So I've never, ever used a CMS, and of course, I really should learn how to.

 

Can someone basically tell me how they work, can I use them offline for testing or must it all be online based (like a blog)?

 

Is it a simple matter of identifying the divs that have variable content? Do I then leave that div empty and in the CMS I type in what's going to go there?

 

If you could answer some questions that'd be really helpful

visit

www.opensourcecms.com

You can use CMS's and blogs offline for testing, just install apache and mysql and you can test on your local server. As for styling a ready-made CMS, they are all different but each will undoubtedly have their own support forum to work out the basics.

I currently have the following CMS default installs set up locally on my iMac (utilising MAMP):

 

Expression Engine

TextPattern

Wordpress

CMS Made Simple

 

My aim is to test them all out for various different situations and scenarios so that I can make an informed choice as to what to use for certain projects. Look into WAMP, LAMP or MAMP, depending on your Operating System of choice, and you will be free to test out any number of CMS's locally without any trouble.

 

All CMS's are different, and everyone has their favourite or one that they like to champion. There is no better way to decide what is right for you than by testing them out.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

What is a CMS? Good question, I feel an article coming on

i prefer my own, all from scratch

So I've never, ever used a CMS, and of course, I really should learn how to.

 

Can someone basically tell me how they work, can I use them offline for testing or must it all be online based (like a blog)?

 

Is it a simple matter of identifying the divs that have variable content? Do I then leave that div empty and in the CMS I type in what's going to go there?

 

If you could answer some questions that'd be really helpful

 

You can install a CMS locally if you want, you need the relevant operating system, eg for PHP you can use something like XAMPP

 

Basically a CMS is four things...

 

1. Most CMS's use a database to store things like setting, configurations and most importantly your text content. Other files such as images are usually stored in folders.

 

2. An admin interface that lets you make your configurations and add/edit your items of content

 

3. A method of displaying your content, typically a templating system. All templates use HTML and CSS, but different CMS's use a variety of tagging methods for the dynamic parts, eg PHP, Smarty or it's own tagging system. It's these tags that are using as placeholders for your content, such as a category list, a news item, galleryy thumbs etc etc. Template tags can usually be manipulated to make your content behave differently, for instance you might need to modify a tag to only show categories that have entries.

 

4. Modules and plugins are used to give you extra features and functionality. Out of the box most CMS's are nothing more than glorified news posting systems but you can add extra modules for such things as galleries, shopping carts, calendars, forums and so on.

Let's take WP as an example.

 

Requirements - PHP and MySQL. If you want to do offline testing, it might be best to use xampp (google it. ).

 

All the information is stored in the MySQL database, and your "theme" employs a whole host of functions (eg <?php the_tags() ?>) which allow you to pretty much customise your design any way you want.