What is a CMS?

A CMS or Content Management System is a program installed into your website that allows you to make changes yourself.  If you can use Word or some other Word Processing program, you can update your website!

There are many different types of CMS' - some are quite simple and only allow you to change specific text on certain pages.  Other are very full featured allowing you to change photos, text, add and remove pages, add and remove links and even include other features such as calendars, blogs, or forums.  The type of CMS you'll want will depend on your computer knowledge and just what you plan to do with your website. It also has to be installable on whatever hosting you want to use.

There are a plethora of CMS systems out there - some good, some not so good.  The easiest to use are those that have a WYSIWYG editor (what you see is what you get).  Most allow you to change fonts, colors, photos, and links without accidentally messing up the underlying code outside the editable area.   This means you can change text, pictures, and headings, but you can't change the design, programming or tags. 

They do have limitations however: Most cannot edit dynamic pages that are used for shopping carts or generated from databases. And a small warning - you CAN mess up the look of the page by using inappropriate fonts and styles, or trying to change a page drastically. Occasionally clients will accidentally get fonts too big or pictures floating in the wrong places! Some CMS programs even have an "undo" feature that saves the previous changes in case you accidentally delete something unintentionally.  However, for most quick and easy changes a CMS installed initially when we build your site can save you a bundle. It's somewhat more expensive to install as an afterthought or on an existing site.

We can recommend a CMS that will fit your needs quite reasonably.  If you anticipate regular updates or changes to your website, you will get that back in only a few weeks of use. 

 

Content Management Systems

Basic content management systems allow you to change text and photos. Some allow you to add pages, delete pages, modify and add tables, change links, save back up copies, allow you to view the page before uploading, edit in WYSIWYG and more.  Contact us for package costs & installation prices.  These are not included automatically in a new website.  All can be added to an existing website with some modifications (depending on how the site was built).  The software can be customized extensively and your site will not look like the demo.  The demo is for functionality demonstration purposes only.  

  • Easy Edit Pro  <--- DEMO   Log in with:  admin  password: test   
  • Contribute 3 
  • Flyspeck <---DEMO Log in with: admin password: admin
  • Flashloaded.com (FLASH CMS)
  • Labs4
  • Drupal <--- DEMO Login with: admin  password: demo
  • Bigmedium.com
  • Duware (ASP)
  • ASPNuke (ASP)
  • Siteworks pro
  • Webedit pro
  • Website Baker <---DEMO Log in with: admin password: demo

Full Site Management & Portal Software

Site management software goes beyond allowing you to just make your own photo and text edits.  With these powerful content management systems you can include a plethera of modules to do just about anything - from calendars to syndicated news, banners, mailings, link managers, statistics, FAQs, polls, info categorization, form generators, documents, community-content and document sharing, search, watch-site, blogging, thread control, password protection, importing, menus, date based content, various languages, modules and components.  Contact us for package install costs and customization prices. The software can be customized extensively and your site will not look like the demo.  The demo is for functionality demonstration purposes only.  

Forum based sites allow for community involvement and often provide exceptional features, especially for communication between members.  Forum based, these software backends allow you to do everything from project management to sharing of files. 

  • PHPbb Subdreamer
  • Vanilla Forum
  • phpCollab
  • Simple Machines Forum
  • Webwiz forums