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CMS FAQs
CMS FAQs 1 - this page
CMS FAQs 2 - continued
Lots of CMS questions here! These pages are an extended CMS Q&A, and answer questions the site
gets on various CMS topics that have not yet been included in the
main content. It is a useful guide to the issues people enquire about;
sometimes these are reflected in the main pages. However, these are often CMS
questions that perhaps won't make it into the main site as they are
just too specific. Occasionally the questions are answered in the main
section - in general - but it seemed worth doing a specific answer
here. To keep to the format we made this an extended CMS Q & A.We also set up a whole new page for the most frequent question of all: Compare Joomla and Wordpress for CMS Is your question still unanswered? Try the new CMS Forum.
It's newly set up this week - so we're enthusiastic about any and all
questions and discussion points, from beginners' worries through to
gurus who want to help us out.
Here, the questions
are sometimes logical, sometimes pretty weird - so we kept to that agenda with the answers...
Q : A good ASP CMS that uses the Access database?
A : No way.
The
Microsoft Office suite database application Access should never be used
on a website in any circumstances. It is strictly a PC app and was
never intended to run on a server. Just because it's easy to install it
on a Windows box that is being used as a server is no reason to use it.
It
is impossible to harden Access effectively against Internet attacks,
and where it has been used there have been some famous exploits with
severe consequences for those affected.
The Microsoft server
database app is called MS SQL Server, and this is what should be used
on any MS server. Alternatively, you can install MySQL and PHP on a
Windows server and use that instead. All properly set up Windows
servers have PHP and MySQL on them.
If you find your proposed
host has Access running on the server, you should run a mile. They
obviously haven't a clue. And don't try to build your own server using
Access; if you are trying to do this, you clearly don't have enough
knowledge to do the job safely and someone will get hurt.
Q : Why is there no good .NET CMS?
A : Interesting question - and quite logical. There are two possible answers to this:
1. There are, but you're looking in the wrong place.
2. There doesn't need to be, because a CMS is a better version of .NET anyway.
Taking
answer (1) first: I think you need to look at Umbraco (www.umraco.org) or DotNetNuke (www.dotnetnuke.com). Did you know of their existence? These are successful open-source ASP / .NET CMS.
As regards commercial .NET CMS - there is a much higher ratio of commercial offerings to OSS offerings in the ASP CMS field, than in the PHP CMS field. If you want to go commercial there are plenty of very capable offerings.
This isn't our area since we know a lot more
about PHP CMS (mainly since the world is biased toward PHP v ASP for
CMS in a proportion of around 50:1 or thereabouts). Microsoft
code-based CMS applications are very much more restricted in the choice
of server and ancillaries, so are a minority choice. Those we have worked with have been of excellent quality - often better than some PHP solutions - but the problem for us is that because of the server restrictions, in the real world, they are much harder to manage efficiently. And more expensive to host of course.
This is mainly because of two factors: whether your ASP CMS needs to run in a Medium-, High- or Full-Trust environment; and also because you'll need MS SQL Server database on the server, which is rarely free, in contrast to the MySQL and PosrgreSQL databases on LAMP servers. Therefore, in general, ASP CMS costs more to run, even for very small sites, which still need the basic facilities and have to pay for hosting that would suit much larger websites.
Answer
(2): this refers to the fact that, essentially, .NET is a way to manage
hand-coded sites, and is not therefore necessary with a CMS - which is
a hundred times easier to manage in the first place. As to whether .NET
would be a better system for managing a CMS than HTTP management (which
99.99% of CMS use), then that is an interesting point. Some ASP CMS use it; unlike in PHP CMS where as far as I know, none use WebDAV as that is hardly necessary. WebDAV is the open-source version of
.NET, more or less, and whether it
might be better than browser management for CMS use seems not relevant as no one uses it. WebDAV was a good way to manage hard-coded sites - a step up from the
Dreamweaver sync & link method - but a CMS doesn't need any of
that.
Perhaps if a way
can be found to harness stronger features than are available in browser
CMS management, and present them to the user, then .NET and WebDAV management may be of more use than browser management. Some ASP CMS solutions do use .NET.
Q : best cms for running a business website?
A : A reasonable question, naturally. What budget?
In
CMS you start with the budget - the field is so big, you need to start
by whittling it down somehow. If you are in the over-£20k market, then
canvas the big commercial CMS suppliers. We don't cover that market
area except for SEO clients - our public website reviews are extremely
honest and we need to tread lightly here...
In
the over-£3k / $6k field then you can pick any one of the value
commercial CMS; semi- commercial CMS (which are big players here); or
enterprise-class OSS CMS; if you are going to do the job properly and
have a commercial install and support package then the cost can be in
this area. The latter group includes Drupal and Plone.
Alternatively,
if you do not require complex ACL or features such as versioning, then
you can get online for least cost in the shortest time with something
like CMS-MS or Mambo. If you intend to have a small site then perhaps a
commercial Drupal or eZpublish install will not be expensive.
To
be any more precise requires a lot more background; and also of course,
in certain circumstances, the answers given here would be wrong. We
need the background.
The best policy is to start with a list of
requirements and even constraints: for example, budget = £1k / $2k;
must use standard web hosting (e.g. hosting cost <£200 per year). So
then you know that you are looking at an open-source CMS that
remote-installs on a normal shared hosting LAMP server.
You can see how
the process runs, from this example. Budget; core requirements; constraints.
Q : best ecommerce CMS?
A : Another
'best' question? OK, let's try and help. Firstly, you need to be a
little bit more specific. Start with your budget: if it is over £20k /
$40k per site then you should look at the big commercial applications
as that will be the best route for you.
If your budget is from
£3k / $6k upward we think eZpublish is a good bet here. It is solid and
dependable, with a lot of commercial support options. There are some
server issues here so it is not the best choice for a standard shared
hosting deal.
If your budget is below £3K / $6k then you are
looking at various OSS or semi-commercial options. Here you can take
your choice according to what you consider the most important features.
Remember that no CMS performs as well in ecommerce as a full-blown
ecommerce application - how can it? So if you choose an integrated
CMS-ecommerce solution (which is basically a CMS with a simple shopping cart),
be aware that you will never get the full ecommerce package as in
MivaMerchant5 or OScommerce, for instance. (As an example of what is
meant by this, OScommerce has around 500 payment gateways available;
the standard CMS-ecommerce package has about 10 to 20.)
You can
use a CMS with integrated ecommerce - Joomla-Virtuemart is one of the
best here - or bridge or co-install a CMS and an ecommerce app. For
instance you could use a budget
ecommerce application and link it with a lightweight
CMS of your choice. There are two main issues that we have found when
going this route: the membership lists and the htaccess files. There
are often conflicting requirements here.
If you are not a
developer but have a small budget, try Joomla plus one of the
commercial add-on carts for it. Alternatively, just go with
Joomla-Virtuemart; it suits many thousands of people in your situation.
Virtually every CMS - finally, at long last - has an ecommerce add-on;
but they are mostly very basic.
It depends what you need to sell
exactly:
- Digital products are the easiest of all and require little or
no capability;
- Selling a very limited range of products that just ship
within one country only is the next step up, and may not require much
in the way of checkout options (depending on the products of course).
- Selling a range of items with different tax and different shipping
methods, to two or more countries, will start to really stretch your
ecommerce backend's capabilities.
For
this sort of capability you would
do well to start out in this area and work back: define what your
backend needs to do first, then find applications that will handle it.
It is certainly not the case that a powerful CMS will have a powerful
ecommerce backend. At least two big CMS spring to mind immediately
where the capability of the ecommerce backend is in inverse proportion
to that of the core application.
Q : best basic PHP CMS?
A : Well, you may know that we
don't really use the term "Best this" or "Best that", it depends on so
many factors. However, here you have defined the market quite well so
we'll take a chance and give a specific answer. We think CMS-MadeSimple
is a good choice here.
Once
again, it isn't "The Best", as you may have other requirements that
this application does not accord with - but we can't know that. CMS-MS
is probably the fastest to set up, and is skinny enough to do the job
without frightening people off. It also has some good features that you
will find useful later on - like custom metadata for instance.
You
build your basic page first in a normal visual editor, then import that
as the template. Just create a header, footer and menu if you like,
then you're off. The best advice we can give here is this: validate your basic page first.
There is no point in building on a shabby foundation, so go to the W3C
online validator and ensure that the page you are starting out with as
a template validates 100% to begin with.
Q : cms v dreamweaver?
A : Often, people ask things
like "Compare Dreamweaver and CMS", or "What are the pros and cons of
CMS v Dreamweaver" and so on. Here is an explanation.
Dreamweaver
is a standard web page editor for hand-coded sites, where each page is
built separately and FTP'd up to the site; a CMS is server-resident
software that runs a website from a database rather than web pages.
There are pros and cons to each system; but if you want to edit your
page content quickly and easily, or change the content often, or indeed
just have a big website - then a CMS is most likely a much better
proposition.
Dreamweaver is the de facto
hand-coded web page author and site manager. That means it is the benchmark
visual HTML editor, and also a good way of managing a hard-coded
(standard, normal web page) site, as it inserts all the links
correctly, at varying directory levels; and also syncs the livesite and dev site - it edits
the on-server website via built-in FTP, to reflect changes made to the
local site, i.e. the developer's version on the PC.
It
is now an extremely capable application, though this also means the
learning curve for novices is very steep - even though it is a visual
editor and not a code-based one. Because it does so much (even PHP and
ASP coding for instance) it is a highly complex piece of machinery. It
actually takes years of experience to get the best out of it.
However,
good though it is, it can only work with standard HTML sites, and close
variants such as PHP-format ones. Such sites are all termed
'hard-coded' as they are built on custom code from the ground up -
though, with a visual editor, this is transparent to the user. Each
page has to be built by hand, although of course there are some
shortcuts. There
will probably, nowadays, be some semi-dynamic functionality built in.
Dreamweaver has some excellent validation tools built in. These can be
complex if you don't know the score, which is probably why 75% of
developers don't even bother to validate their web page code and
produce a lot of garbage.
It can also be used very successfully to author CMS templates. For
example, there is a Dreamweaver plugin that enables a complete Joomla
template package to be created (such templates are not just a single
page, they are a group of files such as a PHP master file, graphics,
CSS files, and an xml file list). Our favourite Dreamweaver version is
DW-MX2004; and also DW3 which gets used as a fast and skinny site
sync-and-link app, with its convenient built-in FTP. Sometimes we have
DW3 and DW-MX both installed at the same time, as both are good for
different jobs.
Incidentally, we
also like SiteSpinner, which is the best-supported layer and CSS-based
editor. If you know what z-order refers to, then this might be of
interest. Layer-based visual editors like this worked using these modern
methods, now the recognised standard, before Dreamweaver et al had even heard of divs and were still using things like cells and tables as the basis for HTML pages. Ugh! Remember FrontPage??
A
WCMS (website content management system) is a completely different
proposition. It could legitimately be referred to as a website generator, and is a program that resides on a server, hooked
into a database. There are no web pages on the server. When a browser
requests a page, the CMS builds it in a fraction of a second, unless it is in memory due to being
requested recently.
This
is a fully-dynamic application and can therefore be set up to perform a
multitude of tasks under changing conditions. In addition, new features
and functions can be added via plugins, which are small add-on programs
that contribute more capabilities. Website visitors can have many more
ways to interact with the site, and the overall functionality is
unbeatable. Add to this the ease of content management - storing it,
moving it, repurposing it, editing it; and the clear advantages of a
CMS are apparent.
Of course, there are situations where this route is not the best choice; but not that many of them. Dreamweaver still performs some useful functions even in the world of CMS, so it's not quite dead yet...
- CMS
is best for fast user content edits - getting complex sites online fast
- multi-feature sites - user interaction sites - sites with frequent
content changes - very large sites - sites that need a fast
business-like solution - straightforward control of large amounts of
content - sites that may benefit from extended functionality in the
future, by way of easy plugin additions - any site that needs a fast
non hard-coded solution.
- It is not the best choice for custom-coded projects with functionality that is not normally seen within a CMS
- It
may not be the best choice for some art-based projects. This
specifically refers to sites that major on custom graphic layouts; or
wish to present pictures or similar material in widely differing
layouts on different pages.
- A
WCMS needs basic server management access and a database. In some
cases, where the hosting is of very poor quality or there are external
restrictions placed on the site operator, it will not be possible to
utilise a standard CMS. In this case an alternative format can be used
- the flat-file CMS - but this is not a full-feature solution.
So there are a huge number of sites that will benefit - but not all sites.
Q : Joomla ACL explanation?
A :
ACL with reference to CMS means access control levels or lists, or how group
privileges are managed. This has to do with user rights, but in a more
specific form: if there are certain levels of user, such as
non-members, registered members, and editors - then for advanced ACL we
need to be able to pick any members from any of the (registered) groups
and assign them to another separate group.
Such assignment
then gives additional user rights - an additional role - to these
selected members. In practice they will no doubt be able to access
additional sections on the site; they may be able to perform certain
actions there such as authoring, editing or publishing.
Another
role that could be assigned is for a specific group, only, to be able
to access a given page; or to be able to see a certain piece of content
on a page. Full ACL, then, implies granular control of access and
privileges - meaning control of allocations at a very detailed level.
This is not present in Joomla.
In Joomla there are 8 pre-set user rights levels,
for frontend and backend access. However, there are no additional group
roles available (within the core application), so that we can say
Joomla has only basic ACL. For this reason, it is not a true
enterprise-level CMS: an application that can be used within an
organisation for multiple tasks by multiple groups, with some common
access areas.
However, in the Joomla tradition, some plugins
have been written to extend functionality here. It may be found that
one of these will suffice for a specific task that needs slightly
extended ACL.
Here are the Joomla user levels as existing:
Frontend Access:
Public website
Registered member
Author
Editor
Publisher
Backend Access:
Manager
Administrator
Super Administrator
In addition there are 3 content groups with viewing rights assigned as follows:
Public viewable by all
Registered viewable by members
Special viewable by admins only
So to round up:
- There
are 4 registered member levels who have elevated frontend access
rights, which include the ability to upload content. They can see
'registered members only' content.
- There are 3 admin levels with access to the backend control panel. They can see 'special' content.
- There
are no group roles in the core app, but some can be added via plugins.
This procedure is strictly for sysadmins as it may involve executing
some SQL operations directly on the database.
- Since
Joomla does not have any form of granular ACL in the core, it is not a
good choice as an enterprise CMS where different groups own various
sections of information. In addition, certain other tools required at
this level are not present (such as versioning).
Q : Compare CMS and .NET
A :
Yes, a lot of people ask this. A CMS is a fully-featured way of
publishing a lot of content, and/or for easy management of content that
gets changed regularly, and it will provide extended functionality -
especially when there are sufficient plugins.
Microsoft .NET, and the OSS equivalent WebDAV, are simply ways of editing content on hand-coded websites.
A CMS is about a thousand times more capable in every department.
Microsoft .NET is basically an alternative to Dreamweaver-style website
management - you have to build the pages in the first place, then the
application syncs the website for you. That's basically all it does.
A CMS, in contrast, builds the whole site and its navigation for you,
builds most of the page for you, and manages the site automatically.
Then, it does an all-singing all-dancing job with dozens of different
types of content and ways of managing them.And,
of course, .NET only runs on an IIS server (a Windows server), which is
strictly a minority choice that will handicap you in many ways. It's
much easier for a novice host to run - but that's about it. If you
still want to expend time with hard-coded sites, then using WebDAV
might be more logical - at least then you can use a normal LAMP server,
PHP etc. Some
ASP-based website content management systems use .NET as the website
editing machinery, instead of HTTP (browser-based editing) or FTP. The
equivalent in OSS, though - WebDAV - is never used for this purpose, as
far as we are aware.
We have seen some 'custom' CMS built around .NET and ASP. These
generally refer to a semi-dynamic hard-coded one-off site that has some
limited functionality. As a 'cms' these are about the same as a donkey
compared to a Lamborghini. A
CMS has access to a wealth of plugins that easily and quickly expand
the functions a website can perform, and the tasks it can handle. An
ASP-.NET site - or any other hard-coded site such as PHP or just plain
HTML to start with - must have each and every one of these new
functions coded from scratch. This type of site is suitable for small
sites with limited dynamic functionality that have few content changes;
and perhaps for sites that major on static graphic effects of some
kind, like art displays and certain other image-based applications or
custom-code jobs. All other websites - and especially those that need
extended image-based dynamic functionality like image galleries and
video - are better off on a capable CMS.
Q : Best ASP CMS?A :
Good question. We are not specialists in this area so it would be
unwise to offer an answer - but in any case you need to be more
specific. Commercial or open-source? Exactly what class of CMS are you
looking for?
As regards commercial CMS, there are plenty of offerings, so budget is
the key question. At the lower end of the scale (from £2,500 / $5,000
and up) Colony has a lot going for it. In OSS, perhaps the best ploy
would be to install a local server and then get hold of some of the
open-source ASP apps we list. Install and trial them - which is
straightforward - and then you will be able to see how to proceed. DotNetNuke is a popular choice; a mature application with good documentation.
There is never any easy answer to "Best whatever" - it's what you want
to use it for. For example, a multi-user CMS will need frontend
editing, and some don't have this. To embed videos from YouTube etc
on-page you need the right plugins, and this would limit your choice.
So try them out, check what plugins are there, and then decide.
The main advice we would give in this situation is that without a
shadow of a doubt every server - including an MS Windows IIS server -
needs PHP / MySQL installed. Without that, add-ons of many types (like
genuine full-function statistics applications) are impossible to
install. You won't be able to use any of the best forum, blog or wiki
apps - they all run on PHP - MySQL.
Also, try to host with a service that gives you a proper server control
panel, like Plesk for IIS. Without this (and Windows hosts tend to be
worse than LAMP hosts here), life is just too difficult. FTP-only is a
poor substitute, as you will be missing all of the management functions
that Linux / Apache users on a LAMP server take for granted. How to set
up cron jobs? How to check email parameters / users / spam rejection
settings? How to check the server errors? How to set file permissions
when they fail to set properly via FTP? How to manage your databases?
How to set custom error pages? You can't webmaster sites properly
without a server control panel.Search
optimising for ASP-based sites is the same as any other; Microsoft
codebases are fully SEO-compliant. Provided, of course, that the server
is a full-feature machine run by real hosts. SEO on IIS servers run by resellers and incompetents is a nightmare.
Q : Most stable CMS?A : I guess this is another "Best of...?" question.
Firstly - in what type of CMS? Large commercial - open-source ASP - open-source PHP - or what?
When you've worked out what your budget is, then go to sites that specialise in those areas and look around.
If you have a low budget and need the simplest CMS that will handle high page numbers and heavy traffic (which is what "most stable" infers), then Drupal will probably suit. It's a standard PHP CMS, which means deployment is a snap; it'll take high page numbers; it takes high traffic. It isn't easy to manage, so you'll need an introductory period when no one is expecting any great results from you.
If, by "stable", you just mean trouble-free and without glitches, then I'm afraid all CMS have some minor issues. The best way to avoid them is to be extremely careful about adding templates and plugins since these cause most of the problems. If you install any old template - or a dozen of them - and also install any plugin that takes your fancy, then you'll find that every CMS will give problems. The core application is usually OK but there can be big interoperability issues with everything else.
The straight truth is that you cannot have a CMS with Plugin X plus Plugin Y plus Plugin Z ad infinitum, because they often won't work together and the whole system will have gremlins. If you think you can have a set-up that performs an endless number of tasks, with a big feature set, then unfortunately often you can't. It's like the difference between Windows 98SE and Windows XP; if you have a small number of things to accomplish, of a simple nature, then you cannot beat W98SE, provided you keep it skinny - it's very fast and very simple. If you get WXP and then add everything possible, in the hopes of having a tremendously powerful system, then maybe you will - on the days it's working right, and provided you've got plenty of patience. Turn a CMS into a gross fatboy and you are guaranteed some problems.
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