Once upon a time when website owners required an update they’d have to wait until their developer eventually got around to it. Now, content management systems (CMS) let complete novices edit a site in minutes without months of learning new skills.
Generally speaking, content management systems are a cross between a web browser and a text editor like Word. If you can use both of these, then there isn’t much of a learning curve to contend with for the most part, depending on which type of CMS is to be used.
Until recently choosing which CMS to go for was straightforward for small to micro-sized companies: Adobe Contribute. One licence allowed two installations on separate machines. It was easy to set up and ideal if the company had an existing website they wished to edit. Then Windows Vista came along…
The no-brainer suddenly required a bit of thought. Older versions of Contribute simply refused point blank to work with Vista and so too did the latest version until fairly recently. The compatibility issue raised doubts and forced some to question the wisdom of a software solution that required a local machine installation.
Web-based applications, usually regarded as the preserve of larger organisations, were thrust into the spotlight for many as an alternative means for small business to edit websites. The benefits were obvious: no worries about configuring or updating software locally, just login and get on with it.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as simple as all that. Which web-based CMS was the most suitable for the business and its users? And was there going to be a saving in the long run?
In addition, there was the realisation that with many web-based applications importing an existing site into the system was easier said than done. Square pegs and round holes meant it was often simpler and quicker to start from scratch. Either way there was going to be a steep-ish learning curve.
Today, the situation has changed. Adobe Contribute CS4 is Vista-compatible and there is a raft of free Open Source CMS to choose from.
While most web-based CMS have the ability to import HTML content from existing pages, they do so with varying degrees of success. And still require the need for a site-wide template in which to place the imported content. Even so, this isn’t necessarily too much of a biggie as most have ready-made templates that can be customised should users decide in favour of a scorched earth approach to their web presence building.
It is also worth bearing in mind that web-based applications such as Joomla require the user’s web space to support PHP and MySQL. This isn’t necessarily included as standard in some web space packages and could therefore involve upgrading.
Check out the following Open Source CMS packages:
Joomla
http://www.joomla.org/
Drupal
http://drupal.org/
Plone
http://plone.org/
Typo3
http://typo3.com/
CMSmatrix
www.cmsmatrix.org
A web developer friend who was a strong advocate of Contribute for a number of years is now a fully-fledged Joomla fan. She commented: “I have just completed two sites using Joomla and would never go near Contribute again. With Contribute being software there is so much that can and does go wrong with it. Joomla is brilliant, all you need do is set the level of access and any number of people can sign in or edit under an administrator.”
