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06-08-06, 01:43 PM
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#1 | | Active Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Chicopee, MA USA
Posts: 33
|  Made from Scratch or Content Management?
I was wondering about peoples opinions about this. Do you prefer to manage your content by hand or use a content management system? Or does your opion depend on the size of the site? Also if you use content management do you prefer to use a system you coded yourself (say MySQL/PHP for instance) or do you rather use something like Drupal or PHP Nuke?
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Patrick Laflamme
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06-08-06, 03:12 PM
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#2 | | Busy Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: East Coast, USA
Posts: 285
|  Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
To be honest, I've never used a CMS for any of my content sites (just finished updating one before coming here just now, in fact!  ). I prefer to do everything by hand, as none of the popular, supported CMS solutions have ever fully met my needs. Granted, programs such as FrontPage and WebExpress (the two programs I use) make things easier with their Website management tools. But mainly, I just feel as though doing it by hand gives you far greater control, something the CMS' don't (yet) offer. | |
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06-08-06, 04:36 PM
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#3 | | Active Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Chicopee, MA USA
Posts: 33
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
Quote: |
Originally Posted by GlobalWebDan But mainly, I just feel as though doing it by hand gives you far greater control, something the CMS' don't (yet) offer. | I thought I was maybe missing an option or something. I never used a CMS before but my host offers several for free with the account so I took a look for an upcoming project. None of them seemed to offer any meaningful customization but I thought maybe I was missing something.
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Your web slave for hire (and occasional political dissident),
Patrick Laflamme
Remember, people who live in glass houses, sink ships.
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06-08-06, 04:40 PM
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#4 | | Advisor
Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: New York
Posts: 593
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
I usually have a custom solution programmed which is of course proprietary.
A custom CMS that is built to fit your site's needs can't be topped as far as usability.
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06-08-06, 05:09 PM
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#5 | | Busy Member
Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: UK
Posts: 390
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
It really depends on the size of the site and its functionality.
I have sites using 3rd party CMS, custom CMS, and a few small sites which are just plain html.
Generally I think it is best to use a good CMS.
I am becoming a big fan of Joomla which I started using a few months ago. | |
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06-08-06, 07:15 PM
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#6 | | Active Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 94
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
I would like to start integrating a CMS into my sites so they are easier to manage and update. Any suggestions or sites that you guys recommend to use? | |
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06-09-06, 10:24 AM
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#7 | | Busy Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 123
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
Just to add to the above question.
As well as suggestions, how much time would you estimate to have a CMS fully functional on a site? | |
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06-09-06, 11:16 AM
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#8 | | Busy Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 259
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
Okay - really newbie question here.
What does CMS do for me that I can't do (or don't want to) myself? I mean... what exactly is the purpose of it? | |
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06-09-06, 11:39 AM
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#9 | | Busy Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: East Coast, USA
Posts: 285
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
Melos,
The goal of CMS systems is to make the addition, management, and editing of content on your Website extremely easy. And most of the CMS' I've used meet that goal. However, it is usually not possible to do any sort of good search engine optimization; you are usually stuck to rather rigid content posting guidelines; and because you have to use a template (or spend time creating your own), many folks recognize that it's a CMS-based site and may not think too highly of it.
If you have a Website with a very large amount of content, then a CMS may suit your needs, since its primary purpose is to save time. Otherwise, I'd stay away. | |
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06-09-06, 04:13 PM
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#10 | | Active Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 78
| Re: Made from Scratch or Content Management?
CMS are like so many things on the web, I think. There is a an illusion that some CMS companies try to encourage that you can just install it out of the box, and hey presto, you have a great looking, highly functional and easy to maintain site.
The reality of course is that just like everything else in life, you only get out what you put in. CMS can be made to work really well for a medium-large site but they tend to require that you learn how they work quite thoroughly and have some/do some customisation. This means that you can get the benefit of the functionality without your site looking like everyone elses'. I don't think they suit all sites, the thing to do is to carefully look into a few, look at their reference sites (many post lists of sites that are based on their CMS) and decide whether your site would fit into such an environment reasonably well.
I personally don't use one for my current sites, but would if the project was right for it. After all, why reinvent the wheel?  | |
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