Thursday 10 February 2011

An easy CMS

I keep getting asked about the CMS I use for most of my websites at SME-Web.  It is based on LightNEasy which I find one of the easiest CMSs to use.  Developed by Fernando Baptista it comes in two main flavours, Full and Mini.  The full version uses a database, either MySQL or SQLite, both of which are common website hosting facilities.  But the Mini version doesn't use a database so it can be used on really low cost hosting.  We always use the MySQL version.

Don't expect it to do everything that Joomla or Xoops will do - the clue is in name "Light and Easy".  I am a believer in Keep It Simple Stupid  (KISS) and Fernando's CMS is right in line with this.  It has all the basic functionalities that most people need for website:  Content, Contact, Gallery, Links, Downloads and News (which can be used to blog).  Plus there are a number of plugins which extend the functionality.  And furthermore he allows iframes (he calls it "wrapper") which will allow you to embed other programs like the SuperCali event calendar.

One of the great strengths of LightNEasy is the way it uses templates for the design.  It is dead easy to take an existing design and convert it to a template for LightNEasy. There are quite a lot of templates available on the website, but you can quickly adapt any of the free templates or create your own.  When you get into detailed template design it is useful to have a tool like Dreamweaver to help with the style sheets.  But you don't need to buy one because Kompozer is quite up to the job.

But remember if you want to get on with your work its best to get someone to build the website for you.  If you come to us we can build you a LightNEasy website which you can then maintain with ease.

Best Wishes

Adrian

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