Since the beginning of the web, businesses have relied on their web development companies to
manage their site updates. In recent years, bespoke and off the shelf Content Management Systems
for websites have empowered businesses to run their own site. This has provided the following
benefits:
Open Source alternatives
Content management solutions for websites have been expensive bespoke add-ons for your site, and
commercial off the shelf products. However recently, Open Source CMSs have been emerging with
functionality and ease of use comfortably competing with commercial products. Such systems as
Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal, have accumulated thousands of development hours between their
respective project communities, combining the benefits of Open Source software with the power of
CMSs. Add-on modules extend functionality even further.
Where your web developer fits in
A CMS driven website is rather like your office computer network along with office software,
networking and network services. In most cases this is best left to IT companies to set up and
support when required, but after this initial expertise, you can use these tools with a small amount
of IT proficiency. Easy to use Content Management Systems for websites take this idea to the web
- after all you don't need an IT company to write your own emails and letters, and likewise your
own website should not be out of your own control.
Joomla!
So how does a CMS work? Let's take Joomla - a very popular Open Source CMS - for example.
The system comprises largely of software to generate pages on-the-fly using your website graphical
template, and content taken from a database. No pages as files are stored, only 'articles' in your
database, and Joomla displays these articles however you dictate according to virtual page
structures.
For instance, you may have your front page displaying the last 5 articles displayed in
order of publishing, several news articles linked by headline, the first few lines of featured articles
with a 'read more' link etc. Subsequent pages may have one article per page, with the news
headlines displayed on every page at the top. Not only articles, but also your menu structure is
dynamic, so you can add new sections. The customisation possible is limitless.
Extending functionality
As Joomla is open source, this encourages many high quality plugins such as the E-Commerce
plugin Virtuemart. This fits within the Joomla system and allows the web administrator to add and
updates products through an additional interface in the Joomla administrator system.
For almost any application you can imagine, there will be a Joomla module to bolt on, such as site
translation mirroring, to calendar and booking systems. These modules, as well as Joomla itself,
can be configured to display in a massive variety of ways.
You can of course integrate your own existing bespoke applications into wrappers within the
Joomla framework, or better still have you developer modify your existing system to be a fully
compatible Joomla module itself.
About the author
Miles Cook is the Managing Director of CookieOnline Ltd, which started out in 2005 as a web development and IT solutions company. Their experience with business customers has led us to offer services such as website software development, Content Management Systems, search engine strategies etc. in an effort to cover all a business's on-line needs.
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