November 7th, 2007

WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)

WordPress logo
WordPress logo
WordPress, one of my favorite pieces of web development software I have ever used. Easy to use, stylise and heaps of options, its what dreams are made off for us web geeks. What makes it even more dreamier is the ability for it to be used as a multi function tool, no longer is it just a blogging tool.

I personally have used it as a blog (GermWorks) as well as an e-Commerce website (Phillipwray racing) and portfolio (JP2 Designs). All these websites have need of Content Management capabilities and while WordPress is great I would still like some features to be added, fixed or modified.

The trick however is not to make it too complicated like other CMS’s and keep WordPress easy to use and manage for non php and HTML experts.

First fix: Menu

The menu system in WordPress sucks. Normally by default you create a page and then it appears. You can control the page order which is handy but what if a page is a sub page and you only want it displayed when your in that section? Well its possible but it requires manual coding. I did this for Phillipwray Racing and Mike Cherim also had to revert to this for his new Green Methods website. You can read about how he did the menu.

For most blogs and simple e brochure websites you only have a handful of links but what about a 20 page website with sub categories?

Second fix: Admin section

You have just created this beautiful individual styled website and then the client goes into the admin section…..

Yes you can modify the login screen, like I did for Phillipwray Racing and David Airey posted about and you can even now modify what is displayed on the dashboard via a plugin BUT what about the rest?

I would love to see an option of were you can edit what people will see in the admin. I know depending on what access you have already depends on what you see but I would like to see more options. Like for instance if the website is not a blog, all the posts stuff could be deleted and for most clients they do not really need to see the Plugins and Options sections. So far my only option for this is to manually go through the admin php files.

However WordPress is the best open source Content Management System option

While some of my comments have been far from positive, please note that WordPress is the best open source Content Management System I have looked at. I have had to look at a few as the government agency I work part time for is in the process of installing one. This is the most simplest, easiest to use/ install and did I mention its free? You can use it for your own domain name or even use an extension on the WordPress.com domain (ie: Lorelle on WordPress).

If your still a septic about a WordPress website always being blogy read this article on rise of WordPress for non-blogs and look at the book WordPress Complete as well.

If you know off any plugins that solve these problems or any input or your own pet peeve with WordPress as a CMS (or in general) please write them down.

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Nice work on the racing eCommerce site. That really looks like a CMS and nothing like WordPress at all. I would have never guessed.

Comment by Chris Coyier — November 8th, 2007 @ 10:47 am

Thanks man!
To be honest, if I had my time again, I would personally have used different software (something like zencart etc). The racing eCommerce website still needs work to be done but I will start that after my wedding :D

Some things I would change would be the sponsors on the third right column. Giving them a standard size with some borders etc and also clean up the general layout. I would also be modifying the admin section, providing a super slim user section were they can add products nice and easily. You got any ideas?

If you wanted to know more about how I did it go to this post which outlines what I did in creating the Phillipwray Racing website

Comment by GermWorks — November 8th, 2007 @ 11:32 am

I switched from Wordpress to Joomla. Joomla does a lot of things better, Wordpress is better in some areas. One area where Joomla is way ahead of Wordpress is design. There are a lot of really bad looking Wordpress themes out there, and relatively few clean, professional looking designs.

Comment by mlankton — November 12th, 2007 @ 12:10 am

@Mlankton - Thanks for your opinions about the Joomla vs WordPress argument. To be honest I have not yet looked at Joomla (will do though). Mlankton the issues I raised were WordPress fails, is Joomla better?

WordPress themes yes by large are crap but I do not think it is a WordPress problem but rather a designer problem.

Comment by GermWorks — November 12th, 2007 @ 7:55 am

The issue I raised about using sub page lists, optiniche blog has released a nice WordPress hack to help solve this problem. Its not the best as its still a hack but its a start.

http://www.optiniche.com/blog/369/sub-page-links

Comment by GermWorks — December 17th, 2007 @ 9:13 am

Yeah, as far as navigation goes, before I left Wordpress for Joomla I added a CSS top navbar menu and lost the sidebar navigation. After doing that, I had the flexibiity to do whatever I wanted with the navigation. More flexibility in fact than I have now with Joomla.

I really like some of Stu Nicholls’ menus. They are pure CSS, they validate, they are fast, they look great, and they work. Check out his stuff at cssplay.co.uk

Easily dropped in to any Wordpress theme.

Comment by mlankton — December 17th, 2007 @ 9:21 am

So mlankton, are you saying that WordPress is better for styling navigation than Joomla?

Comment by GermWorks — December 17th, 2007 @ 12:22 pm

No, I’m saying that dropping in a CSS menu that gives you the flexibility to have as many levels and sub-levels as you want in your categories gives you more flexibility than WP or Joomla give you. But only in terms of how your content navigation is displayed.

Wordpress’ built-in content navigation is bad, Joomla’s is slightly better. The one problem with Joomla 1.0.x is that you are limited to two-tier relationships. If I want a category to be a child of another category and display that way in a menu, I have to make one a section (above categories in Joomla’s content navigation hierarchy) and the other a category. I could drop in a CSS menu and have it display any way I wanted to, just like WP.

To get an idea of one of the many reasons I like Joomla so much better than WP, check out rockettheme.com and yootheme.com. Just two examples of what people are doing with Joomla templating. Even making my own WP theme, I could never get to look like anything but a souped-up WP blog.

Comment by mlankton — December 17th, 2007 @ 8:05 pm

Those examples are indeed very nice. I was reminded that I have seen some WP themes that use the categories for navigation purposes, I have yet looked at detail of this Premium News Theme but from what I understand Adii also uses the categories.

Your examples do look like good CMS’s rather than souped-up WP blogs but I have seen a few good constructed CMS WP sites. Phillipwray Racing is one example.

I cannot really make a decision on what is better as I have not used WP but you have, so I will take your word that Joomla is the better option.

Comment by GermWorks — December 18th, 2007 @ 8:43 am

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I use wordpress for my blog, It is simple, easy and lots and lots of nice plugin. Most of them are free for use and easy to install. Again - it’s a easy and flexible you don’t want to go back. I’m going to experiment much more with wordpress by using it as a cms.

Enjoy…

rofaldez’s last blog post..Godaddy discount

Comment by rofaldez — April 18th, 2008 @ 10:44 am

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