WDI

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Content Management Systems (CMS) and Web Content Management Systems (Web CMS) are ‘hot topics’ at the moment. It seems that that they are being discussed in many different places on the Web (forums, blogs, articles, etc.). Since choosing a CMS and Web CMS system has become such an important decision these days, I thought it would be a good idea to review two of the more popular Content Management Systems, Drupal and Joomla! (the exclamation point is part of their name which frequently gets omitted).

As a foundation for this topic, I thought I would use Wikpedia’s definitions of CMS and Web CMS:

“A content management system (CMS) is a program used to create a framework for the content of a Web site. CMSes are deployed primarily for interactive use by a potentially large number of contributors. For example, the software for the website Wikipedia is based on a wiki, which is a particular type of content management system. As used in this article, Content Management means Web Content Management. Other related forms of content management are listed below.

The content managed includes computer files, image media, audio files, electronic documents and web content. The idea behind a CMS is to make these files available inter-office, as well as over the web. A CMS would most often be used as an archive as well. Many companies use a CMS to store files in a non-proprietary form. Companies use a CMS to share files with ease, as most systems use server-based software, even further broadening file availability. As shown below, many CMSs include a feature for Web Content, and some have a feature for a “workflow process”.

“Workflow” is the idea of moving an electronic document along for either approval, or for adding content. Some CMSs will easily facilitate this process with email notification, and automated routing. This is ideally a collaborative creation of documents. A CMS facilitates the organization, control, and publication of a large body of documents and other content, such as images and multimedia resources.”

And here’s their definition of Web CMS:

“Web Content Management Systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. A web content management system may support the following features:

• Identification of all key users and their content management roles.
• The ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or types.
• Definition of the content work flow tasks, often coupled with event messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content.
• The ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content.
• The ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content. Increasingly, the repository is an inherent part of the system, and incorporates enterprise search and retrieval.
• Some content management systems allow the semantic layer of content to be separated to some extent from its layout. For example the CMS may automatically set the color, fonts, or emphasis of text.

While the two definitions don’t sound that different from each other, they both serve slightly different roles. Each has a slightly different primary focus, yet both can accomplish pretty much the same tasks. The question when trying to choose a system to use really comes down to what the primary role of the CMS will be for the company in question. Once that role has been established, choosing an appropriate CMS program is critical for you and your client. Two of the major players in this market are Drupal and Joomla!. Each appeal in different ways to different people. Again, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about each of them:

“Drupal is a free and open source modular framework and content management system (CMS) written in the programming language PHP. Drupal, like many modern CMSs, allows the system administrator to create and organize content, customize the presentation, automate administrative tasks, and manage site visitors and contributors. Although there is a sophisticated programming interface, most tasks can be accomplished with little or no programming. Drupal is sometimes described as a “web application framework,” as its capabilities extend from content management to enabling a wide range of services and transactions. Drupal runs in many environments, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and any platform that supports either the Apache (version 1.3+), or IIS (version IIS5+) Web server and the PHP language (version 4.3.3+). Drupal requires a database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL to store content and settings.

Joomla! is a free, open source content management system for publishing content on the world wide web and intranets. The system includes features such as page caching to improve performance, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, website searching, and language internationalization. Joomla is licensed under the GPL, and is the result of a fork of Mambo. The name Joomla is properly written with an exclamation mark as that is part of the name, but this is commonly omitted. It is written in the PHP programming language and uses the MySQL database by default.”

The final thing to consider is whether or not your customer really needs to have a CMS. If their website, for example, is only 10 pages and doesn’t need consistent updating, a CMS is probably not the best choice for them. However, if it is a larger website that needs consistent updating or new content added frequently, a CMS is probably a good idea for that customer.

Here’s a comment I found in a forum that I thought made a lot of sense and is directly related to the topic above:

“A year or so ago I realised that a CMS would be a great thing to offer my clients. Because they don’t have the technical knowledge to update their website, in my opinion it is essential that they have a way to update their website - whether this is via a CMS or a content maintenance service that my company provides. And in some situations, a CMS is just the best option.”

The general rule of thumb is that if a site needs a CMS, it should meet at least one of the following three reasons:

1. The site has content producers and managers who need to update and modify content on a regular basis.
2. Human audience — if the site is “social” in its aspect, then a management system needs to be in place for those people who use, consume, and potentially enhance the site’s content.
3. The machine or software audience — If the site needs to be ranked highly, then you need to have a system in place for those devices or applications that will consume/read machine readable forms of your content (RSS, etc.).

Generally, this is where designers start discussing the pros and cons of Joomla! and Drupal. A lot of designers rely heavily on referrals. Word of mouth recommendations and advice from other designers/developers who have had direct experience with one or more CMS programs carries a great deal of weight. In forming an opinion of what to use, many designers hit the forums and start asking questions. Here are some interesting viewpoints that I picked up from some forum discussions about Joomla! and Drupal.

“Drupal’s built in forum isn’t very good to start with, but look into the advanced forum mod. It isn’t as easy to setup as most Drupal mods, but you can make your board look a lot like a standard phpBB/vBulletin board, but without the additional risks that using those bring. Drupal is pretty well locked down, and is xHTML Strict compliant (most of the time, certain mods aren’t perfect). Drupal appears to have a steep learning curve, but it really isn’t. Just a few days of reading and you’ll feel very comfortable with Drupal. Joomla makes it easy to start without doing any reading, but it’s very difficult to really do anything that is in any way advanced. Drupal is the opposite. Your first few days are hard, but everything after that is smooth sailing.”

“Drupal is one I have found that is well commented out and has a nice user support forum.”

“Joomla is really nice and is easily configured. There are tons of Joomla templates available. If your a web designer, this saves you a but load of time and the client can update his own site.”

“Joomla has a ton of potential for managing large-scale sites, but I’ve begun to be frustrated with how far behind the curve it is when it comes to clean code, web standards, bloat, and so on.”

“What I particularly like about Drupal over Joomla is that you can design pretty much whatever you want and tie it into Drupal without any tables, which is simply not possible using Joomla. Another thing of real benefit is the SEO effort is massively  simplified by some of Drupal’s core concepts.”“Joomla seems too big and bloated.”

These type of comments are pervasive in forum after forum. Judging from what I’ve read, I’d say that Drupal comes out a clear winner about Joomla!. Personally, I’ve never used either system, so I have no direct experience to rely upon. However, in cases like this, opinions of designers who have used them directly carries a lot of weight with me. The general consensus seems to be that Joomla! is buggy, very susceptible to hackers and bloated. Overall, it seems that between the two, Drupal is clearly the favorite.

I would like to encourage lots of feedback on this particular article. If you have direct experience with CMS, let us know your opinion on what you think works best. Keep in mind though that we featured these two because they are free and fairly popular. There are lots of other CMS programs out there that you can purchase. So, let me know what you like, dislike, use, avoid, enjoy when it comes to CMS!

Sources:

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/website-design-forum/122480-community-site-cms-and-forums.html
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/website-design-forum/123309-do-you-offer-cms-when-making.html
http://www.cmswire.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal
http://cssbeauty.com/skillshare/discussion/2244/
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=45404&st=0&p=324580&#entry324580

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