IP-WARS.NET || CMS-LITE?

CMS-LITE?

By Sunny, Section Diary
Posted on Thu Jun 23rd, 2005 at 04:58:15 EST

I wonder if the good folk of IPW could help me.

I want to create a small website with static content only. As usual, I want to separate the layout from the actual content, so a CMS would seem to be what I want. Unfortunately, those I've looked at seem to be geared up for dynamic sites, and generally are rather more hefty affairs than I really want.

I envisage a development model as follows:

create/modify the layout templates.
create/modify the content.
generate and view the static webpages.
rinse and repeat.
when satisfied, upload to the target webserver.

Looking at this, I see no reason for having a webserver on the development machine, yet every CMS I've looked at requires one.

So, is a CMS really what I want? If so, then which? If not, then what should I really be looking for?

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CMS-LITE? | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 editorial, 1 hidden)

Have you considered Server Side Includes (3.80 / 5) (#6)
by david anderson on Tue Jul 12th, 2005 at 17:58:47 EST
(User Info) http://squtch.quiet-like-a-panther.org/

Being a programmer, I'm not a big fan of SSI, but a lot of non-programmers seem to love it for standardizingtheir layout.

Personally, I go with PHP and include a file called layout.php. I have functions like write_header(), write_leftmenu(), write_rightmenu(), and write_footer().

While I like CSS for a lot of things, I prefer using a table for the main layout here with leftmenu and rightmenu each being within a <td> and the main content being in another <td>. It just seems more efficient than the hoops that I have to jump through to get the CSS to behave the same on every browser.

You should also make all your files index.* within their own directory, and then link only to the directory name. This allows you to easily change the technology you use, without screwing up everyone's links.

Re: Have you considered Server Side Includes by ColonelZen, 07/12/2005 19:02:19 EST (3.66 / 3)

Re: Have you considered Server Side Includes by david anderson, 07/12/2005 19:40:25 EST (3.75 / 4)

Re: CMS-LITE? (3.75 / 4) (#1)
by JCausey (jcausey@ip-wars.net) on Thu Jun 23rd, 2005 at 09:47:29 EST
(User Info) http://www.ip-wars.net

Sunny,

I'll throw my 2 cents in, but I'm sure there are others here much more knowledgeable than me and who have experience with other systems.

If you are looking at purely static content, then you may not need a CMS. You may need to look at something that uses templates for the pages and then you can use that template every time you create a static page. imo, the classic example of this would be something like Dreamweaver. I'm not real sure about packages that would run on Linux. I use Bluefish when I have to get in and actually modify some of the code, but that is getting more and more rare and I really don't know whether it has any template type functions (though you could probably do it manually) as slick as say Dreamweaver. You could also work on setting up your pages to use things like includes to help separate the layout from the content.

That said, I'd probably still look at some type of CMS even for largely static content. I used Geeklog to do www.townofkenly.com which is largely static pages. The thing I like about Geeklog is you just need php and MySQL (maybe some other db's will work as well I think). I've also found the method to design the templates to be the easiest for me to understand and work with. So even though CMS packages are designed for dynamic content, they can handle largely static sites.

Besides the fact that these systems separate your content and layout, I also like the fact that they largely manage all your internal links for you and build a lot of stuff on the fly that you would otherwise have to go and edit in every file if doing it by hand. Also, once deployed you pretty much do everything on-line from that point, meaning you don't have to generate new files and upload them to your server.

As you note though, your development machine would need to have a webserver running (along with your db). That is because bullet three in your list, where the layout and content are combined together, is done by the webserver.

Thus far, I've tried Geeklog, Mambo, Scoop, and just recently deployed a pMachine(geared more toward blogging than any of the others, but very minimal). As I said, I have found Geeklog to be the easiest to work with as far as getting in and developing the layout myself.

hth and ymmv,

Jeff

Re: CMS-LITE? by Sunny, 06/24/2005 00:46:40 EST (3.66 / 3)

Re: CMS-LITE? (3.40 / 5) (#2)
by ColonelZen (tzellers lieth within pobox of thy kingdom com) on Thu Jun 23rd, 2005 at 15:13:26 EST
(User Info)

Hmmm.

With files "topleft", "topcenter", .... having your content. And of course your stylesheet built appropriately to force the sizes of the elements.

OK I'm a curmudgeon. But the point is that if you have a fixed layout it's easy to let PHP (or any other web-script) populate the content from other pages. If those pages are static, fine and dandy, otherwise they could themselves include web scripts to make dynamic content.

I've never quite understood the reason for tools like dreamweaver and front page when html is so easily handcrafted or built by scripts. And having had to look at some of the html generated by those tools (shudder!) I understand it less.

-- TWZ

Re: CMS-LITE? by Sunny, 06/24/2005 01:43:35 EST (3.50 / 4)

Re: CMS-LITE? by ColonelZen, 06/24/2005 20:16:28 EST (3.75 / 4)

Bye bye spambot (none / 0) (#10)
by Potential Recruit on Tue Nov 28th, 2006 at 14:06:05 EST

This used to be a spambot post that is flooding the site. Due to volume, I had to resort to this while I work to block access by these bots. My apologies - thanks for your patience.

Jeff

CMS-LITE? | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 editorial, 1 hidden)

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