CMS - Do you use one?

Originally Posted by expos1994 I think CMS's are generic. They have a real template sort of feel. I can always tell when someone is using a CMS... easiest way is to look for the copyright at the bottom. I wouldn't use one for my web design portfolio. That's kind of like saying, I'm a web designer, but I can't even design my own site. Portfolios are fairly simple sites. They should be very easy to maintain, but they shouldn't look like a wordpress template.

while i agree with you that people shouldn't use default templates for their portfolio sites, there are a bunch of CMS' that allow you complete control over everything... Like rockmedia pointed out, you're confusing CMS with news or blogging software

i use a light CMS that gives me complete control over everything, i could do it the hard way but it's so much easier, and looks much more professional when i show it to a client saying 'this is how easily i can update my site, look at how easy i can make it for you'

anybody not using a CMS and making all their pages by hand is really wasting a lot of their time

I've never used a CMS before. I custom code everything. I suppose I have my own little CMS I guess.

Just curious, when you say 'complete control over everything' I have my doubts. I have never seen a web app that allows 'complete control'.

Do you have an example of the type of control you get from a good CMS.

I cook up a sometimes wacky architecture for my site. Each piece fits just the way I want it. I have always assumed if I want it my way, I'd have to do it myself. Maybe I can be persuaded. I am building a site around a phpBB installation. (although I'm not having fun hacking the bb's code. Sometimes I want to smash my keyboard because of some of the annoying things they do...)

I always custom code my CMSs. If there are two sites with about the same content and I see one went the extra mile and had a custom site coding I will go with their site. But thats because I am a coder. Most people won't think twice about seeing WordPress at the bottom or nothing.

When I see wordpress or some other copyright at the bottom. It makes me think that their site is limited in what it can do. It's basically going to have a three-column layout with news articles in the middle that you can post comments about... blah blah snoooorree.

I like to see my competition using wordpress or similar because that means you can beat them by adding features and they aren't going to be able to keep up.

i've never used a CMS before i just make my own little simple script and do some stuff just manually. i dont bother with the CMS because it's too much work to customize it into your own design, i just find it easier to code it from scratch.

Originally Posted by Shawon i've never used a CMS before i just make my own little simple script and do some stuff just manually. i dont bother with the CMS because it's too much work to customize it into your own design, i just find it easier to code it from scratch.

yea. i make my own cms for every site i own.

Originally Posted by BoxedPixels Hey guys, Ok I have never used a CMS before and I’m wondering do any designers use one to update their portfolios? I currently never update my actual website due to it being coded in tables which is a total pain and I get bored of having to manually edit the content on every page. Also, could I setup a CMS system where if I change a section on page, for example the news box, it would change the news on the other corresponding pages? I have heard of some pre-made CMS systems such as mambo, however do you think I would need a custom built CMS system? Thanks, Lewis.

Right now my partner is incorperating fusionphp into the site so we can update the news easily for qubitdesigns.com. You could check that out.

Hi,

from the point of view of a designer, one of the main problems of using a prebuilt cms is that they might now be flexible enough. Most cms's are think to be just plug and play. So, even if you can edit its templates (a good cms lets you do that), there's always something custom that you need (some crazy thing like say, you want your first two news in gray, the third in blue, the fourth in orange, and if it has pictures, then it should have another font, etc). When you need something custom, then no cms is going to work....unless you customize it.

There are good cms that let you do a lot from just the templates, and usually have a way to create plugins, to add functionality. But, of course, you'd need to have some knowledge of php or whatever programming language the cms uses.

There are good cms like Typo3 (www.typo3.org), that are very flexible, and allow you to add anything to your site, complete control, yes, but it's very complicated to customize it, and develop stuff with it. It took me like 3 months to learn all the ins and outs of it.

There are others like mambo: easy, friendly, but the code is awful. Me, as a coder, I just hate it. Usually it's a charm with small sites.

I mostly do flash websites, so I had to build my own CMS that works for flash and html, though man, it sucks now, it's been patched 1000 times, so I'm recoding everything now.

Anyway, another option you can have, instead of having a full cms for your whole site, you can use several scripts for each part of your site that will be updated frequently. There are scripts just for news, less potent than blogs (that allow for categories, tags, monthly archives, daily archives, rss feeds, etd). There are scripts to manage photo galleries, scripts to just update simple html content, etc. If you don't have experience in coding, but want to have your site as you want and not as a prebuilt cms forces you to, then you'd choose severeal small scripts to manage each part of your site. (Yes, a cms can be customized to work on any site, but usually, you'd need to now some programming to do that).

I hope I was somehow helpful.

Honestly, for something this simple you may as well pay a few bucks and get something custom coded to suite your needs perfectly.

Anyway, another option you can have, instead of having a full cms for your whole site, you can use several scripts for each part of your site that will be updated frequently. There are scripts just for news, less potent than blogs (that allow for categories, tags, monthly archives, daily archives, rss feeds, etd). There are scripts to manage photo galleries, scripts to just update simple html content, etc.

This like this seem like so much effort when you could just pay a few bucks and get something custom coded.

Theres a New CMS just hit the market,

www.gameCMS.com - For gaming sites, but its 100% Free.


- Lewis