When we're talking about building
websites peoples eyes start to glaze
over as the words, html, asp, Drupal,
Joomla, WordPress, and other
applications and programming
technologies are discussed, and people
just want to head for the door, because
they're getting woozie, and you haven't
even gotten past the acronyms yet. The
same thing happens to me when people
start getting into discussions about
health care and insurance policies and
all the legalese that says, even though
you're paying for this, our attorneys
will probably figure out a way to deny
you. It's easier to stay well.
Anyway, here goes. Drupal, Joomla,
WordPress, are database driven CMS
driven applications that allow you to
work in the back end of the website in a
word processor, for the most part, to
create the content in your site.
Is your sight starting to blur
already and you're thinking about a nice
piece of apple pie?
OK, basically it means all the
content of your site is keep out of your
reach so you can't screw it up, like the
layout, the fonts used, the styles, and
colors of the site. The only thing you
can access easily (a relative term) is
the creation of new pages (shells) in
which to add content (words, links,
documents, images, and sometimes audios
and videos).
You do this in a CMS or Content
Management System. I have used
Joomla CMS's that are simple to navigate
and some that are a bear. I worked with
the early Joomla CMS of ICSL and was not
impressed on ease of navigation. I trust
it has improved. The good thing with
them is you only access individual pages
and the words you would input to those
pages and you do so in a word processor
incorporated into the website. I will go
into greater detail later on inputting
clean text into these apps and what that
is later.
They all have learning curves, just
like any application, whether it's MS
Word, or Joomla. There's no getting
around it. Unless you're born into it,
like our grand-kids (I never thought I'd
be saying that) you have to apply
yourself and use the app consistently to
become proficient in it, or find someone
else that is.
