Discussion: What features do you look for in a CMS? Do you always use the same one?

From my experience working on the client-side of the web industry - specializing in project management, planning, strategy & content development - I have found Expression Engine to be my CMS of choice.

I have worked closely with ExpressionEngine for several years now. EE is a commercial CMS that is built on an Open Source platform. I was first introduced to the CMS at a local Arts, Economic & Cultural Development non-profit (and generally speaking, my peers there weren’t tech-savvy). The web design & development boutique where I work now also uses EE unless a client requires a custom-built CMS.

EE is an great product because of it’s customizable features. It allows for multiple user accounts levels, reducing the number of steps necessary to post and view content, providing more flexibility for authoring and editing content. There was a relatively high turn-over of interns at the non-profit where I previously worked, so it was important for us to implement a CMS that has a shallow learning curve. The web company which I work for now uses EE a lot because of optional features such as the multiple site manager, the ability to create password-protected sections of a website (for added confidentiality), custom entry fields, image resizing, and much more.

All of that said, EE is ideal because it can be beneficial to a broad spectrum of users, whether they’re in the business of arts administration or web development. To learn more about EE visit their website: http://expressionengine.com/overview/features

I’m a big fan of the Umbraco CMS, which is an open source CMS based on Microsofts .NET platform, which is actually a weird combination.

But to me it makes a lot of sense, since Umbraco really should be just considered as a framework you can easily fit to your needs. This is especially going to be the case once version 5 hit’s the street.

What I like about Umbraco is that you are almost 100% in control of the generated markup. However when it comes to the time where clients need to maintain their websites themselves tables are unfortunately often being used to allow for flexibility in maintaining the content from the non-technical editors of the sites. As a standardista this is an issue that is really bothering me but I guess this is the case, with all CM systems out there.

I know that there is a template engine that can be plugged into the tinymce editor, which is being used as the rich text editor in Umbraco out of the box, but could easily be replaced with any other editor. But I must admit that so far I have not had a look at this plugin to see if it could in fact solve some of the issue with turning to tables in order to handle the client’s content so it does not rely on tables for laying it out all the time.

Apart from the table issue, which is not to be blamed on the CMS, we have been given the flexibility to make sites for our clients that allows them to easily reuse content throughout the site, which saves them a lot of time when managing the content of the site. It’s almost like “drag’n’drop”. :)

I know that the great folks a Mark Boulton Design recently launched their fist Umbraco based project with the release of http://www.worldskillslondon2011.com, which is also designed taking the responsive paradigm into consideration.

I think this is really nicely done and I’m looking forward to learn more about to handle different stuff like scaling images to different devices in the most proper way etc.

I’m also looking forward to see the work Mark Boulton Design is going to make on the Umbraco backoffice, which I actually like the way it is now because it is in fact really simple to navigate and figure out so I don’t hope they change too much.

I know it’s based on M$ technologies but it’s actually quite good so if you’re getting curious give it a chance. And if you’re stuck with something don’t be afraid to ask the friendly community for some advise on how to move on :-)

9 months ago, Uzo Olisemeka said:

Wordpress is my default CMS.

It’s very adaptive and I don’t find it too much of an issue to convert a project concept to something Wordpress can manage. Granted most of my work is for start-ups and small businesses so I guess its a safe argument that I haven’t yet had the need for a more indepth or polished CMS.

9 months ago, Rob Harr said:

Our standard CMS is Expression Engine. I love the flexibility it give us to do just about anything. The guys who work on the front-end have no problems with the templates and the back-end guys love the fact that it is build on code igniter. Knowing that the CMS that I use is built on a solid framework is important to me. Also Expression Engine is easy to extend if there is a bit of custom functionality required.

9 months ago, Jessica Martin said:

From my experience working on the client-side of the web industry - specializing in project management, planning, strategy & content development - I have found Expression Engine to be my CMS of choice.

I have worked closely with ExpressionEngine for several years now. EE is a commercial CMS that is built on an Open Source platform. I was first introduced to the CMS at a local Arts, Economic & Cultural Development non-profit (and generally speaking, my peers there weren’t tech-savvy). The web design & development boutique where I work now also uses EE unless a client requires a custom-built CMS.

EE is an great product because of it’s customizable features. It allows for multiple user accounts levels, reducing the number of steps necessary to post and view content, providing more flexibility for authoring and editing content. There was a relatively high turn-over of interns at the non-profit where I previously worked, so it was important for us to implement a CMS that has a shallow learning curve. The web company which I work for now uses EE a lot because of optional features such as the multiple site manager, the ability to create password-protected sections of a website (for added confidentiality), custom entry fields, image resizing, and much more.

All of that said, EE is ideal because it can be beneficial to a broad spectrum of users, whether they’re in the business of arts administration or web development. To learn more about EE visit their website: http://expressionengine.com/overview/features

9 months ago, iPaintCode said:

Always been a huge fan of CMS’s that use CodeIgnitor as the foundation. EE has been a very awesome CMS, what I loved is how easy it is to setup and even easier to get clients up and running. Recently a friend of mine turned me on to PyroCMS (another CI awesomeness) and I love this CMS to pieces. It’s beyond easy to setup, has a nice app community with top notch add ons, the admin cp is very well done (from aesthetics to function), also very well documented and the best part is they have a free community edition.

I’m keeping my eye on FuelPHP and seeing what CMS’s they ignite!

8 months ago, Jan-Skovgaard said:

I’m a big fan of the Umbraco CMS, which is an open source CMS based on Microsofts .NET platform, which is actually a weird combination.

But to me it makes a lot of sense, since Umbraco really should be just considered as a framework you can easily fit to your needs. This is especially going to be the case once version 5 hit’s the street.

What I like about Umbraco is that you are almost 100% in control of the generated markup. However when it comes to the time where clients need to maintain their websites themselves tables are unfortunately often being used to allow for flexibility in maintaining the content from the non-technical editors of the sites. As a standardista this is an issue that is really bothering me but I guess this is the case, with all CM systems out there.

I know that there is a template engine that can be plugged into the tinymce editor, which is being used as the rich text editor in Umbraco out of the box, but could easily be replaced with any other editor. But I must admit that so far I have not had a look at this plugin to see if it could in fact solve some of the issue with turning to tables in order to handle the client’s content so it does not rely on tables for laying it out all the time.

Apart from the table issue, which is not to be blamed on the CMS, we have been given the flexibility to make sites for our clients that allows them to easily reuse content throughout the site, which saves them a lot of time when managing the content of the site. It’s almost like “drag’n’drop”. :)

I know that the great folks a Mark Boulton Design recently launched their fist Umbraco based project with the release of http://www.worldskillslondon2011.com, which is also designed taking the responsive paradigm into consideration.

I think this is really nicely done and I’m looking forward to learn more about to handle different stuff like scaling images to different devices in the most proper way etc.

I’m also looking forward to see the work Mark Boulton Design is going to make on the Umbraco backoffice, which I actually like the way it is now because it is in fact really simple to navigate and figure out so I don’t hope they change too much.

I know it’s based on M$ technologies but it’s actually quite good so if you’re getting curious give it a chance. And if you’re stuck with something don’t be afraid to ask the friendly community for some advise on how to move on :-)

3 months ago, cufo said:

Drupal has been my CMS for years. I think it has evolved enough to become an option to create complex sites, specially if you don’t know a lot of programming.I built my site resultados loterias using it as a framework. I appreciate the fact that it is open source and has a hugh helping community.