I’ve been maintaining sites using Dreamweaver since whenever. I’m thinking of starting a new instructional site which would use lots of illustrations.
I’m wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of using one of the CMS style products compared to traditional construction? Does using something like Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress speed up the page creation and architecture process, but if I have lots of illustrations (about 5 per page) will that slow things down compared to Dreamweaver style site? I’d like some thoughts of those who’ve used both product types extensively.
I personally don’t touch any of the CMS’s, how easy and tempting it might be. I like to keep the faith in my own hands instead of relying on layout and coding done by someone else.
If it speeds up the page creation and architecture process? I think it depends. If you’re happy with the CMS as it is, It probably does, but If If you would like to make changes, what I most probably would like, I think It slows the process down. Remember you didn’t do the markup or coding yourself so you have to go through every singe document to make the changes you want
I know, you might have many choices of plug-inns, but aren’t they available to everyone anyway.
Again this is a personal reflection, so no offense to anyone
The advantage of a CMS is that it provides a consistent look and layout throughout the website, combined with a user-friendly interface that non-developers can use to enter and maintain website content.
Are these personal websites or websites for other people? Considering you’re a developer, if these are your personal websites, I’d continue as you’ve been doing. But if you’re an independent developer, you might consider using a CMS. Letting clients do their own content changes can be a strong selling point.
One of the main advantages of CMS is the support for them. After you are finished with your client they can search for the answers to their questions instead of bothering you. In addition, why reinvent the wheel? I had coded my own CMS for almost 12 years. At some point, rather than rewrite the code to take advantage of the latest technologies, block the latest exploits, etc you can turn your focus to the next project.
A good CMS does not control your markup or CSS. A good CMS allows you to create your pages 100% as you want them so that there’s no difference to doing it by hand. The major difference is that it saves you lots of maintenance time.
In my experience, this doesn’t exactly describe Joomla or Wordpress (you could accomplish the task but they don’t make that very easy). It does, however, describe MODx!
I have built sites with both souped-up PHP and MODx, and all I can say is that MODx gives you the control of static HTML/CSS/JS, the flexibility of homebrew PHP (you can add your own PHP ‘snippets’ which can, but don’t have to hook seamlessly into the MODx core), and all the power of the best CMS rolled into one.
Does using something like Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress speed up the page creation and architecture process
For me, MODx shortens the site’s overall build time, and, more importantly, makes maintenance easier by orders of magnitude - so much so that I have seriously considered porting a working homebrew application to MODx.
but if I have lots of illustrations (about 5 per page) will that slow things down compared to Dreamweaver style site?
Not sure I understand what you mean by “Dreamweaver style” or how this would relate to the CMS vs. non-CMS debate. Every system, whether CMS-based or not on the server side, exists with the goal of serving pageloads of HTML to clients; this HTML is likely to look much the same whether it was generated by Wordpress, by MODx, by Dreamweaver, or by hand.
That said, I think there’s a good level of agreement among designers that using Dreamweaver in Design Mode (not just as a code editor, at which it excels) is a surefire recipe for a site that’s as bloated as, well, Dreamweaver.
@kenquad, agreed 100%, which is why I didn’t recommend either of them. Drupal is another nightmare in that regard.
MODx is good, so is ExpressionEngine (though that isn’t free). Textpattern is another CMS that allows 100% control.
The systems mentioned by you and kenquad (Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal) are the ones I was referring to in the first place. I know there are good systems of cource, but seeing statements like
make my hair stand up. I find people who are using CMS sytems, without any knowledge about design or coding, while calling them selfs designers/developers, a big disgrace. And there are quite some people around doing this with the help of systems like mentioned before. And that is and was the point I try to make. If you have a good understanding of what your doing, systems like MODx, ExpressionEngine and Textpattern are indeed very good solutions.
Thanks for this info - I had to start a bit vaguely about the CMSs I know of but perhaps some options like MODx et al are worth looking into. Didn’t want to kill a month or two learning a new CMS only to find it boxed me in. The difference with using Dreamweaver/BBEdit combo which I’ve used for a decade is the drag and drop/assembly of images on desktop and easy global search and replace. But just being able to rapidly add pages via CMS may have its advantages. So I will look into these and any similar suggestions.
. If you have finished a project and a client has questions you send him/her to a forum?