I talk quite a bit about WordPress here, but don’t think that we don’t use other content management systems too. One such is CMS Made Simple. We’ve been using this CMS for over a year now and have developed the following sites with it:

• Stonefield Villas Homeowners Association
• Idylwood Civic Club
• Hastings Law Firm, P.C.
• Parkway Utility District

WordPress Isn’t the Only Game in Town

Our clients have found its backend to be very intuitive and easy to use. We find designing for it to be a breeze. There are many modules available for it that match or exceed anything WordPress offers. And in fact, there’s one thing that CMSMS does well that WordPress does not (yet): Members Only Area (using FEU – Front End Users and Self-Registration modules). We are currently developing a Members Only Area for the Idylwood Civic Club.

Setup and Installation

CMSMS is a database-driven program so you will need to set up a database (and user) for it to use. It will do a “Pre Flight” check to make sure your server settings are adequate for its needs, and unless you have some really offbeat server settings, you should be fine.

You can choose to have CMSMS populate your new site with canned text. If you are a CMSMS neophyte you might want to do this, as the populated text is some really good information about how to get CMSMS off the ground. If you are a CMSMS veteran, you may choose to start with a blank canvas.

And You’re Off!

Once you’re cleared for takeoff, so to speak, CMSMS walks you through several screens while it prompts you for database and site information. Then you’re invited to login to your new backend and start messing around under the hood. This is where the fun, the sheer joy, begins.

Styling and Profiling

You can create any number of custom templates; you decide which page uses which template. You can create any number of stylesheets for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you want a seasonal look. You can create spring, summer, fall and winter stylesheets and change them out at will. I usually create a master stylesheet for my design, then create supplemental stylesheets for some of the modules, such as News, Bookmarks, Calendar, and so forth. There’s also a print stylesheet and an accessibility stylesheet built right in.

CMS Made Simple runs on the Smarty templating system so it’s easy to create some of your own functions and modules and UDTs (User-Defined Tags) once you figure out how Smarty works. (Hey, if I can figure it out, anyone can!). Designing for it is a breeze. There’s a great video tutorial out demonstrating how easy it is to take an existing design and port it to CMS Made Simple. This intuitive CMS also has several built-in menu systems, both horizontal and vertical, and they allow for several levels of nesting (once again, you are in the driver’s seat here and you can decide how many levels of menus you want to display).

And Our Clients Love It!

Our clients love it because the backend, where they will be adding their content, is intuitive, plus there are several WYSIWIG editors you can use, and you can set those on a user-by-user basis. Plus you can take advantage of pre-defined User Groups (Administrator, Designer, Editor) to keep certain groups of folks out of areas they don’t need to be in. This is handy if your client has staff that will be inputting content.

So if you’re looking for something that’s easy to design for and work with, client/user-friendly, Open Source, and solidly built, look no further. Check out CMS Made Simple. It could very well be your life made simple. And check out our CMSMS Sandbox while you’re at it. The design you see there, Blank Stare, was ported over from a popular WordPress theme of mine.

Some Caveats

No praise would be complete without a little warning thrown in for good measure. CMS-MS is not perfect. It’s the perfect solution for a LOT of our web design clients, but it too has its flaws. Its blogging module (Blogs Made Simple) is not as flexible as WordPress, and its forum module (Forums Made Simple) has been a spam magnet the few times I’ve installed it. Of course if you want a dedicated blog or a dedicated forum, you should probably be seeking out blog or forum software solutions. The CMS-MS site, in fact, uses WordPress to run its blog and Simple Machines Forum to run its forum. So take it from them!

So Who Should Use CMS-MS?

I like to use CMS-MS for small business and professional sites, sites where there isn’t going to be any blogging. So if you’re doing a web site for a contractor, doctor, lawyer, dentist, consultant or other professional or for a small business entity, then CMS-MS just might be the perfect solution. If your client needs separate, members-only content, then this offers that very elegantly via the aforementioned FEU module. It’s quick to deploy, quick to fit your design around, and the clients are able to move around in it and add their own content with ease. The News module and Blank Of the Month module are powerful modules that allow you to harness content and present teasers on the front page (such as testimonials), with archived content sortable by date or topic.

CMS Show Off

The CMS-MS forum has a special section called Show Off where web designers post their latest CMS-MS creations. Go there to see some of the brilliant work and how the power of CMS-MS is being harnessed to drive all kinds of web sites.

Need a web site? Think CMS-MS might be what you need? Then hire us to help you develop your web site using CMS-MS!