File based or MySQL?
One of my Ultimate Form Mail clients named Julian asked me a few questions this morning:
Hi Jack,
we talked about your CMS before. I am glad you have still been working on
it. Good to hear it is getting close. The only suggestion that I have
apparently has already been covered. “Ease of Use”
Oh OK I do have two things on a wish list, but before I share them I have
one question.What is the back end based on? Is the content housed in MYSQL or is it a
file based CMS?
Julian’s question goes right to the heart of one of the biggest flaws I find with most content management systems:
Most CMS Are Really DMS - Database Management Systems
As a web designer, sometimes it’s really useful to write out some html or php, save it as a file, and upload it to the server.
What’s really frustrating is that most content management systems ignore static files and force you to store all of your content in a database.
For a blog that might be fine… but in my opinion, a REAL website management tool would make it just as easy to wrap a true html or php file inside of the layout.
In other words, whether you create an html page and upload it to the server or use a WYSIWYG editor to add content to a database, they should both display beautifully inside of the chosen layout.
Demonstration Video On The Way
While I’m working on adding two great suggestions I collected from Ultimate Form Mail clients, I will edit some live motion video and put it online so you can see exactly how easy it is to upload a file and have it work within a template.
I’ll also be releasing other videos so that you can start to see how this tool really could help you take your business to the next level.
Francis Scully says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
It’s about time, lol… I’ve been railing against the idea of over-reliance on database-driven management-systems for the past week & a half; and most people who already deal with php-mysql-apache server environments look at me strange like I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m misguided in some strange way, lol.
When it comes right down to it, everything (even databases) are stored in flat files! Data has to be stored somewhere! Why require people to have this “hypothetical” space for things to operate in. If we could just admit that to oureslves then I believe we can get out of this dark age of database CMS’s.
When I use Apple’s spotlight tool to search PDF’s, it doesn’t require me to export all of my PDF’s into databases, it just searches them!
True, there are ideas like speed & security that have to be taken into account, but if we can actually accept that databases are also flat-files, then we can begin to truly open-source the idea of what CMS’s can be, rather than just retrofitting accessibile web-design onto some other groups’ open-source products… MySQL does use a sort of table-of-contents to make searching & retrieving information from the database flat-files a bit faster, but I think that could be replicated if open-source people actually recognize it as a valid idea.
It’s such a garbage idea that the entire designed page has to be scrapped and suddenly you have to learn all this wierd php coding stuff, with archaic new ways of interacting with stored data. I’d argue that not just the CMS’s should change, but the entire way web servers operate should be changed; but that may be a little too idealistic for some to digest; lol.
As a web-designer, learning the basic widely-accepted tools like xhtml & css to increase speed, conciseness, and accessibility, …I then find myself requiring a need to have a management system for clients so they don’t have to call me everytime they want to change a tiny portion of their website, or add new content.
So whenever I go out looking for CMS’s that allow me to add on top of a template with easy integration, so I can say, “…add new blog post here”, or “add new picture here”, and have the server it is on manage the flat file xhtml files (with a username & password of course) so it can be updated instantly… I always search for CMS’s that let me do this, but always come up with these php template systems. I’ve seen some interesting incarnations that’s supposedly css friendly, like Modx, but even they still don’t quite “get it.”
Also wrote stuff here if you want to check it out
Francis Scully says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:57 pm
oh yeah, forgot to mention this… Squarespace was a really good example of wysiwyg CMS. Check them out sometimes if you want to get some ideas - http://www.squarespace.com
It’s a proprietary website management system all its own, but last time I used it, it was really really easy & relatively-intuitive to work with. Blogger easy almost! However, …its a service, not an open-source product.
jackborn says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Francis,
I found your observations very interesting and insightful. However, what I’m developing will not be open source either.
Francis Scully says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
That’s fine. Squarespace is a really great product, regardless of wether or not it costs anything; and I’d pay for a product like that just to allow clients a good way to edit their content once I hand it over to them. It’s a small price to pay, not to mention a real time-saver, not having to worry about having to explain anything to them once I hand over the design & content. There’s definitely a need out there for this kind of stuff.
However, where is the CMS going to be housed? How do you plan “to be able to convert your HTML layout into a template in seconds without any effort?” Is it going to be an easy way to add tags, or scripts, or the-like, to an html file that automatically adds administrative functionality to flat-files, as well as the option for database-storage for database-friendly content like spreadsheet information, and the-like.
Not to say that it is impossible to be financially supported by this CMS you’ve been working on, if it became an open-source platform being evolved by many people all accross the world rather than just one person or a team of say 10/20.
Is there a way to market this idea of flat-file cms to actual website-server companies, and have them financially subscribe to this platform idea to compete with other server companies?
I know that there are allot of website designers that are moving towards trying to make html templates using standardized ways of laying out pages with css & xhtml, so that any website-design can be automatically converted to any-other website-design with the ease of, say…
http://www.csszengarden.com or http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/CSSLoveChild/
Which actually may make this kind of idea easier to work with if there is some kind of standardization. But I suppose it’s hard to collaborate with people, because the moment it gets opened-up, it suddenly isn’t entirely owned by the original creator(s), and financial support starts to spiral dangerously out of control. There has to be a solution to this way. …Maybe I want to change the way markets work rather than how websites work; lol
jackborn says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:56 pm
The CMS will be on your server. So this is quite different from square-whatever…
Well, that’s what I’ve created.
I’m in the middle of making minor changes suggested to me by clients who have purchased some of my other software.
I’ll release a video of the templating process soon.
Another thing… this isn’t a flat file system or a database system, it’s both. You can put all your content in the database, or all in files, or a mix, whatever you want.
Francis Scully says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 5:38 pm
sweet, can’t wait!
sunsean says:
June 7th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
I look forward to seeing you’re CMS. The idea is grand and long overdue. Finding a happy medium between developers and clients is not easy, but I believe you might have something here. I eagerly await the video.
Antonio says:
June 20th, 2006 at 7:22 am
I found your opinions on CMS quite close to mine. For my site I made a few… let’s call them tools, to make life easier to the guys that made the contents (they used FrontPage for everything :S). These tools have evolved, and now are kind of a CMS that stores most of the data in text files (I use the DB mostly for a phpBB forum).
They still work with static files, and when the work of maintaining them is too much, I convert them to a template and then the scripts kick in with the data (that can come from text files or the DB). The growth of the website has been huge (for what is essentially a hobby project) and I’m starting to feel the pressure of the patchy nature of my tools. But I haven’t found a CMS that allows me a mix of file-based and DB-based content. Until now
I’ll follow with interest the evolution of your project. Good luck.
Daniele C. says:
February 17th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I have an answer: BOTH.
Using Drake CMS you can switch from the embedded Gladius DB (flat-file with SQL92 compliance) to any other dbms (Drake CMS uses adoDB lite as database abstraction layer) with a few clicks. I think it is revolutionary enough for now
Zsolt says:
March 29th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I have been searching for years for a cms, (for graphic designers with a little php knowledge) easy use, no database, with css-xhtml templates, and with a good and logic admin interface.
With no luck.
Speaking for myself, I hate mysql. It may be true, that for medium and large sites, databases are the only alternative. But for small sites with 20-30 pages, and a small gallery? Most cms’s are like a canon…
True, there are many excellent cms/blog systems, but not for me.
That is why I decided to make my own cms:
I know there are many coders out there, who says now, what an idiot. wysiwyg and xhtml css validation does not like each other. Yes, maybe, but I can not expect that my clients will learn xhtml just for the sake of xhtml validation.
Cms today are for the experienced webdeveloper.
For example drakecms with gladius is great, — and here comes the BUT –, the admin GUI is terrible. Too many options, illogical button-names, etc. I know drakecms is one of the best systems, and I like it, but, but, but….
Ok, thats enough for now, sorry for my english — and since I came from the Graphic Design World — sorry for my bad opinion.
I am still waiting for a good cms.
Zsolt says:
March 29th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Oh, and I forgot to mention:
opensource is great, I dont’t use closedsource webapps