Welcome to the WhichCMS Workshop. WhichCMS Workshop Present CMS solutions as an option between...

Welcome to the WhichCMS Workshop

WhichCMS Workshop Present CMS solutions as an option between static and code orientated web development Research survey: 2, 4 and 6 month surveys via newsletter subscription Research outcomes: Track participant interest in various CMS options Track participant interest in coding Analyse impact on current study path

WhichCMS? Drupal Joomla! ExpressionEngine WordPress Concrete5 Tumblr Level of complexity & Learning curve

What is Web 1.0? Static sites, HTML & XHTML Content embedded like text in a word processing document Site development based on tables not CSS (cascading style sheets) Sites were like online brochures No dynamic interaction with/ from the audience Comments Posts Uploading content etc

What is Web2.0? Web2.0 actually equates to just a handful of enabling technologies and websites Wikis Blogs, RSS, Tagging, Podcasts, AJAX, Mashups It has provided a self-service web where ease-of- accessibility is quick, painless, easy and (normally) free. Go to site > sign-up > use

What is Web 2.0? It has enabled a read/write web for the masses. Rather than what used to be a read-only web for the majority of people in Web 1.0

Web2.0 is

What is a CMS? Content Management System (CMS) CMSs allow users to easily create and manage websites without previous technical knowledge. CMS allow users to add content, upload images and files and perform general maintenance functions on a website.

What is a CMS? Ability to move, add, edit and delete webpage content Ability to upload or remove images Choose from a variety of design templates Create website navigation Create text and image links Embed videos and slideshows

What is a CMS? Icons via freeiconsweb.com

Static vs. Dynamic Static html document Dynamic CMS Icons via freeiconsweb.com

What is a CMS?

Dynamic sites Browser Presentation MySQL database Apache software web server Content owner Files Email

What is Apache? Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on the World Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the environment and features that Apache provides. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone Icons via freeiconsweb.com

What is MySQL? MySQL is a relational database management system that has more than 6 million installations MySQL stands for "My Structured Query Language". The program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases

What is MySQL?

Scripting vs. Programming Scripting requires a host application or interpreter. The host effectively carries out all the processing Examples are HTML, PHP,.net, Ruby, Python, JavaScript. Programming does not require a host application and can run on its own These are compiled self executable files Examples are and.exe file or application

What is PHP? PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development. PHP originally stood for personal home page. April 2007, over 20 million Internet domains were hosted on servers with PHP installed Used with the MYSQL database Popular amongst blogging and small CMS community sites

PHP primarily acts as a filter, taking input from a file or stream containing text and/or PHP instructions and outputs another stream of data; most commonly the output will be HTML. Has security issues Current Version 5 What is PHP? Hello World PHP Test

Significant websites are written in PHP including: Facebook Wikipedia (MediaWiki) Yahoo! MyYearbook Digg Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress YouTube and Tagged. What is PHP?

Other web scripting environments Ruby on Rails Python Google uses it! Perl Active Server Pages ASP (Microsoft) ASP + the.net framework - ASP.net (faster than ASP) Java Server Pages - JSP ColdFusion

Hosting a CMS Local environments MAMP - Mac WAMP - PC XAMPP - Mac, PC & Linux LAMP - Linux External Internet Service Provider (ISP) environment PHP supported Wizard like support with cPanel

Hosting a CMS Internet Apache + MySQL + PHP bundled software User Apache web server PHP MySQL database or }

MAMP local host www.mamp.info

WAMP local host www.wampserver.com

XAMPP local host www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

LAMP local host http://wiki.debian.org/LaMp

phpMyAdmin A free software tool intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the World Wide Web Provides an easy interface to create databases, delete, administer

phpMyAdmin

Putting it all together.. locally Internet XAMPP User Files uploaded locally Content Management System Database creation and management

Putting it all together.. externally Internet Hosted Environment User Database creation and management Content Management System Files uploaded via FTP application

ISP help

cPanel external ISP host cPanel is a unix based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site.

Choosing an ISP host Does the host support you in creating a database? cPanel phpMyAdmin (creation of databases) Does the host offer you the ability to set up more than 1 database? You will need FTP access to upload files Costs range from $3 $10 per month depending on options www.hostgator.com $9 per month

What is Open Source? Community of content/ system designers CMS Under license and conditions offered FREE Icons via freeiconsweb.com Internet

What is Open Source? Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Source (Wikipedia) The term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. Provides the software under license for free. The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration

Other Open Source examples Content Management Systems Drupal Joomla! Wordpress Online applications OpenOffice, AbiWord (word processing) Wikipedia Redmine (project management) Software Linux operating system Audacity (sound) Blender 3D (3D modeling and animation) FileZilla (ftp client)

Uploading/editing you site Locally via copying files with Finder or Windows Explorer into the htdocs folder in site your local host application as MAMP, WAMP or XAAMP

Uploading/editing you site Remote via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Transmit, Fetch, CuteFTP

10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS

Who are you choosing the CMS for? Are they technical or non-technical users? How many people will need access? Do you need to be able to control what content individuals or groups can change? How high of security will they need? source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

What are the project needs? What type of website is it? What tasks is the client going to need to be able to accomplish on their own? How do these tasks equate to needed features What is the process for posting content? Will it be reviewed/ edited? plugins/ extensions, etc source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

1. Core functionality Not all Content Management Systems can create, delete, edit, format and organizing pages There is no guarantee that such functionality will be presented in an intuitive way Consider carefully the basic functionality you need. Even if you do not require the ability to structure and organize pages now, you may in future source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

1. Core functionality Not all blogging platforms, for example, allow the owner to manage and organize pages in a tree hierarchy. Instead, individual posts are automatically organized by such criteria as date and category.

2. The editor The majority of content management systems have a WYSIWYG editor The danger of traditional WYSIWYG editors is two-fold Content providers are given too much control over the design. They are able to customize the appearance of a page so much that they undermine the consistency of the design and branding. In order to achieve this level of design control, the CMS mixes design and content. source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

3. Managing assets Management of images and files is badly handled in some CMS. Badly designed systems can frustrate users with poor accessibility and usability CMS should provide basic image editing tools, such as cropping, resizing and rotating Uploading and attaching PDFs, Word documents and other files. How are they displayed to end users? source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

4. Search Approximately half of all users start with search when looking for content. Thoroughness: does it index the entire content of each page? What about attached files, such as PDFs and Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents? Speed: some search engines can take ages to return results. This is especially common on large websites. Scope: can you limit the scope of the search function to a particular section of the website or refine search results once returned? Ranking: how does the search engine determine the ranking of results? Can this be customized by either the website owner or user? source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

5. Customization You need a content management system that allows flexibility in the way content is retrieved and presented For example, can you retrieve news stories in reverse chronological order? Can you display events in a calendar? Is it possible to extract the most recent user comments and display them on the home page? Flexibility makes a CMS stand out Can you control the design aspects? source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

6. User interaction If you intend to gather user feedback, your CMS must provide chat, forums, comments and ratings At a minimum, you will need to be able to post forms and collect responses. Can you customize fields or does that require technical expertise? Also ask what tools exist for communicating with customers. Can you send email newsletters? Do you need to be able to reset passwords, set permissions or export user information to other systems? source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

7. Roles and permissions As the number of content providers on your website increases, you will want more control over who can edit what. For example, one group may need to be able to post job advertisements but not add content to the home page You need a CMS that supports multiple roles. This can be as simple as having one Editor and one Approver Enterprise-level content management systems support entire workflows in which page updates have to go through a series of checkpoints before going live source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

8. Versioning Being able to revert to a previous version of a page allows you to quickly recover if something is posted by accident Some content management systems have complex versioning functionality that allows you to roll back to a specific date Not really used by authors source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

9. Multiple website support More and more content management systems allow multiple websites from the same installation One install, multiple domain names Set up and module configuration takes time Mobile Web, you may want to create a separate website especially for mobile devices. Content will need to be pulled from your current database into your mobile site source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

10. Multilingual support Your website may specifically target the domestic market, or you may sell a language-specific product Google translate is not a quality translation Requires double or more entries of content by a native speaker/writer We live in a multicultural society in which numerous languages are spoken. source: Website Owners Manual (Boag 2009)

cmscritic.com

cmsmatrix.org

cmsreport.com

cmsreview.com

cmswire.com

independentdesign.com.au/whichcms/

Tumblr

Tumblr Overview Tumblr is a minibloging tool, great entry level with no technical ability necessary Offers rich media tools such as photos, video support, and feeds Blog appears as a digital scrapbook Tumblr combines the quick Web-posting and mobile-posting with standard blog features such as a choice of page themes, rich-text formatting, and your own URL. Entries get their own pages, but they're not longer than the post on the main page.

Tumblr Advantages Site is fully hosted All posting happens at the Dashboard, where there are options for Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, and Video Ability to make custom theme very easy Great community feeling and sharing of information Completely free

Tumblr Disadvantages Don't be fooled by the Chat buttonit's just a text entry where you're supposed to paste text from a chat dialog you had or saw: The post will be formatted to look like a conversation. These pages don't have the comment capability you'd find on a fuller-fledged blogging service. Comments need to be done via an external provider Disqus

Tumblr Showcase http://www.tumblr.com/popular

Tumblr Training http://speckyboy.com/2008/01/30/ a-rough-guide-to-the-excellent-tumblr/ http://www.webmonkey.com/tutorial/ Get_Started_With_Tumblr http://www.tumblr.com/docs/custom_themes http://www.tumblr.com/themes/ http://www.tumblr.com/popular

Concrete5

Concrete5 Overview Concrete5 is best for non-programmers that want a static website. In other words, a finite set of Web pages like: About, Contact, Services, etc. Its real attraction may be in-page editing of content. All you need to do is click some content and a popup allows you to change its contents.

Concrete5 Advantages Great for client to edit live pages Has versionising Extremely simple to use It handles links, images, and all sorts of different blocks of content wonderfully. Blocks can be moved around easily. Themeing is extremely easy

Concrete5 Disadvantages Very new, version 5 announced in 2008 Limited community, 9000 registered members Only about 40 additional plugins No central content tracking

Concrete5 Showcase http://www.concrete5.org/about/showcase/

Concrete5 Training www.vimeo.com/user997513 http://c5mix.com/tutorials/ ten-great-concrete5-tutorials http://hungred.com/how-to/ tutorial-making-a-template-for-concrete5/

Wordpress

Wordpress Overview The number 1 Blogging tool Wordpress is technically a blogging system, but it has grown into a formidable CMS by adding good page management features, media uploading and management, as well as numerous other features that help it to manage content.

Wordpress Advantages Wordpress is best for bloggers, but is certainly capable of much more. Plug and play interface Easy operations It has everything it needs for what most people want and need for blogging: Posts, comments, media, links, simple pages, users, etc. Great for simple sites; many, many, many free plugins.

Wordpress Disadvantages Limitations for bigger sites and when there are needs for more complicated kinds of content. Can be difficult to adapt to a non-blog CMS

Wordpress Showcase http://wordpress.org/showcase/

Wordpress Training WordPress.com 2.7 Essential Training Lynda.com http://www.learnwebdevelopment.com/introduction-to- wordpress.html http://www.lynda.com/home/ViewCourses.aspx?lpk0=368

ExpressionEngine

ExpressionEngine Overview ExpressionEngine is a flexible system that allows you to publish any number of different streams of information with custom fields. It comes in three version: free core version, personal, and commercial ExpressionEngine is best for those that want a feature- rich (blog, dynamic content, static pages, etc.), but have a little programming knowledge

ExpressionEngine Advantages While EE does not have a huge development community for modules, they do provide fantastic support through their forums Custom fields can be set up and controlled by very specifically by the designer Another impressive thing is how they have implemented their templates (themes); it does not take a die hard programmer to build a custom theme

ExpressionEngine Disadvantages The system can be frustrating at times in that there are menus buried in menus buried in menus. It can take awhile to find what youre looking for. When first learning the system of weblogs/templates/categories it can get confusing and seem counter-intuitive.

ExpressionEngine Showcase http://expressionengine.com/showcase/websites/

ExpressionEngine Training Video training eescreencasts.com Blog jambor-ee.com Blog/video training eeinsider.com Blog proeetuts.com Ebook train-ee.com Blog devot-ee.com

Joomla!

Joomla! Overview Joomla! is a large contender in the open source CMS market. It has won several awards, and many big websites use it for their management. It manages all different types of content well like simple text, photos, music, videos, or documents.

Joomla! Advantages Joomla! is best for developers and those that need a powerful, extensible CMS It is a solid offering that has a lot of functionality, while not being overwhelming on the first login It can accomplish a lot with only the core, and is especially adept when you consider all of the third-party extensions that are available for it. There is a huge community backing Joomla! so the good news is you generally can get fast help on their forums

Joomla! Disadvantages Developing themes may not be as easy when compared to other systems Joomla! has a large community devoted to it, with a million module creators, but that can get frustrating to find the right one for your needs Sometimes you have to resort to using commercial modules which can cost a lot of money

Joomla! Showcase http://community.joomla.org/showcase/

Joomla! Training http://www.joomlatutorials.com/ http://www.myjoomlacast.com/ http://www.lynda.com/home/ DisplayCourseN.aspx?lpk2=474 http://www.learnwebdevelopment.com/ intro-to-joomla.html

Drupal

Drupal Overview Drupal is one of the biggest and most well known open source CMS solutions It is usually used to run community web portal types of website It has many features and modules, it can be made to run almost any kind of website

Drupal Advantages Because of Drupals vastness, it can be made to run almost any kind of website There is a large community, so finding help or modules should not be a problem In short order, one can have a very feature-rich site up and running Drupal also makes it very easy to keep custom modules, themes, and the core Drupal files up-to-date which is a huge bonus It has thousands of modules that can add on to its functionality

Drupal Disadvantages Drupal can be intimidating to just logon to the system as an administrator There are so many options and configurations and strange names like taxonomy that you dont know where to start Theming Drupal can be a large challenge if you are not a programmer

Drupal Showcase http://www.drupalsites.net/

Drupal Training Drupal Essential Training lynda.com Build Websites With Drupal! lullabot.com/ Site Building With Drupal Administering Drupal Theming Basics For Drupal Learning CCK Learning Views Video training learnbythedrop.com

www.packtpub.com/content-management

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