content management
(without the killing)
drew mclellan, edgeofmyseat.com

o hai!

edgeofmyseat.com
a specialist web development agency experienced
in building web applications from content
management systems, e-commerce applications,
to the systems that run your business.

so,
content management then.

http://flickr.com/photos/hddod/536392298/

http://flickr.com/photos/neilw/138493599/

a tool for preparing eggs should be
as simple as possible, but no simpler.
- Eggbert Einstein

eggxactly.

“A boiled egg makes an almost
perfect breakfast. It's the most
nutritional breakfast money can buy.
The downside is that it's a bit of a
hassle to prepare.
First you have to wait 5 minutes for
the water to boil, place the egg in
the boiling water, remembering to
set the timer, fish it out when it's
cooked and finally you have to wash
up the pan.”
- James Seddon

as simple as possible, but no simpler.

say when.

so controlling.
you’re not the boss of me

you don’t understand my needs
that’s all I’m saying

you’re not my type.

offline management

online management

build something, anything.

your site, your way.

it’s not you, it’s me.

common features.

/shiny/happy/urls

use readable, reliable
and hackable URLs
- Tom Coates

/news/technology/messy-urls-are-evil

data feeds

data stored in an open format

customisable and accessible
administration interface

search

multi-site support

multi-language support

caching

web 2.0 features
(cringe)

user generated content
(cringe)

off the shelf systems

weblog management systems

weblog management systems
• posts / articles
• categories and tags
• comments
• sections
• flat site structures
• simple to set up and use

beware the pimped out blog site
don’t launch a new site with a weblog cms already
stretched to its limits.

case study
webstandards.org

state of existing site
• CVS proving too awkward for casual edits
• Movable Type was painfully slow to publish
• wanted the ability to turn on comments
• considering a full redesign anyway

choice to use WordPress
• continued to be free of charge
• new ‘pages’ feature to handle site content
• integrated blog
• no republishing for comments
• moderation and spam filtering
• Matt Mullenweg was part of WaSP

lessons learned
• dynamic rendering is a lot more expensive
• the ‘pages’ feature was immature and slow

lessons learned
• dynamic rendering is a lot more expensive
• the ‘pages’ feature was immature and slow
• hacking WordPress was a bad idea

solutions
• unhack WordPress
• re-implement our hacks with the plugin API
• upgrade to faster hosting

avoid getting into an unsupportable
configuration at all costs.

medium scale content management

medium scale features
• weblogs, photo gallery, events calendar
• user / membership systems
• structure / hierarchy management tools
• more powerful search
• workflows
• versioning

beware!
• complicated way to cook an egg
• more power results in less simplicity
• set up / configuration
• maintenance and patching
• ease of use

enterprise level content management

building your own

case study
edgeofmyseat.com cms platform

edgeofmyseat.com projects
• content management at core
• bespoke requirements on top
• design-led
• built for phased development & future
expansion

our goals
• reusable core functionality
• avoid monotonous tasks
• decrease the skill level required
• be more competitive on smaller projects
• structured data
• high performance

buy or build?

we decided to build

platform
• PHP 5.2, MySQL 4.1
• good performance
• easy and inexpensive to host
• inexpensive to develop
• reliable
• in house expertise

design decisions
• flexible templating
• multiple levels of caching
• structured and extensible data types
• embeddable applications
• ability to exercise control of IA
• simple administrative concepts

planning for the future

top tips

know your plugins
authenticity, licensing & support

beware hidden costs
update charges & maintenance time

be a licensing boffin
know what you own & avoid lock-in

plan for the future
don’t buy it today

don’t push the limits from day one
leave room to expand

be aware of design constraints
design for the platform you have

avoid per-user licensing
you’re probably being ripped off

speak with existing customers
(everyone hates their cms)

know your exit route
understand the data import & export options

questions?

edgeofmyseat.com