How can I migrate my website into a content management system [closed]

Question

Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.

Closed 6 years ago.

Improve this question

I have designed a website for my brother's company using Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.

How can I create a content management system (CMS) for him to let him easy to edit or post news in his website? I think that using Dreamweaver will be difficult for him.

Answer 1

Any CMS is going to require server-side scripting. Typically one starts with a CMS framework, and then designs the theme around it. There is no easy way to "CMSify" your Dreamweaver design. I suggest you take a look at the Wordpress framework, which will require a PHP backend. Here is a link to a tutorial on creating custom Wordpress themes.

Answer 2

It's not an easy task if you don't have any experience with scripting, but depending of the complexity of the website there are some good options. What I mean is, depending on how much dynamic the site will be. Put yourself some questions like:

Is the website mostly static, and only some text areas and images have to be updated? Or are there more dynamic parts that involve the creation of new pages, like a blog or a "products" page? Do you need a friendly backend, or would your brother be ok with updating text in text files? Will it be only your brother updating the content, of he will need to manage several users?

The degree of difficulty for you will be proportional to the degree of friendliness of updating to your brother/users.

Depending on the answers to those questions you can use something has:

• as a file based CMS without interface (Kirby) or with (Monstra, razorCMS)
• A very simple to convert but also very basic CMS (Surreal, Cushy, Perch)
• A full blown CMS that will take longer to learn, but give all the flexibility to do whatever you want (there
  are many choices, but Processwire is my absolute favourite)

Answer 3

Rather than creating a CMS, try installing an existing one that will import your static pages and perform the main steps of making them work in the new system. It's not that hard to do from scratch, but many web hosts will have some of these systems pre-installed. You can find out what CMSs your web host offers, and then Google "[name of CMS] import html".

The MODX CMS (modx.com) has some decent tools for importing HTML into the system. Detailed instructions here.

WordPress has various plugins you can install to do the same thing, including HTML Import 2. Detailed instructions here.

WordPress works best for people who like a simpler interface. MODX works best for people who like design control, and also for people who plan on doing a lot of their own code to extend the system.