar with all the Pro plan has to offer?  Check out our spiffy comparison chart here:  http://www.cushycms.com/static/pricing.

Perhaps it's easier for tax purposes, or you just want to save some more in the long run, get on board -- sign up here:  www.cushycms.com/static/pro.

Important info:
  1. Make sure you're logged in to www.cushycms.com with your Designer account before re-subscribing at the Yearly rate.
  2. If you're already subscribed to the Monthly plan and want to upgrade, you can do this at any time (via the link above).

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Coupon code: XMAS2012 - one month of CushyCMS Pro FREE for new subscribers!

G’day CushyCMS blog readers,

Coupon code: XMAS2012 - one month of CushyCMS Pro FREE for new subscribers (expires Dec 31, 2012).

As a little holiday present for those who haven’t yet discovered the features and benefits of a CushyCMS Pro account, we’d like to give you one month free, with coupon code XMAS2012 upon signup before December 31st, 2012.  Simply place this coupon code in the field when signing up from http://cushycms.com/static/pro (and hey, if you don’t like it- you can cancel any time in that first month!).  Like to read a little more about CushyCMS Pro features?  Go here:  http://cushycms.com/static/pricing.

Want to monetize a CushyCMS Pro subscription? Read this great post from a long-term Cushy user, and gain recurring income by charging your own clients to use CushyCMS: http://blog.cushycms.com/2012/11/cushycms-pro-tip-passing-costs-along-to.html

Now that we’ve implemented this coupon code functionality- we look forward to offering rewards existing members too- stay tuned!

Have a very Cushy Xmas!
The CushyCMS.com team

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

CushyCMS Pro Tip: passing costs along to your clients

We all know that Designers are hurting for residual income.  A great tip for those thinking about CushyCMS Pro (and current subscribers too!) from Eric Lozaga of a 53 minute production - www.53mp.com:


"One thing I suggest if going Pro, is that you should be billing your clients monthly for the CMS. Depending on how many you have.. $2, $5, $10, etc.. if you get enough clients using it, you should theoretically be making a profit off of going Pro which you can use that money as part of site upkeep or maintenance. You can compare it this way to your clients: using Cushy will be $5 a month, going with a custom CMS built from scratch will be $300, integrating with a script like Wordpress will be $200 minus maintenance fees.

CushyCMS isn't a perfect fit for every website, but for basic sites it can be a real time and money saver. Don't foot the bill for Cushy, let your clients pay for it since they are the ones using it."


More info on CushyCMS Pro features can be found here: http://cushycms.com/static/pricing

Thursday, 25 October 2012

Logo design, coding problems, design inspiration & new fonts.


A quick round-up of interesting links that will be handy for Cushy users (and Designers in general!).

The Logo Design Process: The entire logo design process presented in infographic form.

Bountify.co: Stuck with a coding problem? Post it with a cash bounty and programmers solve it for you.

21 Clean Web Design Layouts via Web Design Ledger.

9 outstanding new (and free!) fonts also via Web Design Ledger.

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

CushyCMS introduces Yearly Pro Plan

Great news for those who would like to pay for CushyCMS at a (discounted!) yearly rate.

A feature requested a long time ago, and recently implemented: purchase 12 months of Cushy Pro for USD$294, saving you essentially 1½ months off a normal monthly subscription, and of course includes the full CushyCMS Pro experience and feature list.

Not familiar with all the Pro plan has to offer?  Check out our spiffy comparison chart here:  http://www.cushycms.com/static/pricing.

Perhaps it's easier for tax purposes, or you just want to save some more in the long run, get on board -- sign up here:  http://www.cushycms.com/static/pro.

Important info:
  1. Make sure you're logged in to www.cushycms.com with your Designer account before re-subscribing at the Yearly rate.
  2. If you're already subscribed to the Monthly plan and want to upgrade, you can do this at any time (via the link above).
Simon - CushyCMS

Thursday, 20 September 2012

CushyCMS server move and yearly Pro susbcriptions

G'day Cushy users!

Over the past few days, we've migrated the CushyCMS website to new host Linode.  There were several reasons for this:

1)  Our previous host MediaTemple, while quite reliable, had become somewhat draconian with their 5 year old operating system, lack of hardware upgrade options and outright blocking of traffic between Cushy and many other domains, a majority of which were hosted in the UK.  We'd have to petition them any time we wanted a site unblocked, which is not ideal when we want users to be able to edit their sites immediately.

2)  This change made it easy for us to upgrade a few things before we moved the site across: the databases, operating system, web server, programming language versions and so forth.  This will make it much easier for us to start rolling out awesome feature upgrades for Cushy as we won't be hampered by legacy software.

As expected, there were a few issues in the hours immediately afterwards; mostly in regards to memory allocation on the server, Cushy Pro users whom had whitelisted the old Cushy IP address for their custom Pro subdomains and not updated it to the new one yet, and who could forget the weird connection problems to the iPage and iPower web hosts.  These should now be behind us, but please get in touch with us via the Support page if you have any questions.

Now that this is behind us, we can concentrate on planned feature upgrades for Cushy.  Before that though, we are about to introduce a yearly Pro subscription.  More info in our next blog post :)

Simon - CushyCMS