Hi Guys, I am new to using CMS and was after a few pointers....I've had a play around with a package called Silverstripe which seems to have potential and the tutorials are quite easy to follow....

 

What I really want to know is if it's possible to implement a CMS into an existing static website so that the client can update some of the text themselves or whether I would have to build the site again using dynamic content (e.g. PHP includes)?

 

Sam

A bit of both I think. If you have already built the site, it should be easy enough to rebuild it using a CMS as the core, but I don't think you could simply add code to the existing site from a CMS to make it user updating - a CMS can be quite a complex bit of software depending on which one you use. You should be able to keep your existing CSS file, modify the CMS slightly, put all your content into a database instead of in the html files, and you're away. At least, that has been my experience with wordpress - I'm not sure about the one you mentioned.

Good luck with it though.

Hi Sam

 

I've used a couple of options before that are really easy to integrate to existing sites.

 

First one is cushycms - very very simple solution - ideal for any brain dead clinets who can't figure out what button to press if you give them too many options (you can get some horrible alt tags in IE though if your site already has styles on the content CSS.

 

The one I love love love is fooshy.com. Really inexpensive and good. You can buy elements of the system, so you only get the bits you want - and really simple to use for both you to integrate and the client to use.

I'd go for CushyCMS if it's just simple text / image updates. So easy to add to an existing site!

 

I've been using SilverStripe for a couple of projects.. and I'm very impressed with it

Or you could build your own cms system its not that hard

Or you could build your own cms system its not that hard

 

At the same time I'm sure it's not that easy.

 

Thanks notbanksy, frenchbird and ChristopherDarling for your replies, appreciated....

 

Sam