CMS for Idiots

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Nuwanda

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Hi all, I'm new to this forum and have a question. I've been doing "garden variety" websites for a year or so now with Dreamweaver and Photoshop and was recently asked to create a site where the client can go in and add and remove content (product info text and images) themselves on a regular basis. At the risk of you all rolling your eyes, what would be the simplest way for me to achieve this and what CMS would you recommend. I'm a bit of a thicky and have avoided looking at them until now and realise I will have to make that step. Anyway if anyone can give me some pointers I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks
 
Forbairt

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
What operating system ?
What programming languages are you familar ?
Whats your CSS level at ?
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
If you're hosting on linux there are plenty of CMS to choose from. The main thing is customising the layout so that it doesn't look to much like "every other $cms powered site"
 
nevf

nevf

New Member
Forbairt said:
What operating system ?
What programming languages are you familar ?
Whats your CSS level at ?
Click to expand...
what modules/features would you like the website to have also?

There are so many CMS out there, but they're all specialised to suit a particular specification/user.

if you buy hosting, please make sure it has php/mysql at least, and a good bit of space.
 
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Nuwanda

New Member
Hi! I'm on Windows, I'm fairly well versed in CSS but haven't a clue when it comes to programming, is there hope?
 
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Nuwanda

New Member
Oh I use one.com for my hosting, if that helps. Basically a fellow wants a site that sells motorbikes done and he wants it done so that he can go in and delete and update motorbikes himself after I've designed it for him.
 
Forbairt

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
so you're actually talking about an ecommerce site ?

Products / Price / Shopping carts / integration with payment system ?
 
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Nuwanda

New Member
Hi again, I don't think it will be a full blown commerce site, just pictures of bikes and with price and description text.
 
nevf

nevf

New Member
blacknight said:
Most CMS store the data in the database, so you don't need insane amounts of space most of the time
Click to expand...

check out modata.ie - €90. Good customer service, but for 8mb hosting, and php, it's brutal. (mysql costs extra, and if you did get it, the space you used in there counted towards your 8mb limit). Personally, i hated that project that i had to suffer without breathing space or a database even.

Nuwanda said:
Hi again, I don't think it will be a full blown commerce site, just pictures of bikes and with price and description text.
Click to expand...

one.com appears to have all you need to get going.

as for the site, will he intending on having a system that will allow visitors to log in while browsing the site, or does he want just a 'static' website as such?
 
Forbairt

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
from the sounds of it .. you aren't sure what you want to give him yet ?

you don't think he'll want full ecommerce ? why not ask first ?
 
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Nuwanda

New Member
Thanks for all the tips and apologies for not being clearer in my original post, there will be no need for online purchasing, the site will have a products page with a list of bikes (pictures, prices, a bit of info text). The person visiting the site will then contact the seller or visit the garage. The person I'm doing the site for wants to be able to remove old pictures and add new ones themselves once I've designed it.
 
Forbairt

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Lots of people will say Joomla ...


I'll say CMS Made Simple ... cus its really ... quite simple :) templating is a dream with it .. very little programming knowledge needed for the most part.

All depends on which programming language you want though ...

Both require PHP / MySQL and are among the more popular

Failing that maybe you want to investigate one of the shopping cart systems that are out there and just remove payment and adding to carts ?
OSCommerce / ZenCart ..
 
nevf

nevf

New Member
Nuwanda said:
Thanks for that advice Forbairt, downloading it now. :)
Click to expand...
Just to back up what forbairt said, i think cmsMS is the perfect cms for the job. joomla is good, and has a lot of extendability, etc, but i feel it may be overkill.

cmsMS, is, on the other hand, is perfect for a basic job like this.
 
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jsweb

New Member
Hi Nuwanda,

Let us know how you got on with cmsMS - did it meet your needs for the small job?

..it was one of the CMS's that we were first considering and then we came across MODX which is working out great.

Of course we Eat/Drink/Sleep ZenCart for most of our sites (especially as we can TURN ON/OFF purchasing allowing sites to be in Showcase/Sales modes), but having a back up CMS for some clients sites, and of course based on their overall requirements, is key.

Do you have reference to the cmsMS site that was built as I'd like to see it in action.
 
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Nuwanda

New Member
That was a sheepish "I'll get my coat" cough not a knowing one Forbairt. But I have installed it and it works!! It took about twenty minutes to figure out how to add a new header, pages and fiddle with the layout, for me thats a minor miracle, up there with getting Ariel Sharon to do stand up at the annual Hamas dinner dance. Thanks again!!
 
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