Content Management and PHP

[varun khurana007]

Hi everyone,
I'm kinda new to CMS.So kindly let me know if a cms like joomla can help me here.
I'm designing a web portal for a school.I've already done the faculty login environment(which is on the intra net for security reasons ) using PHP/MySQL where they will feed all data into the database.
Now I'm starting on designing a similar login(you can say its will be the school's website) for the students, which will be on the internet.

Both the applications will use the same database(so when the student logins,he can just view his marks,attendance etc in proper form).
Now the problem is that the content on the school's website needs to updated time to time by a person who knows what is to be updated, but has less knowledge on updating websites!

So what i want to know is,if a CMS can do the job? Also can i implement the CMS after i complete the website designing part or do i need to use it from the very beginning?
And finally as i need PHP codes to be embedded in the source files,can i edit them if i'm starting from scratch through CMS?

[ergophobe]

Not sure I follow all the questions, but

>So what i want to know is,if a CMS can do the job?

That's pretty much their whole purpose in life - allowing non-developers without server privileges to keep a site up to date.

>>Also can i implement the CMS after i complete the website designing part or do i need to use it from the very beginning?

That depends on what you mean by designing. If you mean coming up with comps, even doing the HTML/CSS for some "lorem ispum" pages, then sure. Or you could do it in parallel. I tend to start seeding the CMS with content first, and then worry about theming, but if you already have a look that you need to integrate with, I would probably do the theming and then start transferring over content.

In any case. They all are themeable, and most designs can be integrated into most CMS. You might play with a couple of open source CMS (Joomla, Drupal, ModX, etc) and see which themeing system you like best.

>>And finally as i need PHP codes to be embedded in the source files,can i edit them if i'm starting from scratch through CMS?

Not sure what you mean here. Some CMS will let you add PHP within the pages (Drupal will if you have the privileges), but in general you really really really want to avoid hacking a CMS and mixing custom PHP with the distribution PHP. If you do that, upgrades will be somewhere between Hell and Impossible.

Ideally, you want to avoid touching the PHP in the source files and handle everything through theming and plug-in modules.

Of course, as I say, for unique pages that need some unique PHP functionality, you can integrate that PHP just as though it were content and sometimes it's a good solution. If you have to hack for sitewide features though, you'll regret it.