Preamble:
I’ve mentioned several times in the past 2 years, that web designers should learn how to use/edit at least one blog or CMS. Some popular choices:
- Wordpress - a blog.
- Drupal - a CMS.
- Mambo - a CMS
.. And there are many, many more.
Why should web designers be concerned?
I won’t go into all the details here, but in a nutshell, a lot of web sites can use the features/functionality provided by blogs or CMS packages. Why reinvent the wheel?
That said, what is the difference between a blog and a CMS?
Blogs vs. CMS
First, let me start by defining a blog:
A blog is a web-based software that allows users to create web pages through a web interface - you enter text into an HTML form and that text is placed into pages.
… The pages that you add to a blog, are date ordered and (are typically) stored in an SQL database .. like MySQL for example.
From the popular Wordpress site:
A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.
Blogs have been created with several languages: PHP, Perl, Python etc. Wordpress for example, is written in PHP.
… Actually, PHP is probably the most commonly used language for building blog and CMS software.
So what is a CMS?
In a nutshell: a CMS does everything a blog does … and a whole lot more.
Blogs are typically designed for one or two people to use. Whereas a CMS is designed to handle communities.
Blogs = few contributors/writers
CMS = many contributors/writers.
CMS software will have a lot more capability in terms of what kind of activities you can do with it:
- User polling.
- Built in blogs.
- Built in Forums.
- Configurable, precise control over what users can do.
.. And much more.
All this extra functionality comes with a cost: CMS software is more complex to learn and use. I have also found that CMS softwares tends to run slower than their nimble cousins - blogs.
Blurred lines between blogs and CMS’
These days, you are seeing many blogging tools being slowly transformed into what I would call ‘mini CMS’.
… This is blurring the lines between the two types of software.
Wordpress for example (a popular blog software,) has a plug-in capability where programmers can build modules that enhance Wordpress’ capabilities. Over time, a lot of really interesting plug-ins have been created and now Wordpress is no longer a simple blog.
Choosing between a blog or CMS
Choosing between a blog and a CMS can be a painful experience - as it was for me. But in the end, you have to approach it by figuring out what you really need to do on your website … and then look at your options in the blog and CMS world.
In my case, I narrowed it down to Drupal (a CMS) and a blog, Wordpress. After having installed and configured both (to get a feel,) I went with Wordpress because it was fast and it met my needs.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
Hi—I’m glad you wrote this, because i came here to the blog, looking to ask you about blog design. I want to learn how to design in wordpress. I have several blogs, most are from blogger, but my main one i created in wordpress.
What is the best way to learn how-to design and customize wordpress blogs?
Hi Missy,
You can do alot of your customizations in Wordpress by editing the themes.
I would start with a simple theme (www.webshapes.org) and then start poking around … make some minor changes and see what happens.
You can make a lot of changes to a theme just by playing with the CSS. That said, to get full control, you need to edit the PHP code.
… This is one classic example of why I think web designers should learn a touch of PHP (www.killerphp.com,) … a little PHP will make this a lot easier.
The steps:
#1.
Install WAMP or (for Mac) MAMP on your computer so that you can install Wordpress to practice with.
#2.
Get a simple theme and install it into WP (just drop the theme folder into: wp-content/themes )
#3.
Start changing the CSS and HTML and see what happens.
Missy,
I have just now learned how to create custom themes for Wordpress. I found this tutorial very helpful and I learned a lot about what the PHP in Wordpress does (the basics, of course). Hopefully it will help you too!
http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/
Hi,
Usefull stuff! thanks a million!
What does “CMS” stand for?
@Zena,
CMS = Content Management System.
It is a simply a program that runs on the web server that allows you to build out a website through a browser based interface. Think of it as Frontpage/Dreamweaver running in your web browser.
Hope that helps,
Stefan
This is exactly what I am dubbin’ about at the moment. A Blog or a CMS? Or both?
Still not sure…It’s not for me personal, because then I would say WordPress without thinking twice. But the case at hand demands some more (at least that is what I think).
There allready is a rather large excisting website…:worried: And this rather large website needs to deliver some weblogs (something the client would like to offer to their visitors). So…People can ask for a weblog which then is given to them in the same style as the ‘main-website’ and so…
Also they would like to have the website under their full control. So far I am responsible for updating the bloody thing. So it’s getting bigger every week…
It’s rather difficult to get started because I still don’t know what’s best. I will digg into everything about this on KillerSites and should have thought of this sooner…
For multiuser blog sites you want to look to either:
- Wordpress MU (multi user)
- Drupal
I have a test install of WP MU at www.killerblogs.com just to test it out. Drupal can be configured easily to support multiuser blogging but there is some question in terms of how feature rich the built-in Drupal blog module is …?
I’ve played with Drupal blogs and it seemed OK to me, but a lot more testing would need to be done before I could give a proper opinion.
I’ve read somewhere that Drupal runs much quicker than Wordpress MU … but this is merely from a forum post … so who knows.
Stefan
Drupal is a full featured CMS, with lot more features than a simply (or multi-user) blog platform.
Drupal Core has also forum, polls … and there are plenty of community contributed modules (for extending existing features) and community contributed drupal themes.
With drupal, you can run simple single-user blog, multi-user blogs, portal, forum, … Almost whatewer you like - if you know how to do it
Stefan,
I’m curious as to the reasons you listed Mambo rather than Joomla (being a Joomla user myself for several local groups) as well/instead of.
Adam
Hi Adam,
No particular reason -I haven’t had a chance to use Joomla. If you can offer a few comments about Joomla … that would be great.
Thanks,
Stefan
Stefan,
I was wondering if you did a bunch of research into the many different CMSs. I have been thinking redoing our website with one and I’m not sure how to decide or what to look for. What made you look at Drupal instead of all the others? What would you sy is the criteria for a good CMS? I’m only looking at CMS based on PHP - I’m not about to learn another language right now.
Thanks for your help.
Donna
“I was wondering if you did a bunch of research into the many different CMSs”
To certain extent yes. But I only installed Drupal and Wordpress and I think Plone.
I forget all the details as to why I narrowed it down to Drupal or Wordpress. But I think a lot of it had to do with opinion I read regarding Drupal vs. the others. Plone for instance … I saw it to be as slow as an old dog, unless you had a dedicated server.
Beyond that …
Drupal seemed to have the most flexibility and maturity. That said, one reason I decided on Wordpress over Drupal is that Drupal, at this time, is about to move from 5 to version 6 - a big change in the code base comes with this new version and I didn’t want to get caught in some upgrade nightmare.
Once Drupal hits the 6.0 (January 07 .. so I am told) I will look at Drupal again.
… Unless something else better comes along.
“I’m not about to learn another language right now.”
Makes sense to me.
Stefan
Well, I think too many people consider a CMS to be simply a WYSIWYG editor for a web page. And in a very very simplistic way, a blog is a CMS. It allows a moderator to post content, and manage the content that others post.
In this sense, a blog is a CMS.
But take a more advanced scenario, consider a news production house that prints newspapers as well as an online website for news. A CMS for them might be a tool where they can author articles, submit it through several layers of authorisation and edits before finally being set live on the website. In this case, the CMS would simply facilitate the workflow of the content, and may not even have a WYSIWYG editor!
So choosing between a blog or a CMS? Pick THE RIGHT CMS for your business if you need one. Pick a blog if you want to blog.
“Why reinvent the wheel?” was exactly the question I asked to myself when I had to create a new version of my website.
Having tested a lot of CMS’s, my choice was to use SPIP (a logical choice for a french webmaster) and it seems it was a good idea.
Sure, you have to learn to use it, sure, structure of the website is sometimes dicted by the structure of the CMS, but you don’t spend anymore you whole night to code (or to copy/paste someone elses’s code :-D). You can focus on content and design.
I was really confused about CMS, I am a little bit more clear now. thanks for the post