What is Content Management?

[sugath]

what is content management and what are the most widely used tools for content management...

[choster]

Well, it's management of your content :-). That is, it's a set of systems in place which you use to control how content is edited and displayed. Quite often the main purpose is to prevent bottlenecks by providing business users the means to change web content without requiring technical resources, for instance an internal web form which lets them post a press release without having to contact the webmaster. These systems are often built in-house because the needs can be very specialized, but there is quite a large range of products in this space-- everything from free template scripts to big open source projects like phpNuke to massive, enterprise-level products like Vignette or Documentum that require millions of dollars to purchase and configure.

[sugath]

i mean what u are saying is say there are 100 of web sites to be maintained and for we need to update the content ..
so can this thing also me automated without actually needing the help of a web-designer to go into HTML Editors and do the Updation ....
Specically then these tools must be very be useful where companies have large number of sites to be maintained .
and for that u require million of dollars ...... and i hope i wannna any of them there must be no trial versions also ....

PLZ update me on this ...

thanks

[rogerd]

Sugath, CMS systems don't need large numbers of sites to be useful. Even a small site can benefit from a CMS, particularly if you want one or more non-technical people to be able to add or change content. There are certainly CMS systems that are open-source or have trial versions. I'd check hotscripts.com or similar sites to begin. Sometimes people use blog software like MovableType for CMS, too.

[sugath]

thanks for the Reply Guys ..

But see i work as web master and there are 100 of sites need to be handled for content updation ....
and it has to be done by the designers so i was looking for an automated way to do that so there is no need for the designers to work on it and also i would like more clearification on the CMS tools what are they...

i mean CMS is a software or a script i need to know what is it exactly and how do we use it ...

i appreciate all u guys help ...
thanks

[rogerd]

Well, sugath, I guess you are talking about a specific kind of content management. Sort of a one-to-many situation, vs. the more common many-to-one situation. By that I mean that a typical CMS system is designed to let multiple authors work on the same site without stepping on each other and without having to be web designers.

Will the content on each of your sites be unique? Does the content fit a database model?

[sugath]

yes each site will have unique content ... so that the content writers themself can update the content for the sites they are working on .....

initillay i thought the CMS is used for this particular reason where it becomes hard to update large number of sites ..

[sugath]

Is CMS is type of a system where the Database and Programming Language comes in to Play ...
which can be build inhouse ....
and also if want to buy readymade tools/softwares ... which are the best tools available in the market .. and not that expensive :)

[TGecho]

Try Typo3. It's very highly rated for sheer power and comes at a nice price: free (open source). The only downside is a steep learning curve, but what do you expect? Check out the "freesites" module, might do exactly what you need.

[Marcia]

sugath, as mentioned there are a lot of them listed at hotscripts.com - you can install them individually for each of those sites. Some are complex and other are very simple. A lot of web designers use systems like that so their clients can do their own updates instead of waiting for them to do it.

You can try some out on your own sites and see which you like best and find simplest to use, they're mostly free.

[bill]

You can try out a large number of free content management software packages at opensourceCMS.com.

[Mr Bo Jangles]

also on your list to check would be Macromedia's 'Contribute' - it's cheap!

[stephenc]

I would recommend innov-8.de/contentmanager-e.html by Innovate Solutions. For $10 they supply a script to allow you to -

"Edit your website online just as though you were editing a Microsoft word document. Innovate Content Manager is an easy to install Perl script which runs on any server. Once installed you can create and edit your entire website online with ease. "

There is also technical support. I installed the script a year ago and it works great. Downside is that you need cgi hosting.

Stephen