CMS - Wordpress - not for blogging

I’m looking at wordpress but I don’t want to use it for a blog, I simply want users to be able to edit text and change images on the sites I create for them.

I also don’t want to have to redesign my site or use a wordpress theme or template. I just want to use my original design and HTML/CSS. I know how to install wordpress on a site, but I have no idea how to get it to work with my content and design I currently have…

I’ve looked at CushyCMS but you have to pay around $28 a month to use things such as your orignal domain, not sure who would wan’t that feature? But a mom and pop store site isn’t going to want to pay $336 per year in order to make small updates to their website.

I’m having trouble finding resources on the web to answer my questions.

I use a similar system to Cushy for smaller sites, called SurrealCMS. It is not a per user fee, it is a fee for me as the designer / administrator to have unlimited sites/clients connected to the service, brand the CMS backend (use my own logo), and make it accessible from my website (ie. my domain, eg cms.mydomain.com). I believe Cushy is similar. If you have only one site and no backend branding needs, Surreal is free, as is [URL=“http://www.pagelime.com”]PageLime, another similar one I have been looking at trying out.

Edit: To clarify, by “use your original domain” they mean to access the CMS backend, not your actual site. You just add the FTP details in the backend for your domain and it connects, regardless of whether your have a free or paid account.

Not with any of these ones, you just add CSS classes to the elements you want to be editable in the backend. For Surreal for example it’s just "class=“editable” (and if the element has other classes on it already, that’s ok, you just append it, eg. "class=“myClass editable”. Easy peasy.

For designers who understand HTML and CSS, I find CMS Made Simple about the easiest end-user editable CMS to configure with an existing design, once the basic concept is understood.

Anyway you will have to re-code a site to make it work with one of the CMSs

This is what I name “re-coding”. External editing is needed by all means. It’s not like you upload template files & get a CMS site.

That’s true, but at least these hosted “plug in” type CMSs require minimal changes to the code.

Just wanted to mention a couple other options not mentioned so far:

http://snappysnippets.com

http://designhamster.com

Disclaimer: I work for DesignHamster. We’re similar to the other services except that we also provide hosting.

I’d love to get feedback from you all!

Scotty

Wouldn’t be a bad idea to just hire someone to create a wordpress theme out of your current layout.