CMS - Summary

Hopefully this chapter has raised your awareness of CMS, and has made you interested in finding out more about it.

To learn more about Content Management Systems, it can help to look at some of the open source CMS systems available, as they are free to download and give you a practical example of what a CMS can do. Although some may be too basic for your needs, it will help you to get accustomed to CMS before you look more a more advanced system.

Some of the most popular open source CMSs are PostNuke, which is available at http://www.postnuke.com/ and EZ Source at http://developer.ez.no/. Both have a large user base, and have a large number of modules available to add extra functionality. If you are looking seriously at an open source solution an excellent resource is http://www.cmsinfo.org which links to a wide range of open source Content Management Systems.

There are a huge number of commercial Content Management Systems available, and many companies that have developed a custom system for themselves try to recoup some of the outlay by selling their system to others, leading to a wide range of packages, some good, some not so good. It's very important to fully evaluate a CMS before purchase to make sure it can meet all of your needs, current and future.

For a much more in-depth look at CMS, we recommend Content Management Systems (Phil Suh, et al., glasshaus 1-904151-06-X). You can find full details about this book from the books section of the glasshaus web site, http://www.glasshaus.com/booklnfo.asp?bookId=65, and it's an ideal guide for learning more about CMS and offers much more advice on choosing a CMS.