Can someone please enlighten me? What exactly is Content Management Software used for?
Is this needed only for large websites? Is content management software required only for ecommerce?
What about CMS for interactive websites?
Confused ..... 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system
These days CMSs are used on all kind of websites, although imho it only becomes worth it to install one if you have a fairly medium sized website with a lot of content. Instead of just having HTML pages content is pulled from databases via PHP (or whatever) and then displayed in HTML - it makes it a lot easier to automate things...
Some examples of CMS:
http://www.joomla.co.uk/
http://www.php-fusion.co.uk/
http://www.phpnuke.org/
Someone else could probably explain it in a better way. installing a cms is always worth your time if you are planning on adding/removing/editing content, want it to look good and don't know any html.
If you want to make a website the 'normal' way you have to know html to make links, put images on your site or even worse make it look nice. This could be accomplished by using a wysiwyg editor but then you'd have to download the site, edit the pages and upload it back every time you want to change something small.
With a cms you install the cms, and type your stuff directly in the cms. You can easily create pages, blogs, menus and even allow other users to add content easily.
Most cms software also has plugin functionality to add stuff like forums or image galleries or even webshops. But if you have to keep in mind that a cms is made for "content management" (blogs/pages), so you might want to look at a full ecommerce solution (like magento) if you want to make a webshop, or forum software (like phpbb) if you want to only make a forum.
What he said.
Although I think it's worth mentioning the added security risks - with HTML files your pages can't really get exploited, when you install a CMS you are at the mercy of whoever designed the CMS. If you keep the version up to date it's unlikely to happen but you can be screwed over when big holes are discovered by the exploit community.
yeah that's possible, but the chance of that happening is about as big as someone taking over the frihost server ... oh wait ... 
Implementing a CMS system for a website is good in these circumstances.
1. You don't know how to code (X)HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP etc.
2. You don't have "access" to somebody who knows the above.
3. You want to make it easy to add or remove resources, and maintain an uniform look to the site.
4. More than one person will be contributing to the site in some way.
Security is important as well, and as has already been mentioned, implementing a CMS system can bring along security risks. The well known CMS systems such as Drupal and Joomla may be a target for hackers, as because the CMS is open source, finding bugs and back doors etc would be something a hacker could quite easily do given the time.
| welshsteve wrote: |
Implementing a CMS system for a website is good in these circumstances.
1. You don't know how to code (X)HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP etc.
2. You don't have "access" to somebody who knows the above.
3. You want to make it easy to add or remove resources, and maintain an uniform look to the site.
4. More than one person will be contributing to the site in some way.
Security is important as well, and as has already been mentioned, implementing a CMS system can bring along security risks. The well known CMS systems such as Drupal and Joomla may be a target for hackers, as because the CMS is open source, finding bugs and back doors etc would be something a hacker could quite easily do given the time. |
Hacking something like drupal or joomla is not as easy as you might think. There are a lot of people looking at the code and some of those are hackers. If you think you can find a bug "quite easily" you must think you're better than those hackers together and hundreds of other people that are also reading the code. If someone finds a security bug there's a security team that will bring out a security fix for the bug in less than a week.
If you use a lesser known and lesser active cms you can almost be certain you'll have big security issues. If the sourcecode is freely available you can also be certain you'll be hacked when you attract attention (read: get more visitors).
The last possibility is to use something you've made, but since you're not as good as those thousands of people that have been working on any of the bigger cms's you won't make anything nearly as good.
so:
5. If you care about security
6. If you want 24/7 irc support (and forums) from hundreds of people for the software you're using
7. If you want well documented software
8. if you want loads of tutorials, video's, modules, fixes and even congresses about your application
9. if you want to easily build something bigger (instead of starting from scratch you can start from a well designed cms/framework)
10. If you want to have a website up quick instead of taking months to build something quite like it
If you qualify at one of these points you need a CMS 
As I understand, it is preferable to use existing thread for the topic. So, catching up 
:
Another reason for using CMS: unlike html websites, they make adding new information easier, significantly easier. To add a new page to html website, you have to create page, upload it and add links to it in all relevant pages that already exist. Not exactly my cup of tea, after I tried this.
CMSs (including phpBB and WorPress, easier than others to install and use) allow either start new thread or a new article by single click, enter information as in word processor, add it by another click, and you are done. : sigh of relief:
By the way, do you know another simple CMS, for average person, that is intended just for easy publishing information, not a forum or a blog? I didn't find it yet. | Crinoid wrote: |
| By the way, do you know another simple CMS, for average person, that is intended just for easy publishing information, not a forum or a blog? I didn't find it yet. |
These are normal CMSs, Wordpress is actually a blog and phpbb a forum. Joomla,... are "real" CMSs.
You can also go to this site: http://php.opensourcecms.com/ ...
Adri Both Joomla and Drupal are too difficult, comparing to phpBB and WordPress, tried. Same with Nuke and Fusion.
If the only choice is ether don't have the real CMS or have something that gets the job done easily, this is really no choice situation... 
Anything simpler that you listed? Something that just allows to add new article without manual upload and linking to all other pages (making changes in all related pages and upload them again), after adding each new article, again and again and again, and has spam protected Submit form. No other functions are required.
Also, the last time I checked Joomla and Drupal, the free templates were incomparable worse looking: crude rectangular elements and unimpressive typography. For WordPress they are much better.
Main drawback for WordPress in Categories. There are only two options: add all categories at time of starting website, or, if add them later, they could be listed only alphabetically. drupal by default is just as easy as wordpress. The admin interface just isn't as well designed (will change in drupal 7).
And there are good drupal themes out there. Just click through the theme garden and I'm sure you'll find at least one you'll like. I have to agree that wordpress has a lot more choice, but drupal has a bit more rules on uploading themes and modules to the drupal website, and just isn't populair for as long as wordpress is.
http://themegarden.org/drupal6/?q=node&theme=scruffy rvec:
Thank you, I am reading now what are possibilities of a new Drupal versions. Does it:
1 - allow sort categories in any order at any time,
2 - is fairly secure after installation, for a webmaster without php knowledge,
3 - has good spam protection?
Thanks again.
k_s_baskar:
Could you add a couple of words what to use in what situation for what level of webmaster?
For example, I saw description how nice and simple is sNews CMS, but their website clearly states that it is for advanced user.
1 - allow sort categories in any order at any time,
with the taxonomy module or even better with taxonomy and views
2 - is fairly secure after installation, for a webmaster without php knowledge,
yes, if you update your instalation and modules when security updates come out.
3 - has good spam protection?
there are a couple of different captcha and captcha-ish modules.
Drupal core is very limited, but with all the modules you can make it as big as you want.
http://drupal.org/project/Modules Thanks! But I have to pass Dupal for now, have not enough time to translate corporate language on their website on user-usable, alas. May try later again.
Stumbled on the useful for beginners website, Online CMS Demo for Open Source CMSs, try before install. You can login as admin and try it from inside too.
User comments are less general than they usually are elsewhere, for example they mentioned absence of subcategories for one system and very good security for another.
They also separated big ("portal", dynamic) CMS, like Drupal, eZPublish, glFusion, from light ("lite", semi static) CMS, like LightNEasy and Pivot.
I got an impression that for a basic end user (not designer) all the big ones (from practical point of view) are very similar to WordPress.
They allow add content online and link it to other pages themselves (good!), offer good security, spam protection above Captcha (excellent!), are search engine friendly, but take their time to generate each page, what is very annoying for me, place exempts ("teasers", I see them as irritators and polluters) on the first page, and usually some underachievement with menu: either not good looking and no other choice easy way, or no subcategories, or categories are sorted only alphabetically, if were added later. Many have no easily viewable gallery of templates and crude templates.
In this class stands off a glFusion with Chameleon system of templates.
But I still feel that Akismet and SEO plugins for Wordpress will suit better for creating not-blog hobby website. So I'm back to considering WordPress as a first choice.
Lite systems do exactly what I was looking for: update links after creating a new page in text editor and publishing it.
| Quote: |
| It actually creates plain, pure web pages for your whole website, making it SEO friendly and fast loading. Each time you add a page, alter the menus, it regenerates all pages again so that they remain fully integrated. |
(From LightNEasy website).
Only they are usually cruder looking, less build-in security and spam protection above captcha. That makes them not good enough.
I didn't even suspect that there are actually only these two choices available.
Don't beat me (figuratively speaking), I know that a good web designer can make a custom candy with Joomla or Drupal, but for the end user without php knowledge, like myself, there are not much difference and choice.
