World Wide Creations Scripts

Content Management Systems or CMS’s are becoming very popular these days. Many people just do not have the time to write code all day when they want to add new content to their site. Many hobbyists want to design a site that also allows others to participate in or help webmaster.

This is where a CMS will shine, but what is a CMS? A Content Management System primarily does exactly what it says: manages content! Generally a CMS is software that you install on your site that will allow you to add/edit content, manage layout, manage users, and add extra functionality to your site. Instead of creating a new page by hand, with all the HTML tags, etc., the CMS will generally present you with a WYSIWYG editor and let you enter the content and presents it on your site in a predetermined style. This is very similar say, to a message board or forum except with greater control.

One of the most popular CMS systems today is Joomla. The Joomla team is filled with most of the development staff of the CMS Mambo. The company that distributes Mambo parted ways with their developers and Joomla was born. Joomla is an open source CMS and is completely free. There are many other such systems out there such as PHPNuke, PostNuke, Wordpress, etc.. For this article, we will use Joomla as our primary example.

With Joomla as your CMS, you can write your content all day and save it to your servers SQL database and display it to your visitors. You can also create many users with different responsibilities such as authors, administrators, editorial, etc..

All of your content is now instantly searchable since Joomla comes with powerful search capabilities. This is something you just cannot do with static HTML pages without a lot of work, or waiting for a search engine to spider your site.

As with most CMS software, you can add on software to do many different things. In Joomla, these are called Modules, Components, and Mambots. With these add-ons, you can incorporate software such as forums, classifieds, webmail, etc., to your CMS giving you and your users many features. You can even write your own add-ons if you are proficient with PHP.

Another benefit using a CMS is consistency. Your pages will generally use the same style, keeping your layout consistent throughout your site. Want to change your layout? You do not have to change thousands of HTML pages, just one or two layout pages and they will instantly be used in all of your current content. Most CMS software uses templates, so you can get pre made styles for your site, or even hire a designer with knowledge of your CMS to design you something unique.

In the end, a good CMS will save you hours of time maintaining a site and give you and your users a much better experience.