Every web designer needs a solid content management system to offer his/her clients. Every site owner ought to have a workable and economical solution for keeping a website current with fresh, new and useful information. Over the years, I have tried several different solutions to give my clients access to their web pages, so that they can quickly and easily manage their own content. At first, I would create the site, load all of the content dynamically from a database and create an administrator section to handle all of the content management. This is a very tedious process, and every CMS need was different for each client, so I found myself reinventing the wheel over and over again. I needed a faster way to create a scalable system for Web CMS, so I tried some free services. One in particular is CushyCMS (www.cushycms.com), which allows you to set up editor’s and content contributors easily. The only setback is you have to send your clients to their website. There is, however, an option to pay a monthly fee to use the site with a customized brandable theme.
It’s Web CMS How it Should Be
I believe I have found a better way to do CMS, it’s called Adobe InContext Editing. It takes only a few minutes to set up a site for CMS, and only a few steps to create editable regions for your site. Everything is done directly in the Dreamweaver IDE, which is great. The tools are familiar to anyone who can use a simple word processer application, and contributors can edit directly from their browser. As of right now, the service is in free preview so there is no cost to use it. I’ve set up a couple of sites on it so far, and I love it. When I began looking into the potential cost, I began to have second thoughts. I’ve heard that the final pricing for the service has not yet been determined, but I’ve heard speculation that the service would cost somewhere around $10 – $20 per month. The service will likely be limited to five domains. Okay, I could see myself shelling out $240/year for a useful service, as long as my clients are happy with the ease of use. Not excited about the 5 domain limit, and having to pay extra per additional domain, and not knowing how much additional cost would be incurred per domain. My main deterrant is the mystery of not knowing what the final price of the service will be. Could the price rise in the future? Considering the pricing of Adobe’s software, it’s a little scary to think of how much InContext could end up costing. Switching CMS solutions would not be an easy task, especially if you have a lot of sites.
In conclusion, I really love the service and now I’m just crossing my fingers for a reasonable price.
Share your comments and tell me, which CMS workflow works best for you?
