Deane Barker

Looking to select a web content management system (CMS), but confused about the promises, terminology, and buzzwords? Do you want to understand content management without having to dive into the underlying programming? This book provides a clear, unbiased overview of the entire CMS ecosystem—from platforms to implementations—in a language- and platform-agnostic manner for project managers, executives, and new developers alike. Author Deane Barker, a CMS consultant with almost two decades of experience, helps you explore many different systems, technologies, and platforms. By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge necessary to make decisions about features, architectures, and implementation methods to ensure that your project solves the right problems. Learn what content is, how to compare different systems, and what the roles of a CMS team are Understand how a modern CMS models and aggregates content, coordinates workflow, and manages assets Explore the scope and structure of a CMS implementation project Learn the process and best practices for successfully running your CMS implementation Examine the practice of migrating web content, and learn how to work with an external CMS integrator

Systems, Features, and Best Practices

Web Content Management

Corey Vilhauer

Sam Otis

Building and managing a web project is a big, complex process — one that branches far beyond the phases directly in front of us.

On one hand, there’s the multi-disciplinary nuts and bolts work of creating the site itself. But beyond that, there’s the connective points — the ideas, the strategy, the decision making, and the upkeep. Even if you’re an expert in your field, it can still be a struggle to find context across the entire project landscape.

With The Web Project Guide, we want to bridge those gaps to help understand how each stage of the website process fits in with the next.

From Spark To Launch And Beyond

The Web Project Guide

Too often, content models are developed with no consideration of the system in which they have to operate. This book is an examination of how content actually gets modeled inside a CMS -- what features and architectures are available to translate a theoretical domain model into something that a CMS can manage. If you're looking for a CMS, what features should you look for? Does your current CMS measure up to the state of the market? What is possible in content modeling at this point in the industry? Table of Contents Introduction About this Guide How a CMS Helps (Or Hinders) Your Content Model The Anatomy of a Content Model Eval #1: What is the built-in content model? Timeout: What's the difference between built-in and custom? Eval #2: Can the built-in model be extended with custom content types? Timeout: Opinionated Software Eval #3: What built-in attribute types are available? Timeout: How Content Is Stored Eval #4: How is content represented in the API? Eval #5: How can attribute values be validated? Eval #6: How is the model supported in the editorial interface? Eval #7: Can an attribute value be a reference to another object? Timeout: Let's Evaluate the Current Level of Functionality Eval #8: Can an attribute value be an embedded content object? Eval #9: Can custom validation rules be built? Eval #10: Can custom attribute types be created? Eval #11: Can attribute values repeat? Eval #12: Can types be formed through inheritance or composition? Eval #13: Can content objects be organized into a hierarchy? Eval #14: Can content objects inherit from other content objects? Eval #15: What is the relationship between "pages" and "content"? Eval #16: Can access to types and attributes be limited by user permissions? Eval #17: How can rich text fields be structured? Eval #18: What options are available for dynamic page composition? Eval #19: What aggregation structures are available to organize content? Timeout: What Is and Isn't Considered "Content"? Eval #20: How can types be changed after object creation? Eval #21: How does the system model file assets? Eval #22: By what method is the content model actually defined? Eval #23: How does the system's API support the model? Conclusion Postscript: Thoughts on Model Interoperability About the Author

Deane Barker

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