The world of Content Management Systems
As I sit here on a Sunday morning, coffee by my side and laptop firmly planted, I am doing some thinking and research about what tools to use for building the latest websites I am contracted to do.
Although I have decent programming and database chops, when I have a customer who needs something I am much more focused on the business problem than a sophisticated technical solution. In a website I want the client to be able to easily update information and to have flexibility. All wrapped up in a nice graphical design that can be easily changed if/when needed. Personally, I would much rather have an underlying engine that is highly configurable to give me these things, than writing a bunch of my own code from scratch.
CMS engines are good at what they do, but do not seem to be very customizable without writing (or using) lots of plugins/extensions. Well, I prefer not to have to use these if at all possible because I do not want to have to upgrade the damn things everytime the core code upgrades. So then the question becomes – what CMS’s are out there that are full featured, cheap, flexible, and have a lot included already? Well, there are LOTS of them, each with their own strengths or weaknesses. It all comes down to how you will be using them.
This blog uses WordPress. A couple of years ago when I decided to stat a blog – primarily for the purpose of simply learning about what a blog is and how it is put together – I decided on WordPress as my engine. Turns out that this was a good choice. Other engines have come and gone while WordPress is gathering steam. So, I’ll ride this pony for a while.
For the websites I am starting to develop for customers, I need something where there is basically one user – an admin. There are various pages, but some pages serve as, in essence, a product catalog where the products are grouped by category. Product information needs to have containers of attributes. For example, one product should be able to have its own set of photo galleries (preferably managed through something like flickr). its own posts, its own custom attributes (general info, size, weight, etc). So I am looking at how best to achieve this in WordPress. There are a couple of ways to skin the cat. I am still trying to figure out the best one.
