Edit WIKI Page - Content Management Systems

==Description== A content management system (also called CMS or content management application) is a software application used to manage the content of a website. It usually allows the authors to create, edit and remove content without having programming or even HTML knowledges. Most of the CMSs store the content into a SQL database and the design of the website is generally controlled trough a template system. For installing and adding new functionalities most of them need a experienced user, usually the webmaster, but there are primarily website maintenance tools for not-technical administrators. ==Types of content management systems== '''By license:''' * open-source (GPL / BSD / Apache License / LGPL) * commercial '''By price:''' * free (open-source or freeware) * commercial, low cost (< $5000) * commercial, medium cost ($5000 - $15000) * commercial, high cost (> $15000) '''By the technologies used:''' * Java / Java Script + XML + MySQL / Oracle / SQL Server / PostgreSQL / Flat-file database * PHP + MySQL / PostgreSQL / Oracle / Flat-file database * Perl + MySQL / Perl DBI / Flat-file database * ASP.NET + ASP.NET Microsoft SQL Server * Pyton + MySQL / PostgreSQL / Oracle database ==Features== A Web Content Management System usually provides the following key features: ===Administrator Features=== * '''Template System''' - Most of the Content Management Systems support '''multiple templates''', that can be automatically applied to different pages of the website. When you have a template applied to a group of content on a site if you want to make a change in it you have to make the change in only one place by editing the template. Also, using templates separates the visual presentation of the website and its content, so the responsible of adding the content doesn't have to be a designer or programmer. * '''Themes / Skins''' - Usually, the CMS vendor or the community offer themes or skins that can be used to change the look of the website * '''Advertisement management''' - includes banner management systems and integration of ad servers * '''History of changes and Trash management''' - There are situations when the authors (the content editors of the website) make changes or delete content by mistake. It is important to be able to reverse any change made by a user or editor. ===Easy to add and edit content=== One of the main purposes of the CMS applications is to actualize the content very fast and without technical knowledges. For that different applications include features like: * WYSIWYG Editor * Source editor * Image resizing * Drag-N-Drop Content * Spell Checker * Menus System * Scheduling / expiration of content publication * Archive * Different user levels ===Scalable feature sets=== Most CMS application can be extended having plugin or modules systems that can be easily installed. Most of the open source projects and some of the commercial ones have big communities developing plugins for extending the CMS with functionalities like: * Blog system * Chat * Contact Management * Events Calendar and Management * FAQ Management * File Distribution * Forum * Graphs and Charts * Guest Book * Job Posting * Contact Form * Link Management * Matrices * My Page / Dashboard * Polls / Surveys / Tests / Quizzes * Photo Gallery * Products Management * Search Engine * Shopping Cart * Site Map * User Contributions ===SEO Optimization=== The Seo options of a CMS are very important for any webmaster since most of the visitors of a website comes for search engines. Standard Search Engine Optimization features are: * Metatags: keywords and metadescription for all the website, for categories, for single pages * URL rewriting / friendly URLs * Statistics ==Top software== The Open Source CMS Award for 2006 winners are: {|class='wikitable' align=left |- |[[Image: Luciana/gold_cup_d.bmp]] | '''http://www.iterating.com/products/Joomla#datasheet Joomla!''' - One of the most popular open-source Content Management Systems, Joomla! appeared as a result of a fork of Mambo between the trademark holder of the Mambo name and all of the core developers. The developers rewrote the code making it more secure and improved the performance with a caching feature. Quickly, the huge community wrote plugins for any task you may want. |} {|class='wikitable' align=left |- |[[Image: Luciana/silver_cup_d.bmp]] |'''[http://www.iterating.com/products/Drupal#datasheet Drupal]''' - Very flexible and extendable, Drupal allows to an user or community to publish, manage and organize a big variety of content. It was created mainly for community websites (like blogs for example), but it can be also used for complex portals. |} Other important open source CMS are: * [http://www.iterating.com/products/Plone#datasheet Plone] * [http://www.iterating.com/products/PHP-Nuke#datasheet PHP-Nuke] * [http://www.iterating.com/products/Mambo#datasheet Mambo] * [http://www.iterating.com/products/Xaraya#datasheet Xaraya] * [http://www.iterating.com/products/PHP-Fusion#datasheet PHP-Fusion] From the commercial application, the most popular and appreciated CMS are: {|class='wikitable' align=left |- |[[Image: Luciana/gold_cup_d.bmp]] |'''[http://www.iterating.com/products/RedDot#datasheet RedDot]''' - Developed by a german corporation (RedDot Solutions), RedDot is specialized in creating multilingual websites and it supports multi-channel publishing. It is a good alternative to the open source solutions, for big companies that want to be sure they use the best technologies available and they want to get the best support from the vendor that they can get. This solution is pretty expensive, the price starting at $55.000, but is one of the top CMS. |} {|class='wikitable' align=left |- |[[Image: Luciana/silver_cup_d.bmp]] | '''http://www.iterating.com/products/Community-Server#datasheet Community Server''' - Community Server is one of the most complete solutions available offered by Telligent Systems. It allows to create online communities including features like discussion forums, email lists, newsgroups, blogs, file galleries and many others. |} ==How to choose== On the Content Management Systems market there are many important players asking for supremacy, but what usually matters the most for any website creator is to have all the '''features''' he needs and to be able to get '''support''' quickly. For '''big companies''', that can afford to spend a lot for a content management system, and that can't afford to risk anything is better to choose a '''commercial application''', getting '''support''' directly from the vendor, even if sometimes they have to extra-pay for it. Also, another strong argument for choosing a commercial product is the '''security''' problem, as the open-source / free solutions have many issues in this area. For '''small companies or individual uses''' that want to create small or medium websites with a low budget, almost every time the open source solutions are the best choice. The biggest advantage is that most of the open source software have '''big communities''' testing them, reporting bugs and creating plugins and modules. Also, it's easy to get support online on forums and mailing lists. ==Events== * Documentation and Training East Summit - [http://www.doctrain.com] * Content Manager Days - [http://www.cmdays.de] * O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing (TOC) Conference - [http://en.oreilly.com/toc2008/public/content/home] * CMPros - Content Management Professionals Summits - [http://www.cmpros.org/events/summits] * Giblane's Conference in Content Management [http://gilbaneboston.com] * The Open Source Content Management System Summit - [http://www.oscms-summit.org] ==Communities== * CMPros - Content Management Professionals Community - [http://www.cmpros.org] * Discussions about CMS on CMSMatrix - [http://www.cmsmatrix.org/discussion] * WebDevelopers Forum - [http://www.webdeveloper.com] * Dev Shed Forums - Open Source web developement Forum - [http://forums.devshed.com] ==See also== # Web content management system page on Wikipedia - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system] # CMS Matrix - Content Management Comparison Tool website - [http://www.cmsmatrix.org] # Content Management, Enterprise Search and Portal Reports website - [http://www.cmswatch.com] # OpenSourceCMS website - [http://www.opensourcecms.com] # Enterprise Content Management 365 website [http://www.contentmanagement365.com] # CMS Review - Content Management System website - [http://www.cmsreview.com] # CMS News website - A meta-news aggregator the Content Management Community [http://www.cms-news.org] # Content Management (CMS) News, Reviews, Resources - CMSWire website - [http://www.cmswire.com]

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