Sessions attended: “Content Management Systems from a Designer’s Perspective”, “Managing Your Content Management System”
Twitter hashtags: #contentmgmtdesign #contentmgmtsystem
These sessions focused on technical aspects of building sites using WordPress and Drupal Content Management Systems (CMS) tools, but in this blog post I’m going to focus on the benefits each offer. Both are free and open source backend systems written in PHP code that utilize template files to build large, dynamic sites that pull content from a database. Like most CMS systems, they both use theming for the graphic interface. While there are many types of free themes and premium themes available for purchase, custom theming is a better option for businesses and individuals that want a website that is custom-made to fit their needs. Designers will need to know HTML, CSS, some javascript and core PHP in order to develop custom design for CMS-based websites. Use of theming separates the design from delivery and enables easier design iteration. Since sitewide design changes are made within template files, it is relatively easy to update the design of a site built using a CMS.
Drupal is a powerful tool with many plug-in modules for full-featured functionality. While it doesn’t require programming knowledge to administer a site built in Drupal, it is primarily a developer’s tool and is not necessarily a tool that clients will be able to use unless a custom admin system is also built as part of the project. It is, however, a very useful tool for large sites that require complex functionality.
WordPress started as a blog software platform but has grown to be used as a CMS tool to build full-featured websites. The admin interface is very easy to use, which has led to WordPress becoming the most popular blog tool available. There are two different ways to use WordPress: WordPress.com is a hosted blogging service that doesn’t allow for customization with custom theming, or the use of plug-ins; WordPress.org is the version that we use for this blog and what we use to build all WordPress CMS-based sites for our clients. It allows total customization without any limitations. Plug-ins allow functionality to be added as needed. There are currently over 8,000 plug-ins that have been developed by the open source community, so there is a plug-in for just about anything you can come up with.
PRESENTATION ON SLIDESHARE
Give us a call at 503.977.5130 or email
or
.
There are no comments yet, add one below.