Content Management System

If you are a hard core web designer, may be you have already heard about Content Management System (CMS).  What is a CMS?

A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish various kinds of digital media and electronic text.
CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content. These concepts represent integrated and interdependent layers. There are various nomenclatures known in this area: Web Content Management, Digital Asset Management, Digital Records Management, Electronic Content Management and so on. The bottom line for these systems is managing content and publishing, with a workflow if required.

A CMS may support the following features:

1. identification of all key users and their content management roles;
2. the ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or types;
3. definition of workflow tasks for collaborative creation, often coupled with event messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content (For example, a content creator submits a story, which is published only after the copy editor revises it and the editor-in-chief approves it.);
4. the ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content;
5. the ability to capture content (e.g. scanning);
6. the ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content (Increasingly, the repository is an inherent part of the system, and incorporates enterprise search and retrieval.);
7. separation of content's semantic layer from its layout (For example, the CMS may automatically set the color, fonts, or emphasis of text.).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

Of course, there are a lot of advantages in using a CMS. But there’s also a disadvantages. One is you have to rely to the developer of the CMS just in case you need some modification. But in my experience all the necessary features that I need is already built-in.

In fact, you can also create your own extension if you want a specialize control on your own website.

I want to share this with you so you can also make some profit on your website without having to deal with the complexity of the script in maintaining and making your webpage.

You may also wish to read my blog at: A very important tool a computer programmer must have