Posts Tagged ‘Content Management Systems’

Building Websites The Online Way

October 9th, 2011 | Author:
There are many forms of website building, from considerably complicated web authoring tools like Adobe Dreamweaver, and Expression from Microsoft, right down to plain old notepad, creating all your HTML code by hand. The hand written coding may seem archaic, but many swear by this method to generate clean code.
 
There is another alternative, to web design software, and this is very appealing to the casual web author, or the newbie, your website can be created, without any software, completely online.
 
The majority of these Internet based site building tools are commercial applications, and are linked to web hosting companies, the hosting providers include these website building tools with the hosting account, but few are worth a mention.
 
Nowadays there are some outstanding alternatives, these online, CMS apps are free alternatives that do a fantastic job, once you have mastered the way they work.
 

CMS solutions.

 
CMS stands for content management systems, and the best known of these apps are WordPress and Joomla.
Both are free to use, and both are available through most hosting companies as an automatic install, through Fantastico, or Installatron. User without these features on your hosting account can download the scripts, and install them yourself, using the install instructions.
 

WordPress

 
The most widely used CMS is WordPress, this dynamic, web 2.0 blogging platform has evolved to be the platform of choice for millions of website owners across the globe. WordPress is open source, and as such, it is free to use, and an army of coders are constantly updating the code.
 
Todays sites are very remote from the early days of blogging, and they can be figured in a multitude of ways, the inclusion of widgets, and plugins make WordPress websites even more powerful, and attractive.
 
Templates for WordPress are known as themes, and there are thousands to choose from, in every concievable niche under the sun. Specialist web design firms can make your very own unique themes, which always adds that extra sparkle to your websites.
 
Throughout the WordPress lifespan, they have adhered to the blogging principals, new entries to the site are known as posts, and pages can be added to the site, and navigation bars.
 

Joomla

 
Joomla, is also a popular CMS solution, with many features that also belong to WordPress, Joomla is based around a portal framework.
Joomla lends itself toward large sites, secure sites, and is a very solid platform. The websites can be themed, and easily edited, sections can easily be placed around the pages to create the perfect frontpage.
 
Both systems are extremely robust, and are light years ahead of the old style, site building apps offered by hosting companies. All editing, and updating is performed online, and you never need to install any software on your computer.
 
The real beauty of CMS is that any site can be updated from anywhere in the world, all you need is an internet connection, and your websites login details.

Incoming search terms for this post:

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Technorati
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
Posted in CMS Sitebuilders, Joomla, Wordpress | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

From hand coding to full WYSIWYG with Concrete5

February 22nd, 2010 | Author:

The web started out developed by the British engineer, and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners Lee.

Brought about from a task he needed to complete for the Central European Nuclear research group, a website was a simple string of text, with hyperlinks embedded into it.

Shift forward in time to the emergence of the first web design software tools, frontpage, firstpage, and navigator, the intelligent, yet untrained could enter the internet arena.

The next wave of technology saw the emergence of Dreamweaver, heralded as every webmasters dream, although it was a personal nightmare for me. WYSIWYG driven web design suites became easier, and easier to use, until XSitePro launched, and re-wrote the book of easy to use web design software.

As XSitePro gained popularity, CMS started emerging from the underground, and as Mambo became Joomla, WordPress entered the stage.

Although WordPress gained massive popularity quickly, it was certainly not for its ease of use, the SEO abilities became obvious, but my transition from software to CMS was not instant.

Modern, open source content management systems, like WordPress, have made entry to the web world even easier, but could entry become even easier than this?

Well, yes, and no. Concrete5 is another open source CMS that logically directs the user to edit any webpage by clicking on it, what could be easier. Every element can be individually moved, edited, added and deleted, on the fly, in true WYSIWYG style, more likened to desktop publishing than webdesign. It is, what I expected my first copy of Dreamweaver to be, when I bought it all those years ago, when I was massively dissapointed.

So, where does the no come from? C5 is a little difficult to set up, for the untrained, there are many templates around, yet these are difficult to edit, in the eyes of a newbie.

As I glance back in time, to the early CMS projects, each with their own quirky solutions, I see a very bright future for Concrete5, as the setup, and templating becomes easier to use for the general public, we could well be on the forefront of another wave of CMS transitions.

Incoming search terms for this post:

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Technorati
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
Posted in CMS Sitebuilders, Online Sitebuilders, Web Design | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments »
Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Trademarks | Privacy Statement
Copyright © 2009 Build Website Online - The Easy Way. All Rights Reserved.

Designed by Free Pro Website.