Content Management Systems

What's a Content Management System?

A Content Management System, commonly referred to as a CMS is, at it's simplest, a site that allows its content to be edited directly online; typically by multiple users. The content is usually stored in a database and site editors can edit the content in a browser upon logging in. A blog for example is a common, and simple, example of a CMS.

The above definition has become woefully outdated however as the requirements placed on, and the tools offered by, a robust CMS have grown dramatically. Today you may find a CMS handling social networking, hosting video or serving as an online document repository to name just a few possibilities. Typically these additional features are added as extensions to the core CMS.

Why Use a Content Management System?

A content management system allows us to leverage in-built features for the bulk of what our your site may require. Even if a feature doesn't exist, the CMS contains a framework to allow for more secure and rapid development. It also handles the most primary of web application tasks such as user access controls, menu management and database exchange, allowing us to focus on your more specific needs. Even the smallest of sites can usually benefit from a well developed CMS.

Piqcel uses the Joomla! CMS, Wordpress, Drupal and other major CMS's as the core of most of our web projects (excluding most e-commerce projects). The CMS not only offers robust content management and a wealth of existing extensions, but also serves as a great development framework that allows us to custom extensions that can be tailored specifically to your needs.

CMS is used all over the world for everything from simple web sites to complex corporate applications. It is simple to manage, reliable, and easily extensible.

What's Under the Hood?

Joomla! is an open-source application built upon the PHP programming language and the MySQL database; likely the two most popular development technologies on the web today; powering some of the most high traffic sites on the net. It's flexible object oriented code allows for extensive augmentation without disrupting version updates to the core site.