
How We Build CMS-Free Websites - nir
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2012/07/27/build-cms-free-websites/
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jiggy2011
I'm a mild advocate of the "anti-CMS" paradigm.

Too often I see websites where it is obvious that certain design decisions
were made in order to make things easier to handle in CMS of choice.

In my experience most clients don't really have a need to make sweeping
changes to their website on their own and learning to use a CMS like wordpress
or drupal correctly is a burden on them.

I find it is easier (and sometimes quicker) to create an "admin area" that is
framed around metaphors the client already understands.

For example , if your client sells "tasty bagels" they probably want a page
about their heritage and great grandpa's magic bagel recipe from 1890. This
will probably never change, so it can be a static HTML file. This means that
you can go nuts using precise HTML to get a really great visual layout for the
page without worrying about the client butchering it in some horrible js
WYSIWYG editor.

What they probably do want to edit/update frequently is information on their
selection of bagels. Here you can simply create some basic forms with names
like "add a tasty bagel" and some very specific fields (for example: suitable
for vegans [x]). Writing this code is generally very straightforward if you
have a decent ORM. I once turned around a complete website in under 4 hours
using nothing but scaffold controllers, some stock art and an off the shelf
template.

I generally find that using this approach , clients are a lot more engaged
with their website and actually update it more than if you simply throw
wordpress and a bunch of plugins at them. Since they will inevitably forget
how to use it or break something and then call you up to make tiny changes.

~~~
gadders
I'm by no means an expert on Web Development, but I have done 2-3 websites for
businesses as a sideline.

One CMS I like is CouchCMS - <http://www.couchcms.com> The reason I like it is
because a lot of website dev (at my level of expertise :-) ) seems to go like:

1) Find a CMS you like and can use 2) Find a template for that CMS 3) Hack it
around a bit

Whereas with Couch, I can do the following:

1) Find a template you like (plain html and css) 2) Hack it around a bit 3)
Add in Couch to make the necessary bits editable

I find the "hacking it around a bit" easier for HTML than I would for, say, a
WordPress or Drupal template.

You can also, as in your example, choose exactly which bits are editable -
heritage recipe no, bagel of the week, yes.

NB: No financial connection with Couch, other than a happy user. Also, if you
are planning to re-write something that gets 1000's of hits, I have no idea
how it scales.

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sashthebash
Please check out our startup StorageRoom (<http://storageroomapp.com>) as a
content backend for these kind of apps.

A lot more features are to come!

