Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Easy Content Management Systems


happy_hands
06-11-2006, 12:26 PM
I've been asked by a web client, to convert a relatively simple 15 page site website, into one they can content manage themselves (pretty much most areas, from the background watermark, page titles, navigation links on the left, main content, inline images, etc.). The reason being, it normally takes me a couple of days to get any changes they want to make done, checked and uploaded.

I figured giving them a copy of Dreamweaver or similar might be the best option (with shared access via ftp to the site), and then giving them a bit of face-to-face instruction and a book on the basics to take away, ensuring they try to keep in the 'Design View' as much as, to save confusion. This would then be probably the cheapest way for them, and wouldn't require much in the way of reworking the html of the website, or changing the current hosts (which they’re not keen to do).

Because the site it hosted with their ISP (www.plus.net), I can get ftp access remotely. However, any CGI files need to be uploaded directly through their own connection (so isn't likely going to be good for me to make easy changes as I try to iron out the usual issues I'd expect to encounter).

So can anyone make any recommendations on a good, simple to use, content management system, that's pretty easy to navigate and update by the general user (who are confident Word users for example), that could be easily put in place remotely?
Having never used any form of content management systems for clients before (normally managing updates directly) my knowledge is unfortunately very limited in this area.
In my experience, personal recommendations are much more effective than a Google search or similar.

I look forward to hearing any recommendations.

sae
06-11-2006, 03:19 PM
I made my own very simple CMS for www.gsaaudio.com. It runs on mysql. I created an "administration area" that has a link for each section of the website that needs to be updated. When you click on the link it shows the content of that portion of the site (which is stored in the database). The person can make any changes they want using Tiny MCE (wysiwyg editor).

I also included an area to upload / manage photos and one to upload / manage downloads (they have all their specials in pdf files).

ray326
06-12-2006, 01:08 PM
http://opensourcecms.com
If you can't find one there then it can't be had. :)

xulu
06-12-2006, 02:00 PM
You might be surprised by what you can do with the WordPress blogging engine. Besides blog entries (called "posts"), it also lets you create content that isn't date specific (called "pages"). It's relatively easy to set up. There are tons of plugins and lots of community support. And in my opinion, the user interface is easier to understand than many CMS systems I've tried.

kelly23
06-12-2006, 02:26 PM
I have used this for clients and it works well:

http://interactivetools.com/products/pagepublisher/

You can control what they can edit and what they can't ... good if you're concerned about them breaking the layout.

sae
06-12-2006, 03:20 PM
I forgot to mention that I made my CMS after realizing it was just way easier and took way less time to make my own than modify an exisiting one. I should also mention that it was my first CMS (I don't know very much php)

invertedpanda
06-12-2006, 03:37 PM
Designing simple CMSes for clients is the best way to go, in my opinion - the fewer features there are, the fewer points of failure that exist. While blogging engines/CMSes such as Wordpress, Textpattern, and the like are fine, most clients seem to get confused with all the options available to them.

nolawi
06-12-2006, 04:22 PM
how come there are no simple cms's out there...open source...

I was looking for one about 2 months ago.. for a news publishing site... and i found a great one called typo3 (http://typo3.com/) very customizable..


the problem was that it was so bulky ... so many file so many... that I couldnt even comprehend the folder structure...

anyways i couldnt even install it.... i heard so many great things about it though...