Content Management Systems

Today’s lesson is going to focus on content management systems, or as more commonly know CMS systems.  What they are basically is a database and a collection of code that makes a website.  Many times people will do a regular website in the traditional manor, and then want some sort of forum or blog added to their site.  Typically they would all act independantly of each other, a blog, a website, and say a forum, all separate, but in a content management system it is all part of the same system that controls it all.  More often than not you will see a hybrid; this site for example is a combination of a content management system and a forum.

Most CMS’s have a built in forum you can use or a built in blog which is what makes them great, it is just when you grow, as this site has you might want something separate for some reason or another.  It is best to focus on what happens most of the time as opposed to what happens some of the time.  Now that you are totally confused, on with the lesson!

Some CMS’s systems you might be familiar with are Drupal, Joomla, and some might say wordpress although it is more of a blogging software than anything.  What makes these names more popular than the rest is the fact that they are open source, what that means is they are free to the public, and these two in particular have a large devoloper following that are always releasing new add ons and interesting upgrades that are more often than not also free.  While some add ons cost a bit of cash, they are often quite advanced and well worth the cash.

It is also worth noting that not all CMS’s are free, many of them are for sale, and many of them are custom made for a specific purpose.  For example, when you have a large amount of people with the same online needs like say dealerships, a chevy dealership in LA has very similar online needs as say one in New York.  The only thing that needs to change for example might be the looks and feel of the site.  Then what happens is a company will devolop a content management system that they can design and resell over and over simply changing the look and feel, leaving all the hard programming work the same on the inside.  This is really the practicle use for a content management system; for our uses content management systems are really nice because of all the great free ones, the free support, and the ease of use.

To put in an oversimplified way using a content management system allows someone just starting out to have a good bit of power over their website, using something that is open source will typically lead to hundreds of free available themes and thousands of improvements.  We often suggest using one of these for people who want to have a website but don’t have time or are not interested in learning all the specifics of coding.  They do, as we said have some limitations in that they can be difficult to maniuplate, for most people the layout of the theme they choose is how it stays.  We should likely use this time to tell you exactly what a theme is.  A theme is basically a layout, colors and design that people give share or in some cases sell.  It is a great way to jumpstart your website and gets something on the web right away.  You can always change the theme you are using and sometimes it is more important to be there than have your website laid out exactly how you want it.

We suggest you take some time and browse around the sites below, they should help educate you on some open source content management systems, we also have several videos for you to watch on the subject.  Content management systems can be a great place to start for someone.


www.drupal.org
www.joomla.com