CMS Models

CMS & WordPress
1

Sorry if i have posted this in the wrong section but im new to the site and wasnt sure where to post my question.
Ive been asked to look into a topic about CMS which hasnt been covered in any of my teaching yet and wondered if anyone could give me any pointers or help.
THe question i have been asked is to discuss an evaluate various models upon which CMS systems are typically based, however i have no knowledge of the models

2

There is a lot of information about CMSs online, but it can be hard to know where to start sorting through it all, especially if you haven’t used one. Wikipedia has some good article on this sort of thing, but also, in case it helps, I put together a little summary for my own purposes recently that may be of some use.

PS: Welcome to SitePoint! :slight_smile:

3

I can give a couple of pointers into two of my favorite CMS systems - Joomla and Wordpress.

Here are some features that they have in common:

  • They are both free
  • They are both under the GPL license
  • They both are VERY popular
  • They both are PHP (LAMP) based
  • They both can use WYSIWYG editors
  • They both are template based systems

Here are some things that Wordpress does really well:

  • In my opinion, Wordpress is easier to install
  • Wordress has the ability to add new templates easier
  • Wordpress uses “Widgets” which are easy to install and can add great functionality
  • Wordpress has tons of free templates out there to install
  • Wordpress is a decent CMS but also is a good blogging platform

Here are some things that Joomla does pretty well:

  • Very powerful CMS
  • It is tougher to use and configure, but much more powerful than Wordpress
  • It has tons of free extensions that are very powerful
  • It does have free templates available online
  • Is very useful and configurable for anything from a social networking website to a simple CMS
  • Again, its very powerful

With that said, it took me twice as long to set up the Joomla website as it did the Wordpress, and the template on the Joomla website was tougher to install and configure (and it wasn’t free).

There is also Drupal and a few other platforms, but I only use Joomla and Wordpress.

Please let me know if I can be of any other assistance.

4

Richard will have to clarify but I think is he’s interested in what sort of Design Patterns various CMS platforms were developed with rather than what CMS packages are available. Although there are hundreds to choose from the top Three in no particular order are Drupal, Joomla and WordPress so here’s a little about them:

  • Drupal (my favorite) follows the “Gang of Four” (GoF) patterns including singleton, decorator, observer, bridge, chain of responsibility, and command. I don’t know if Drupal was developed right from the start following design pattern methodologies or if this is fairly recent.
  • Joomla has apparently gone the MVC (model view controller) route with Joomla 1.5.
  • Wordpress as far as I know doesn’t use patterns