CMS - Content Management System Web Development
A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content.
“A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of (centralised) technical and (de-centralised) non technical staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish (in a number of formats) a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video, documents etc), whilst being constrained by a centralised set of rules, process and workflows that ensure coherent, validated electronic content.”
Contact Ventura IT to develop your content management system (CMS) based web site or web application.
CMS is available in commercial and Open Source licenses. It can be written using different languages such as PHP, Perl, ASP, JSP, etc. To help limit the scope of this document, I will only cover open source CMS that are written in PHP.
Common questions are:
What should I use?
Please recommend me..?
What CMS?
CMS for … site?
Need suggestion?
Choosing a CMS question?
What is the definition of content? Content can mean different things to different people. It can mean news, articles, Blogs, Wikis, forum posts, picture galleries, source codes, file managements for download, product for e-commerce and so on.
Content can mean different things to different people. It can mean news, articles, Blogs, Wikis, forum posts, picture galleries, source codes, file managements for download, product for e-commerce and so on.
Why are there so many types of Content Management System?
If every piece of information that is stored digitally within an organisation can be described as content - then a piece of software such as e.g an ‘asset management tool’ can be said to be a content management system in the same way that a ‘document management system’ that manages documents can be said to be a content management system or a web content management system that manages web pages can also be a CMS. Alas every vendor sees the management of content from their product perspective. Combine this with the reality that at the so-called ‘Enterprise Content Management’ level, solutions have not just one form of content management but many - so they may be looking after content in the form of digital assets, documents, web content management, records and much much more.
A web content management system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of Web content to Web sites, in particular allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.
A CMS 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 workflow tasks for collaborative creation, often coupled with event messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content (For example, a content creator submits a story, which is published only after the copy editor revises it and the editor-in-chief approves it.);
* the ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content;
* the ability to capture content (e.g. scanning);
* 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.);
* separation of content’s semantic layer from its layout (For example, the CMS may automatically set the color, fonts, or emphasis of text.)
One of the most frequently asked questions received at Packt is ‘What is the best open source Content Management System for me?’ This isn’t the easiest question to answer, however we asked Chanh Ong, a computer specialist and contributor at opensourceCMS.com for his views, and this is what he had to say…
And finally… How do I choose the best CMS for me?
One of the most basic steps involved in a CMS selection effort is to determine your requirements. The following bullet points may assist you in the determination process.
* Content or Purpose: Defining the purpose of your content is just as important as defining the content itself. Is your content tailored for interaction, forums or for you to express yourself like Blogs and articles?
* Entry format: Content includes text, images, video; audio, XML, PDF, HTML, spreadsheets, etc.
* How should the content be stored: In flat files or in databases?
* Support: For open source projects, the community support is very important. How helpful is it? How active is it?
* Add-ons: There is rarely a CMS available that will match exactly what you need, so it is very important to have as many add-on options available for your chosen CMS as possible.
With the above understanding of your requirements, this is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. Ventura IT has 11+ years of experience in CMS development and design.
Contact Ventura IT to develop your content management system (CMS) based web site or web application.