CMS (Content Management Systems)

Why use a CMS developed site? A Content Management System site as the name implies is a site where all of the content is managed. In a traditional statically developed site there is no differentiation between the layout and the content of the site. Breaking them up allows you to specify a general feel to the site as well as being able to control the way content is displayed based on the category that it has been placed in. For example you may have a number of pages on your site that you only want certain people to have access to. You would categorise these pages and specify the group of users that you want to see the pages. Only once they have logged on will they be able to access the pages, other people browsing the site would not be able to see the pages.

All of our sites are developed in Joomla which is an open source CMS platform developed in PHP and using MySQL as the backend database. Joomla is the most used open source CMS with over 200 000 people registered as contributors and community users. There are many add-ons that have been developed for Joomla. This allows for quick development time when applying advanced functionality to a site. Even if you want to develop a simple web site it makes sense to develop it as a CMS site. Having a CMS site allows for easy modifications as well as the ability to add on extra functionality as your organisation might need it.

For the cases where there are no specific add-ons available that suit a required need, Joomla allows custom built applications to be interfaced into it. This means that there is no requirement that Joomla cannot meet. Joomla is a framework that is quick to develop in but also has the functionality of allowing complex solutions.

Below is an extract from the Joomla web site listing some of its core features.

User Management

Joomla has a registration system that allows users to configure personal options. There are nine user groups with various types of permissions on what users are allowed to access, edit, publish and administrate.

Authentication is an important part of user management and Joomla supports multiple protocols, including LDAP, OpenID, and even Gmail. This allows users to use their existing account information to streamline the registration process.

Media Manager

The Media Manager is the tool for easily managing media files or folders and you can configure the MIME type settings to handle any type of file. The Media Manager is integrated into the Article Editor tool so you can grab images and other files at any time.

Language Manager

There is international support for many world languages and UTF-8 encoding. If you need your Web site in one language and the administrator panel in another, multiple languages are possible.

Banner Management

It's easy to set up banners on your Web site using the Banner Manager, starting with creating a client profile. Once you add campaigns and as many banners as you need, you can set impression numbers, special URLs, and more.

Contact Management

The Contact Manager helps your users to find the right person and their contact information. It also supports multiple contact forms going to specific individuals as well as groups.

Polls

If you want to find out more about your users, it's easy to create polls with multiple options.

Search

Help navigate users to most popular search items and provide the admin with search statistics.

Web Link Management

Providing link resources for site users is simple and you can sort them into categories, even count every click.

Content Management

Joomla's simplified three-tiered system of articles makes organizing your content a snap. You can organize your content any way you want and not necessarily how it will be on your Web site. Your users can rate articles, e-mail them to a friend, or automatically save a PDF (with UTF-8 support for all languages). Administrators can archive content for safekeeping, hiding it from site visitors.

On public Web sites, built-in e-mail cloaking protects email addresses from spambots.

Creating content is simple with the WYSIWYG editor, giving even novice users the ability to combine text, images in an attractive way. Once you've created your articles, there are a number of pre-installed modules to show the most popular articles, latest new items, newsflashes, related articles, and more.

Syndication and Newsfeed Management

With Joomla, it's easy to syndicate your site content, allowing your users to subscribe to new content in their favorite RSS reader. It's equally easy to integrate RSS feeds from other sources and aggregate them all on your site.

Menu Manager

The Menu Manager allows you to create as many menus and menu items as you need. You can structure your menu hierarchy (and nested menu items) completely independent of your content structure. Put one menu in multiple places and in any style you want; use rollovers, dropdown, flyouts and just about any other navigation system you can think of. Also automatic breadcrumbs are generated to help navigate your site users.

Template Management

Templates in Joomla are a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you want and either use a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site section. The level of visual control goes a step further with powerful template overrides, allowing you to customize each part of your pages.

Integrated Help System

Joomla has a built-in help section to assist users with finding what they need. A glossary explains the terms in plain English, a version checker makes sure you're using the latest version, a system information tool helps you troubleshoot, and, if all else fails, links to a wealth of online resources for additional help and support.

System Features

Speedy page loads are possible with page caching, granular-level module caching, and GZIP page compression.

If your system administrator needs to troubleshoot an issue, debugging mode and error reporting are invaluable.

The FTP Layer allows file operations (like installing Extensions) without having to make all the folders and files writable, making your site administrator's life easier and increasing the security of your site.

Administators quickly and efficiently communicate with users one-on-one through private messaging or all site users via the mass mailing system.

Web Services

With Web services, you can use Remote Procedure Calls (via HTTP and XML). You can also integrate XML-RPC services with the Blogger and Joomla APIs.

Powerful Extensibility

These are just some of the basic Joomla features and the real power is in the way you customize Joomla. Visit the Joomla Extensions Directory to see thousands of ways to enhance Joomla to suit your needs.