Suggest a basic, cheap CMS or templating engine
I run a software company selling downloadable software. Currently my site is written entirely in HTML, using a text editor. I upload it by FTP.
The chief problem I have identified with this approach is duplication. The following items are duplicated in every page:
- Logo
- Header
- Footer
- Common links (e.g. the link to my download page is in many different places)
This becomes a maintenance nightmare.
I want some way to resolve this. I want:
- Templates - e.g. for the header and footer
- Variables - e.g. to reference common links
I want the solution to allow plain HTML coding.
It has to be cheap, say less than $15/£10 a month.
What is the next step after plain HTML?
Edit - I've found that there are different classes of these systems:
- Static site generators ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=700031 )
- Dynamic server side
I tend to prefer the first, because the simpler hosting keeps my costs low.
6 Answers
You should check out Joomla, Drupal or WordPress.
They are more than sufficient for your needs.
Checkout this question at superuser.com.
Another option that you can look at is Google Sites. It does everything you need.
Edit: All these CMSes are free; and all that you have to pay, is the domain name and the hosting space, which works out to be less than 40 usd per year, in my case.
-
+1 for Drupal. I don't have any experience with Joomla. Wordpress doesn't have the all the power that the OP seems to be looking for, but drupal can handle that hands down. – Rob Allen 15 years ago
You can try to use a static site generator like Jekyll.
It's designed exactly to avoid the headers and footers duplication using a template mechanism.
A full blow Wordpress install is really powerful, but learning to use all this power can take a lot of time.
-
I like the look of this. Given that it produces static HTML it means I can also stay on my cheap standard web hosting package. – Dan Gravell 15 years ago
-
I implemented Jekyll last night. It's great. I have awarded this response as the answer because it is closest to my immediate needs, but other responses are valid too for different situations I think. – Dan Gravell 15 years ago
Forget about CMS. It's very difficult to customize once your business needs something specific. I would suggest try django instead. See my reason why. It's very easy to get running, but it doesn't tied you from doing anything specific.
-
Django looks nice but it's almost too powerful. I don't need a fully dynamic website, I just want to remove duplication. Also are there hosted django options available? – Dan Gravell 15 years ago
-
@Dan: It's worth mentioning that there are static site generators build on Django's template system, for example [Hyde][1] or [AymCMS][2]. This way, you get a fast web site without duplicating efforts and you can extend it easily if you ever need to. [1]: http://github.com/lakshmivyas/hyde [2]: http://aymcms.com/ – Claus Schwarm 15 years ago
-
@dan, you can try http://www.webfaction.com/, I think it is quite affordable – Jpartogi 15 years ago
the greatest and simplest cms i encountered is cmsimple.com cant recommend enough. no databases, just adjust to your liking and upload to the server.
Joomla I find is easier to use than Drupal, however they both have many 3rd party add-ons which make either of them very versatile. I prefer Joomla both for ease of use and more third party extensions.
CityDesk might fit your needs: http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/ A 50 page version is free. It's Windows software where you componentize your pages just as you describe and then CityDesk puts them together and generates the final HTML pages.
-
Sounds ideal. Unfortunately I'm a Linux user... (apologies for not mentioning) – Dan Gravell 15 years ago
-
Why the negative? – Pbreit 15 years ago
-
is citydesk even maintained anymore? When was the last update? Why not use something that actually has other users? – Tim J 14 years ago
