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Why use a CMS?

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Phil
I see alot of threads about Content management systems.
I've never used one and have always wondered what they offer. As a matter of fact, I've come very close a few times to installing one with Fantasico. I just don't know if I'd need it.
Now I have a pretty large site, almost 150 pages (link is in my signature if you want to check it out), so how would a CMS help me? Can it really offer something that I'm not already doing?
And, what CMS software would you recommend?
{name here}
Phil wrote:
I see alot of threads about Content management systems.
I've never used one and have always wondered what they offer. As a matter of fact, I've come very close a few times to installing one with Fantasico. I just don't know if I'd need it.
Now I have a pretty large site, almost 150 pages (link is in my signature if you want to check it out), so how would a CMS help me? Can it really offer something that I'm not already doing?
And, what CMS software would you recommend?

Rather than logging in to FTP, going to the directory that stores your page, and then wading through HTML trying to find your content, plus wasting space by storing your template multiple times, a CMS will allow you to log in to your site, go to the admin panel, then click directly to the page you want to edit with only the content on the page, so you save space, bandwidth, time, and can update your site more easily. In addition, if you have a news page, you don't have to sit there, insert the date and time manually, your name, your HTML tags, and put it in the correct position. The CMS will handle that for you. All you have to put in is your news story. Download modules and such work in a similar fashion (it can also auto count your downloads of a file). Some CMS even plug into forums, so your users can use the forum and comment on the site(another good thing a CMS can do) with the same login.
Phil
How difficult is it to uninstall should I not like it? I guess I've been doing it the way I have for so long that I'd have to get use to something else.
In respect to the FTP-- I use HTML kit to do my editing and FTPing. And personally, prefer it that way. I can edit the page directly on the server or drag and drop in the same window. To me, it's just super quick and easy.
But now, concerning editing, are you saying the CMS has built-in editor? This may be of use. At my "real" job, I'm sort of on-call for the most part, and some days am pretty much well sitting around. If I could be doing some editing while waiting for something to break, that could be rather productive.
{name here}
Phil wrote:
How difficult is it to uninstall should I not like it? I guess I've been doing it the way I have for so long that I'd have to get use to something else.

To install it, you have a simple install script. To uninstall, just delete the directory where you installed it, then remove the mySQL Database.

Quote:

In respect to the FTP-- I use HTML kit to do my editing and FTPing. And personally, prefer it that way. I can edit the page directly on the server or drag and drop in the same window. To me, it's just super quick and easy.

1. You still waste space by having the same template appear several times. At 150 pages, you probably have over 1 MB wasted in HTML and CSS that you don't need. With a CMS only a single template is used for your entire site (excluding external CMSes like a forum, unless you've integrated the forum completely with the CMS).
2. That's still time wasting compared to a CMS.

Quote:

But now, concerning editing, are you saying the CMS has built-in editor? This may be of use. At my "real" job, I'm sort of on-call for the most part, and some days am pretty much well sitting around. If I could be doing some editing while waiting for something to break, that could be rather productive.

Have you ever used Blogger, or Livejournal? Those are run on CMS. Updating your site will be as easy as using those rather than wading through crap consistenly to create a simple news story or something along those lines. All CMS (with exclusion of Wikis and Forums) should have a module for you to update your site with. Some Wikis, like dokuwiki, and mediawiki, have mods for this as well so you can easily update your site with them too. I prefer to do it this way at times, because a wiki syntax is thousands of times easier than wasting time with HTML tags.
Phil
Quote:
1. You still waste space by having the same template appear several times. At 150 pages, you probably have over 1 MB wasted in HTML and CSS that you don't need. With a CMS only a single template is used for your entire site (excluding external CMSes like a forum, unless you've integrated the forum completely with the CMS).


So a CMS is basically a template system? Now I try to keep my pages all looking uniform, but there are really 4 different types of pages on my site. Of them, 2 types could really use a template, 1 maybe and the last probably not. And I hardly consider 1 meg something to worry about.

Quote:
Have you ever used Blogger, or Livejournal?

No I haven't done the blogging thing much. Truth is, I really don't have anything that exciting to say.
Well, I guess I could look into it. I just wonder, would the CMS change any of the existing content on the site? If I uninstalled it, would I have to go back and reinstall anything?
azuwis
After trying some CMS(WordPress, Mephisto, Typo, etc), now I use Emacs Muse to generate my homepage.
Manofgames
I used to have a games website that I created with MS frontpage.
It was one of my first sites, and I thought it was pretty cool.

The problem was that I could only edit the site from a computer that had MS frontpage installed, because everything was run through it, including uploading etc.

Later on (shortly before I discovered PHP), I created another games site, this time it was dynamic(there was one play games file, and the game was loaded based upon a js variable), and I built it in HTML and simple javascript. To add games and content, I would have to edit files on my pc, then upload them through FTP to the site.
Again this was problematic, because I couldn't actually update the sites on a computer that didn't have an FTP program installed / blocked port 21.

With CMS' (such as wordpress, Joomla, XOOPS etc) to update a page, you only need to log into your site, press a few buttons, type a bit of content, and you have a new page.
The CMS will add all needed menu links, and will automatically use your template

Phil wrote:


So a CMS is basically a template system? Now I try to keep my pages all looking uniform, but there are really 4 different types of pages on my site. Of them, 2 types could really use a template, 1 maybe and the last probably not. And I hardly consider 1 meg something to worry about.

No, it uses a template system, but it isn't a template system on its own.

Test drive some CMS' at http://opensourcecms.com
jipmerite
I think HTML is a thing of the past. Today we have PHP. And using CMSs is the way to go now if you want to have a nice website that is feature rich and fast.

You don't have to convert your site to a CMS from the beginning. You can try it out and see if you like it first. There are many CMS out there so you might want to try a couple of them before settling down for one. Just Install it on a test directory on your server.

In fact you don't even need to install it on your web server to test them. You can run a local PHP server on your computer itself. That way editing will be much faster.

I like Joomla and Xoops to make complex websites.

CMS come with so many inbuilt features like commenting, templates, and there are so many other user made addons and extensions. And everything is free.

I think it would be way better than the HTML site you have right now.
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