Content management system

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A content management system is a computer software system for organising and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content. A content management system is often a web application used for creating and managing websites and web content. Alternatively, content management systems (CMS) can also be used for storing and publishing documentation such as operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, etc. There are many open-source and proprietary CMS solutions available, which is in fact true for most systems of any kind. The market for content management systems is quite fragmented.

1 Web Content Management Systems
2 History
3 Operation
4 Terminology
5 Types of CMS
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Web Content Management Systems

A web content management system is essentially a way of separating your visual presentation from your actual content — whether that content includes photos, text or product catalogs. This separation allows one to accomplish several key things, including:

Automated Templating: Create standard visual templates that can be automatically applied to new and existing content, creating one central place to change that look across all content on your site.
Easily Editable Content: Once your content is separate from the visual presentation of your site, it usually becomes much easier and quicker to edit and manipulate. Most CMS software include WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technically trained individuals to easily create and edit content.
Scalable Feature Sets: Most CMS have plug-ins or modules that can be easily installed to extend your existing site's functionality. For example, if one wanted to add a product catalog or chat functionality to a website, one could easily install a module/plug-in to add that functionality rather than hiring a web developer to hard code that new functionality.
Web Standards Upgrades: Active CMS solutions usually receive regular updates that include new feature sets and keep the system up to current web standards. These updates are usually designed for easy installation over/on-top of your existing website.
Community Support: Most active CMS solutions have developer support forums. Since CMS users/developers are beginning from a common base, it's more than likely that developers are encountering the same development challenges and can solve those challenges as a community.
Lower Cost Maintenance: CMS hosted sites are often easier and cheaper to maintain. Since any CMS powered website would have a community familiar with the tools of that specific CMS, it would be quite easy for a new developer to dive right in and begin updates/maintenance..
Workflow management: Workflow is the process of creating cycles of sequential and parallel tasks that must be accomplished in your CMS. For example, a user posts a story but it's not published on the website until the editor approves it.

[edit] History

The term was originally used for website publishing and management systems. Early content management systems were developed internally at organisations which were doing a lot of content publishing. In 1995, CNET spun out its internal development offerings into a separate company called Vignette, which opened up the market for commercial systems. As the market evolved, the scope of content management systems broadened, and the term is now used to refer to a range of technologies and techniques, including portal systems, wiki systems, and web-based groupware.

[edit] Operation

A web site content management system runs on the site's server. Most systems provide controlled access for various ranks of users such as administrators, editors and ordinary content creators. Access is usually via a normal web browser program, possibly combined with some use of FTP for uploading content.

The content and all other information related to the site is usually stored in a server-based database system such as MySQL or MsSQL.

The pages created by the content management system can be viewed by the visitors to the site.

Internally, many web site content management systems are written in the PHP programming language and quite a few use the Smarty Template Engine.

[edit] Terminology

The following terms are often used in relation to web site content management systems but they may be neither standard nor universal:

Block - A block is a link to a section of the web site. Blocks can usually be specified to appear on all pages of the site (for example in a lefthand navigation panel) or only on the home page.

Module - A content module is a section of the web site, for example a collection of news articles, an FAQ section, etc. Some content management systems may also have other special types of modules, for example administration and system modules.

Theme - A theme specifies the cosmetic appearance of every page of the web site, controlling properties such as the colours and the fonts.

[edit] Types of CMS

Module-based CMS. Most tasks of document life-cycle are served by CMS modules. Common modules are document creation/editing, transforming and publishing.

Document transformation language-based CMS. Another approach to CMS building with use of open standards. XSLT-based CMS compile ready documents from XML data and XSLT-template. XML Sapiens-based CMS compile a document from the stream of ‘pure’ data, design template and functionality templates.

[edit] See also

Comparison of content management systems

[edit] External links

UC Davis Web CMS Initiative
AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association (Association for Information and Image Management).
CENSA, the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association), scientific and technical content management industry experts association and community of practice.
CM Pros, Content Management Community of Practice.
OSCOM, the central organization for open source content management.
Content management at the Open Directory Project
Joomdruplonoops107, aggregating news from Final Five CMS Awards 2006 (Joomla, Drupal, Plone, XOOPS, and e107).

Directories of available systems

CMS Matrix Overview of (web) content management systems.
CMS Watch vendors page List of 40 major web content management system vendors at CMS Watch.
CMS-Zone List of (web) Content Management Systems.
Content Management 365 Content management vendor portal.
Open Source Scripts Open Source Content Management Systems.
OpenSourceCMS Directory of Open Source content management system applications with live demos.
PHPXref CMS page Library of cross referenced Open Source Content Management Systems written in PHP.
Software-Pointers List of Content Management Tools.
PHPCow News Publishing Content Management System News Publishing Content Management System.
Inserit - Codeless CMS Only highly-integrational codeless CMS available at the moment. Includes forever-free version.ar:نظام إدارة المحتوى