Making the OT CMS work like a spreadsheet

What Cesar would see: one grid of project rows, add a row, drop in a photo, type the caption, it is on the site. Tap Approve or Needs changes on each card, pick a chip on each decision, then Send my review at the bottom. Progress saves, so it is safe to close.

What happens when Cesar adds a project

TodayNothing. There is no login, no grid, and a new photo has to be added to the website code by Marathon.

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1. Opens the gridOne row per project. Photo, caption, category, order.

2. Adds a rowDrags the photo in, types the caption, picks the category.

3. SavesAlt text is required, so nothing ships without it.

4. LiveThe Our Builds gallery picks it up with no Marathon involvement.

What is already built, and what is not

Piece	State	What that means here
Sanity project and content	built	Project 71qwvtzw, production dataset, seeded. Every page's copy, the four project rows, build types, process steps and capabilities are already in it.
Project row fields	built	Caption, category, image, alt text, order. The right columns for a grid already exist.
An editor Cesar can log into	missing	The Studio code exists on my machine only. It is not deployed to any address and no client account exists.
Spreadsheet style grid	missing	Sanity's default screen is one document at a time, not rows. This is the specific thing you are asking for.
Photo upload	missing	The biggest blocker. Images are not uploaded, they are filenames pointing at files shipped inside the website. Cesar cannot add a project at all until this changes.
Edits reaching the live site	missing	The site reads content once, at build time. Nothing an editor saves appears until someone runs a build. There is also no production deployment yet, only the client preview.
Marathon photo library (Website Hub)	built	sites.marathonhq.app already uploads to Sanity, forces alt text, keeps tags separate from placements, drag reorders, soft deletes so a file is never destroyed, and logs every write. Live and proven on Metropolitan Builder.
OT registered in the Hub	missing	Nine sites are registered. OT Metal is not one of them yet. Adding it is small.

Tyler Custom Homes gets this feel for free because Wix hosts the collection, the upload and the live page in one product. Here those are three separate things, which is why this is four phases and not one.

The plan

PHASE 1

Photos become uploads, not filenames

Change the project row's image from a text filename to a real upload. Sanity stores the file and serves every size on demand, so the website stops shipping its own copies and Cesar never touches a file name.

Re-point the four existing project photos at uploaded copies, so nothing on the page changes.
Alt text stays required. A project with no alt text cannot be saved.
Nothing else about the site's look changes.

PHASE 2

The grid itself

One screen, one row per project, edit in place. Decision 1 below picks where it lives. My recommendation is the Website Hub, because it is already built, already enforces who may touch what, and keeps Cesar in the same place as the rest of his site work rather than giving him a second login.

Columns: photo, caption, category, order, live or hidden.
Add a row, drag to reorder, hide a project without deleting the photo.
Category is a fixed list, not free typing, so the gallery filters never drift.

PHASE 3

Saving actually changes the website

This is the part that makes it feel like Wix. Without it, a grid that saves and changes nothing is worse than no grid. Decision 2 picks the mechanism.

Either the site rebuilds itself when content changes, which takes a minute or two, or the gallery reads the project rows at page load, which is instant.
Either way Cesar gets a plain confirmation that it is live, not a silent save.

PHASE 4

The launch items already on record

Separate from the CMS work, but they gate handing anything to Cesar. All four are already written up in the project notes.

The contact form has no destination yet and refuses submissions on purpose.
No analytics installed, so launch traffic would be lost permanently.
Spam protection on the form waits until the form has somewhere to send to.
The domain needs one CNAME record from whoever holds OT's DNS. No mail records change.

Decisions I need from you

DECISION 1

Where does Cesar edit the rows?

DECISION 2

How does a saved row reach the live site?

DECISION 3

Does Cesar write the captions, or only upload?

Your standing rule is that a client uploads and tags photos and never edits site copy. A project caption sits right on that line: it is their portfolio, but it is also words on a live page.

DECISION 4

Do projects need their own pages?

Right now Our Builds is one gallery of photos with captions. There is no page per project.

Still open regardless of what you pick

Item	Who	Why it matters
Lead destination for the form	You	Leads belong to OT, so they must not land in Marathon's CRM location.
Real job names, cities, dates	Cesar	The four published captions describe only what is visible in the frame, because nothing else is verified.
More project photography	Cesar	Four usable photos is thin for a builder. The grid makes this his job rather than ours, which is the point.
One DNS record	OT's DNS holder	CNAME for www only. Mail records stay exactly as they are.