Web Content Management System

TME Solutions offer comprehencive content management systems which can be customised so suit your business requirements.

Definition of a Web Content Management System

A Web content management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.

Usually the CMS software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.

Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system.

A presentation layer displays the content to regular Web-site visitors based on a set of templates which have been custom designed for the client.

Administration of the content management system is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a piece of software which needs to be installed on the computer. One major advantages of web based solutions over software CMS software is the ability to administrate your website anywhere you can get internet access, quickly and easily. Browser based content management also ensures cross platform access so you can access the system whether you are on Windows, Linux, Mac or any other opperating system with Internet access.

Unlike Web-site builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver, a WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.

Types of Web Content Management Systems

There are three major types of WCMS: offline processing, online processing, and hybrid systems. These terms describe the deployment pattern for the WCMS in terms of when presentation templates are applied to render Web pages from structured content.

Offline CMS

These systems pre-process all content, applying templates before publication to generate Web pages. Since pre-processing systems do not require a server to apply the templates at request time, they may also exist purely as design-time tools.

Online CMS

These systems apply templates on-demand. HTML may be generated when a user visits the page, or pulled from a cache. Most Web application frameworks perform template processing in this way, but they do not necessarily incorporate content management features.

Hybrid CMS

Some systems combine the offline and online approaches. Some systems write out executable code (e.g. JSP, PHP, Perl pages) rather than just static HTML, so that the CMS itself does not need to be deployed on every Web server. Other hybrids are capable of operating in either an online or offline mode.

Capabilities of Web Content Management Systems

A WCMS is a software system used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A CMS facilitates document control, auditing, editing, and timeline management. A WCMS provides the following key features:

Create standard output templates (usually HTML) that can be automatically applied to new and existing content, allowing the appearance of all of that content to be changed from one central place.
Easily editable content; Once content is separated from the visual presentation of a site, it usually becomes much easier and quicker to edit and manipulate. Most WCMS software includes WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technical individuals to create and edit content.
Scalable feature sets: Most advanced WCMS software can be easily extend by the technical developers to extend the site's functionality.
Web standards upgrades: Active WCMS software usually receives regular updates that include new feature sets and keep the system up to current web standards.
Document management: CMS software may provide a means of managing the life cycle of a document from initial creation time, through revisions, publication, archive, and document destruction.
Content virtualization: CMS software may provide a means of allowing each user to work within a virtual copy of the entire Web site, document set, and/or code base. This enables changes to multiple interdependent resources to be viewed and/or executed in-context prior to submission.