Sam Davyson

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Make Own CMS Or Use Someone Elses

 14/04/08 - 12.05

Currently I have my very limited editing suite that I generated to add or edit pages over at http://sam.davyson.com. It was a real feat of my talent at the time. I’m not sure how I managed to make something like that – that actually works. Simple as it is. Since then I’ve made two different CMS’s that were admittedly based around each other but distinctly different (written again so to speak). These were for Hs Chemistry and Andy Kershaw Media.

I like the CMS’s that I make. But they take a lot of time and they are not as rich in features as say something that you can download today from an open source site. I happen to be of the belief though that these is nothing worse than using something too powerful to do a simple job. I don’t want to overload my clients with an interface that is riddled with options that they don’t need to be concerned with.

So for a simple site where people want to be able to edit their text, add images, maybe post some news what is the solution? I’m currently trying to find out. I want to do one of:

  • Find a suitable CMS that I can use when I implement further sites.
  • Write a CMS that I can deploy (in a click or two) to new sites.

Although the first sounds easier I’m not sure it necessarily is. Is stripping down easier than building up? Maybe it is. But the result of building normally looks a lot better. It’s quite a dilemma. In the running for the first option are:

  1. WordPress – I really like this. I just want it to be simple for the users. I’m not sure how to do this.
  2. Joomla – I know very little about this.
  3. Drupal – Similarly. But I think it looks too complicated.
  4. PHP Fusion – I know nothing of this.

In related news Cushy CMS looks nice.

April 14th, 2008 - 12.05 PM | 3 Comments »

3 Comments on “Make Own CMS Or Use Someone Elses”

  1. 1 Huw Leslie said at 4:20 pm on April 14th, 2008:

    How about redesigning the WordPress administration UI if you feel that it is too complex to do what you need it to do, removing superfluous features? That would probably be easier than building your own, and you would then have the option to quickly ‘unlock’ new features as needed by simply revealing them in the interface.

  2. 2 Sam Davyson said at 1:46 am on April 15th, 2008:

    Yeah that sounds cool. I’ll bear that in mind as an option. I really like the interface of the WordPress back end in general I’d just want to clear a few things out like you say.

    I’ve found in general that making CMS’s is not too difficult but just that they very quickly get out of hand and become non-reusable.

  3. 3 podvall said at 4:16 am on December 19th, 2009:

    Побольше бы тематической информации, и будет респект полный.

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