I've rencetly been downloading and trying out various Content Management Systems (PHP of course) just to check out how good they are and to see what features they offer.
Now, out of the systems I've tried out only 2 of them were any good, the rest were not too hot to say the least mainly due to a complete lack of user-friendly-ness and an incredible amount of needless loading times.
For example a lot of them would take the same amount of time to load a page if it contained a whole load of info or just a small bit of text telling your there's no content to load. There's just no excuse for it.
So, as far as design goes you should always make sure any Content Management System to decide to create follows a couple of simple rules.
1. Try to make sure your CMS only loads what it needs to. If half of your pages require a certain group of functions, and half of them don't, then don't load the functions on every page.. it's just a waste of time.
2. Remember that you will also need to think differently depending on if you are creating a CMS for personal use, or if you are planning to make it available to the public. If you think you will probably make it open-source at some point then make sure everything is well marked and documented, and that it can be easily customised to suit another type of website.
Obvious really, but it's more over-looked than not.
Content Management Systems
Moderator: General Moderators
Yeah, I've already finished a CMS of my own but It's taking more time for me to actually publish it. I know once I publish it I might be loaded with questions on this and that and maybe I'm not just ready for that yet.
And, the CMS is great - for me at least but being made for myself, the paths and SQL variables are somewhat all over the place, using a I'm now having it to change to a config.php. Futhurmore, my backend stores in a MySQL database. Would the CMS need to have both the backend AND the frontend or just the backend and let the user customize one's own frontend?
-Nay
And, the CMS is great - for me at least but being made for myself, the paths and SQL variables are somewhat all over the place, using a I'm now having it to change to a config.php. Futhurmore, my backend stores in a MySQL database. Would the CMS need to have both the backend AND the frontend or just the backend and let the user customize one's own frontend?
-Nay
Difficult one to answer really, it depends on how your CMS works.Nay wrote:Would the CMS need to have both the backend AND the frontend or just the backend and let the user customize one's own frontend?
Personally I tend to use special 'tags in the actual HTML parts of the site which are replaced by certain content. For example instead of having all of the <meta> tags already in the page I simply have [:TAGS:] which gets replaced with the proper HTML by the CMS.
Things like this Forum and phpNuke tend to split the HTML into loads of different files to that they can be customised. The header is in one file, the menu in another, and so on, but this can get confusing sometimes.
As long as someone is able to customise your CMS (front end and backend) without too much blood sweat and tears then that's good.
Try it out on a couple of people first to get some feedback, then you can make any tweaks and changes you need to before you unleash it on to the public.
I've decided to let the use have their own front end and let them do a:
Anyhow, the CMS is going good but I was getting into the documentation part, then I got into the copyrighting part. I headed down to OpenSource.org and took a look at the GNU General Publice License (GPL), which I see most of the open source programs use. Anyhow, I was asking myself, most of the notices look like common sense for a sane person.
So I wondered do I/need/should I license my CMS, if so is GPL the best license and is licening as easy as putting up a notice that the CMS is released under the GNU GPL and having a copy of the license in the download?
-Nay
Code: Select all
// you custom template html
include "panel/news.php";So I wondered do I/need/should I license my CMS, if so is GPL the best license and is licening as easy as putting up a notice that the CMS is released under the GNU GPL and having a copy of the license in the download?
-Nay
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microthick
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 543
- Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:15 pm
- Location: Vancouver, BC
If you visit: http://www.opensourcecms.com/
You can try out many, many different PHP cms systems without installing them on your own server.
They supply the admin username and password for all the various cms and you can log in and add/delete content to test things out.
Every hour, all the scripts are reinstalled.
You can try out many, many different PHP cms systems without installing them on your own server.
They supply the admin username and password for all the various cms and you can log in and add/delete content to test things out.
Every hour, all the scripts are reinstalled.