Custom CMS for updating website

[avail]

Hi All,

New here and new to web development. I have a question regarding how to create a control panel (CMS) that will enable me to update my website images and paragraph. I've seen this done before in php but I'm not sure about everything that I would need to pull this off. Any help you give will be most appreciated.

Respectfully,
Sean

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], Sean!

is there a reason you want to develop a custom CMS?

i would suggest finding a sufficient existing CMS to use.
one of your biggest issues will be security and that's not something you want to learn as you go.

[JorgeV]

Hello,

All depends of your skill in programming, and your needs. I use my own CMS, that I developped from A to Z and enriched over the years. However, I started it in the end of the 90s, so different times, different methods.

[lammert]

What is your goal? Develop programming skills or develop a site? In the first case, dive into PHP or some website framework and learn, work, test and repeat. In the second case, just install one of the better known free CMS systems and start adding content.

The first case will cost you months before you have a decent site on the web. In the second case, a basic site can be finished in a day.

[lucy24]

how to create a control panel (CMS) that will enable me to update my website images and paragraph

I'm vaguely reminded of the way my father would happily spend several hours programming his computer to perform a one-time calculation that could be done manually in minutes.

It doesn't sound as if it's a large site that potentially will have multiple people contributing to its content, in which case you would need something that untrained editors can't break. But there's a cost, measured in page-build time and server resources.

If you think you would derive pleasure from designing a CMS, go for it. (I don't think this is the case, or you wouldn't be asking.) Otherwise continue making your site in a text editor. You certainly don't need a CMS just to update text and pictures.

[avail]

Thanks all for your input. All comments are relevant in one way or another. The site is not big but I would like to give the updating to someone else that doesn't have any web programming skills.

So, I was thinking I could make a simple control panel that could change the text in a particular section and update an image. Maybe add a section if we choose to add more content. But when I search I can't find a good example. Does anyone have an example I could study to make a control panel for my needs. I'm thinking there needs to be a 1) admin login 2) edit section 3) save changes 4) delete section 5) add section. I think php is the way to go to make the control panel or I can convert the whole site to workpress. My fear is that the wordpress site might not look exactly the same as the original site. There has been a lot of devs working on this site and it is not that clean.

With all that said I would like to try to make the control panel.

[lammert]

If your goal is to bring an existing site under CMS control, you might still look in the possibility of Wordpress. I did such a conversion a year ago. The trick is that you have to write your own theme. Existing themes will probably not give you the same look.

Themes in Wordpress are actually quite simple to create. You need just a handful of files. I used an index.php, footer.php and header.php for displaying the content. A 404.php is useful as a fallback if a page is not found and my archive.php and single.php are empty. If you have any special scripts on your current site you might add them in a functions.php file, but with a mainly static site, I doubt you need a lot of content in it.

You can read the Wordpress documentation about creating themes, but it is fairly exhaustive. Instead I looked at some Youtube tutorials about how to make your own Wordpress theme from scratch. Only to fix some nasty problems I had to consult the Wordpress documentation.

The site is pixel-for-pixel equal to the original hand-coded site, because I just imported all the CSS formatting.

[not2easy]

WordPress offers the features you want to create for your site and it is free. You can add users with editing (only) permissions. If you understand CSS you can edit your theme to look like just about anything. I have switched several sites from static html to WP and if you know what you're doing, it is straightforward to imitate/copy the old appearance, even improve it.

If you truly want your custom UI, look to the links in the footer of each page here where professionals offer their services. Note - be ready to describe exactly what you want and need, the description here is pretty vague. There are many people here who could possibly create what you want - but third party tools leave you tied to (dependent on) the creator of those tools when/if your needs change.

I vote for a move to WP - but even that has a learning curve. You could budget a few hours of study a day while you learn the WP environment and look into study for html/css to move into exactly what you want. WP mistakes are easy and common, some reading at the free WordPress Learning Center [learn.wordpress.org] can help you become a star (Or at least give you the tools and information you want).

[avail]

Thanks all. It looks like I am going to go from static site to wordpress. I appreciate all that took the time to respond. Respect