Hi Folks,
I’ve been asked to build a new corporate website for a mid sized but professional company and they will need some kind of CMS so they can update news articles and add new product information etc.
I’ve never built anything with a CMS before but I’m sure I can handle it with RW. I’ll be using UIKit to build the site and wanted to ask any of you that have the experience, which in your opinion is the most ‘professional’ of the CMS options out there. I know Total CMS is mentioned a lot on here so that’s probably a short-lister but there are others too, Armadillo for eg.
My main criteria are that the end user will find it straight forward to add content into a template I’ve set up etc. and it must be able to handle video/image uploads, file downloads (like pdf data sheets etc.) and such.
I used to use Wordpress years ago and I hated it as it was so clunky and prone to update problems so I want something much simpler to use than that but something quite robust that won’t come back to bite me once it’s all handed over to the client.
Any advice much appreciated.
Cheers,
Roger
If the client wants to be able to add entire pages, and style these pages themselves, plus add content, RW really isn’t the tool IMO.
There are CMS tools out there for RW that will kinda allow this, but to my mind it’s like forcing a square peg into a round hole: With a big enough hammer it can be done, but the end results are rarely pretty.
Saying that though, letting a client add pages is a car crash waiting to happen!
So, if you can explain in a lot more details what you want to be able to do, I and others with experience of CMS inside RW can advise.
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Hi Steve,
Yeah, the problem is that at the moment it’s very early stages and the job may not even happen so I don’t really have a lot more detail. :-(
I don’t think the client will be adding whole pages (I wrote that without engaging brain. will delete!) more like adding for example a new ‘product’ with images and some text into a template I will have set up, that will all then sit on an existing product page. Maybe linking to a more detailed page for that product, just like a blog would do for a post. There wouldn’t need to be new page menus added to navigation or anything like that I wouldn’t have thought.
The client certainly won’t be styling the pages! God forbid!
Cheers
In that case tell them it can be done and to put a price on it they would have to be very specific about what needs to be capable of being updated by the client.
Any text, image, etc and files can be uploade in many ways with what is currently available in RW. It is very easy to end up with an overkill solution that can be expensive and time consuming.
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So you’ll be creating the content areas, and the client will be adding/editing the content?
If so, depending on how much control you want and what system you want for storing the content there are a lot of options.
I don’t trust anything “flat-file”, but that’s just me, so I use a system that isn’t unique to RW and uses a database. I did have cause recently to look at Total CMS, and it did seem pretty bloody good, so for a RW-centric solution that might work. TCMS seems to be able to offer quite a lot, in terms of content sections, blogs, articles, galleries etc. all within the one dashboard, that can be “white-labeled”.
There are also those “edit-on-the-page” stacks too, but I’m not a fan of those.
For me, I’ve built up a range of CMS solutions that are independent of any platform, so the content can be dropped into a RW project, Blocs, HTML template, whatever, I’ve done this as I don’t want my clients content to be tied to any single platform going forward, but if being joined at the hip to RW isn’t a problem for you, I’d suggest giving TCMS a good look over.
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OK Cheers Steve. Seems that TCMS is available as a 30 day free trial so I’m going to give it a go anyway just to learn how it works. I’m not a full time web designer so I’m happy with something RW orientated. If the job looks way too big for me I’ll turn it down rather than struggle.
Cheers
If you’d care to share the names of any of these ‘CMS solutions’ I’m sure some of us would be interested to hear them. Thanks.
Rob
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HI Rob, I’ve generally posted them up as I’ve used them and like them, but you’ll find almost all of them listed as addons on my site: https://www.caffeineinjection.com/addons/
They are (almost) all PHPJabbers scripts: https://www.phpjabbers.com/ Although most have been customised to suit my requirements.
Cheers. I’ll check them out!
Rob
Take a look at https://thereadingcorner.tv , it’s al controlled with TotalCMS, the pages, the video’s, everything. With a custom made cms that is easy to use. Pages are secured by Sitelok. It takes some time and effort to build but it’s the best system I’ve used. And I’ve used quite a lot (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Typo3, Orchard, Episerver, Armadillo, etc).
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Nice. By the way, you’ve got a typo on your Sign Up page and pop up form - should be AccesS.
Rob
Hi @Gaston That’s a great site! Good to know you prefer TCMS to the other systems also as they’re the big guns.
thanks!