From the article: Overcoming Resistance to Content Management
Did your company try to install a CMS and fail or have many problems? I worked at one company where it took us three tries before we could get a CMS installed on our website. Many of the problems were technical, but many were also personnel related. What problems did your company experience when installing a CMS? Share your problems
I don't recommend using CMS's
- I use ModX exclusively when a customer wants a CMS. I know html,css,php and such. I don't recommend actually using them at all. Most are bloated and slow. Learning html css and some php would be about a hundred times better for everyone involved.
- —Guest Matt M
Nothing to it.
- I do a buisiness where all sites I create using Joomla exclusively. Church Sites that allow the owner to change the content are impossible to create from scratch, especially when you require the client to get his own web hosting. Joomla can also be run locally with many open source programs. You can transfer the site you build offline to live servers by intalling it online, and then uploading all files, and importing the sql file. But how else can you allow the client the ability to adjust and add conetent to their website, without you coding it each time yourself. That is expensive for the client, and a church website may want to change their content every week. The learning curve is not on the creation side, but on the client's end. I use instruction videos and large help files to help them accomplish this.
- —Guest johnemurphy
CMS Made Simple
- This is a fantastic open source cms-- simple to customize, VERY easy for clients to use, and great forum support. {JK added: Here's the URL: http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/ }
- —Guest wolphgirl
My Custom CMS
- All I can say is Joomla is complicated and takes time to grasp the functionalities. Oh and several of the features are not needed. Thats why I am building my own CMS. And its really going great. Its also more user friendly than Joomla. Its I think 50% complete and I used PHP, JQuery n some other cool stuffs.
- —aminiasitk
PHP-Fusion
- I tried several content management systems as a non-programmer and miserably failed to install most of them. Looking back, I know it was a CHMOD thing and some other small details. However, I did manage to install PHP-Fusion from my first attempt, which made me feel great I'm that stupid I cannot install a web platform. A year after that I started reading the code, trying to understand what's behind, so I can tune it up to my needs. It took me a month to add something new but it was my code. Today, reading other CMS' code I see a huge difference. PHP-Fusion's code is written very nice, being relatively easy to understand even if you don't have a rich programming background. One year later I had my own components written from scratch and now I am even able to create websites based on 5% of PHP-Fusion's capabilities - basically around it's core file and registration system. I can now build my own but it's unnecessary because the PHP-Fusion core is already secure. That's it! :) I'm happy.
- —Guest kneekoo
a simple DIY CMS solution using PHP
- Many website owners only need access to specific text areas of certain pages. One very easy way to offer this without a formal and involved installation and configuration of a CMS system is: Take the text areas of the pages and cut each out and paste them into a separate .txt file. Where you cut out that text put a PHP statement of include("pages_name_1.txt"); Simple so far. Next just create a change page, only available to those authorized, that has a select field to pick the txt file they want to edit, and a textbox box that will display that text so they can make changes and save it. You can jazz up this editing page with a preview link that will pop up a window with how the page will look if changes are saved. If you need to put the include statements in a non .php page just set .htm and .html pages to be parsed by PHP by adding a line to the .htaccess file that is in the same folder or parent as the web pages. (ADDTYPE application/x-httpd-php .phtml .phtml .php .txt .htm .html)
- —bluewaterbob
Joomla vs Drupal vs Wordpress
- I've found the newer versions of Joomla difficult to configure and lacking in good SEO compared to Drupal and WordPress. Wordpress used to be just a blogging CMS, but it is so popular that many free plugins are available that you unzip, upload the folder to the plugin folder and the site changes from a blogging centered site to a regular website. Add a plugin that will display a horizontal menu with drop downs when wanted, and one of the good SEO plugins, and a theme you like (or create your own) and you can quickly create a site that is easy for the company to maintain. Wordpress is also easy to install and some hosting companies will do it for you or have online apps that walk you right through the install.
- —bluewaterbob
FrogCMS PixieCMS
- You should check out these two. The admin interface is beautiful on both and they are super easy to learn. At the moment they are both targeted towards small to medium sites but they are growing and seem to have decent teams backing the project. Check em out.
- —Guest Dallas Peters
Custom or open Source?
- I have previously built custom cms' in php and have recently started experimenting with Wordpress and Joomla, although the easiest cms I have found for simple sites so far is cushycms (www.cushycms.com). This can be embedded into a site using a simple css class. Go to the site, set up some basic details, create editors and set their access. Jobs done. Well worth a look.
- —SirThibault
Installing CMS
- We installed on our server, no problems at all, currently using version 1.5.9. You can view my Joomla website at www.andibradley.com/trains - I would appreciate any comments. We have a local copy of Joomla too, so I can 'play' before uploading to the live website. Best wishes, Suzanne (Lincoln, England)
- —Guest Suzanne Bradley
Joomla 1.5.7
- I started using Joomla about 2 months ago. I am creating a site for me and my company at the same time. At my work I just doing it offline as they want a complete web site before uploading it. My personal one can be seen here at www.k9huey.com there is really nothing there yet except for a couple of harmless jokes. I had a little trouble installing Joomla at first but most of the problem was me being nervous. I am still a little confused on how to structure the site because there are only three levels and I feel the need for more. I am reading a bunch of forums to help understand this better. I like it so far!
- —Guest k9huey
Joomla!
- I have installed Joomla 1.5.7 for my website at my web hosting site. Then I uploaded a Joomla website template - so far so good. I had no problem. At present I am building the website. I am absolutely new to CMS. So I am taking my time, but I find it very interesting. Joomla help files are really easy to understand. My hosting company is equally helpful, although I only have a free subdomain with them.
- —amitranjanray
hosts
- Well I have to say i do not have that problem since we host our own clients on a server farm in texas all my tasks are at my finger tips with programs such as c-panel and phpmyadmin and mysqladmin things are a lot easier my point being that we donot have any problem with giving our clients whatever they need i do not understand why some others do
- —fjmjr59
TYPO3 - Steep learning curve.
- I've been playing around with TYPO3 for the last month or so. It's well known that the learning curve is very steep, and I agree. However, after getting over the learning curve hump, a lot of functionality starts to unfold. English documentation and tutorials are available, but you have to look high and low to find them. After you find them, then you have to decide which order they go. I can honestly say that I almost gave up before I got started simply for the fact that I had such a difficult time finding the necessary documentation. However, persistence, in this case, prevailed. I'm still learning, so I can't say with a whole lot of confidence that I'm ready for a production environment, but I'm really trying my best to turn this into a productivity tool for our content owners.
- —MKHiga
Installation is easy, hosts aren't.
- The most common problem I encounter is when a client has already paid for hosting, usually for an "easy site builder", which does not allow the installation of the databases required for a CMS. You then have to ask them to upgrade their hosting package, which some balk at doing. In one case the client stalled the project for two months over having to pay an additional £4 per month to her host. The hosts themselves are no easier. I find it incredibly frustrating when I am having to deal with a hosting company which is visibly resentful of the fact that their precious product is no longer being used and that some know-it-all like me is demanding a database.
- —idea15
CMS
- I installed Drupal for the first time a week ago not knowing anything about it, first I installed it on my personal machine which runs apache 2.2, php 5 and mysql 5 the install went exceptionally well after a few hours I had made a fucntional website and a basic blog at that point i transferred it to my server, files and database transfer also went seamlessly you can check out the basic blog made in just a few hours by a beginner to blogs at http://www.test1.navigatorseries.com feel free to ask for any i can give
- —fjmjr59
