Friday, 6 September 2013

Four Best Content Management System Which designers adopt

Content Management System or CMS is a computer program that can be used for creating and publishing content for a website. It has features that enable editing and modification of content with easy navigation and control and no requirement for technical knowledge of HTML. CMS platform is used for developing websites for blogs, news, ecommerce sites, and any other site where frequent content updates are required. There are different typed of CMS available which the user may adopt for website design and content management, and these are both open source as well as proprietary. We discuss the 4 best CMS for designers –

#1
Joomla

Joomla has an easy to use framework and is highly preferred for blogging sites for small, medium and large web application users. Websites and applications developed on this platform are scalable and the platform is used for meeting diverse requirements such as-

  • Corporate Websites, portals, intranets and extranets
  • Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
  •  E-commerce and online reservations
  •  Government applications
  •   Small business Websites
  •   Community-based portals


#2
Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is an open source web application framework that runs on the Ruby programming language. It allows in creating pages and applications that gather information from the server, to create a query in the database. It has innumerable templates for website designing and features a routing system that is not dependant on the server.

#3
WordPress

WordPress is used to create aesthetically pleasing, high web standard websites with extensive usability options. It is most popular as a blogging platform. This platform offers numerous customization options and themes and templates. With its inbuilt dashboard, users can post, categories and modify content. The platform offers high security with scalability options.

#4
Drupal

Drupal allows an individual as well as group of publishers to easily publish manage and organize content on the website. It is designed on PHP and MySQL and is most famously used by all the leading websites globally for creating weblogs, business websites, government sites and much more. It has multiple options for –

  • Easy content modification
  • Extensive content search option
  • Multiple language options
  • Content export
  • Assign permissions at different levels
  • Validate users
  •  Create a single database


A CMS consultant will be required for making the initial setup and framework. Thereafter, the user can self-manage the website and will require assistance only for site maintenance and in case of any major changes.

Monday, 22 July 2013

Choosing an Open-Source CMS

If your website is driven by dynamic content that needs frequent upgrades and innovations, then adopting a ContentManagement System (CMS) is highly suggested. CMS are software platforms which can be adopted for frequent uploading and updating of content without too many complications saving on time and money. In recent times CMS is widely preferred over the previous HTML models with websites such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc. in the lead.

The Advantages of Open Source CMS

The main advantages of CMS may be listed as:

·         Content can be updated and published directly even by staff with no technical knowledge
·         The interface is similar to any Word program so knowledge of technical languages is not necessary
·         Contributors can be given controlled access to the system to create and/or publish and/or delete content
·         Forms can be created for collection of metadata for SEO purposes
·         Open source platforms facilitate open content and responsive design and a high degree of customization
·         It is also useful for availing support from the developer community who share codes, contribute modifications and offer potential collaborations.

A case for Open Source CMS

Open source CMS are highly flexible which is a pre-requisite for creating a unique website with unique content. Proprietary CMS do not offer you some of the unique options of open source CMS such as the option to expand your website or alter it. Over a thousand developers contribute codes to Drupal 7 which far outstrips the number of developers one can access on proprietary CMS. In fact Drupal developers are in great demand as per records of job portals such as Indeed.com. Drupal as a CMS site has grown from being a product to a commodity with a lot of customers and very low profit margins.

Website Owners’ Advantage

Since open source platforms equate to free platforms, it means a huge cut in costs for website owners. Further, with a large network of developers and consultants at their disposal, the business owners can get the best service.


With the growth in preference for open source CMS platforms, the demand for proprietary CMS channels are more or less getting obliterated and they are fading out of the market ecosystem.