WordPress as a CMS option

Question

I have been tasked with converting an ASP.NET website to a CMS. We are currently planning on using a hosted WordPress solution. (I have been told that WordPress is a blogging software, but that it is a great CMS for making entire sites, not necessarily just blogs)

We need to convert to a CMS in order to make it really easy for office staff to add/update content, but there are some pages that might not convert well. While most of the site is just HTML content, there are a few dynamic ASP pages. We don't have the resources to convert it all to WordPress modules, so for these can we just have a WordPress page that contains an iFrame to the content that resides on another server?

Answer 1

Well in theory a frame would be fine, though you should probably just rewrite the asp code into a wordpress page/post template. Shouldn't take much time. And yes, WordPress is more than just a blog ;)

Answer 2

Or you could simply write wp template with iframe which uses asp inside :)

Answer 3

If you are planning to continue using IIS without installing PHP, then the BlogEngine.NET is an excellent option. It's both blog and CMS engine.

Answer 4

Using an iFrame is the patchiest solution possible. It's likely what you are looking for is already available as a plugin. Barring that I would really urge you not to use iFrames and instead stick to ASP.NET until you have converted everything over. Having two pages built on two different technology stacks (LAMP vs IIS/ASP.NET/SQL Server) amalgamated on a single page sounds like pretty lousy solution, especially if there aren't that many ASP pages.

Answer 5

Did you look into Umbraco (http://umbraco.org/). Almost out of the box .NET CMS. Really easy in use (for content manangers and devs). And allot of options to extend it with webcontrols, .NET libaries and xslt.

Answer 6

You can add dynamic page to wordpress:

1. Make new page template like described here
2. Upload this file via ftp
3. Create new page from wordpress control panel
4. Choose your page template for this page via control panel

Page templates let you execute your own code, get rid of design elements that are present on default pages, etc. You can do pretty much everything with it once you learn how to use it. I used it with php, but I'm sure you'll find a way to make use of it with asp. Even if just adding iframe to your asp script from page template. Generally, I would recommend you to read whole codex section about pages:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages

Answer 7

You might find this plugin could make your life a lot easier:

http://flutter.freshout.us/

Answer 8

Umbraco is good alterative. Templating with XSLT is very fast and admin is easy to undestand. But I only recommend Umbraco if you stick on Windows box. If platform/language does not matter then go with Wordpress because it has even bigger community and a lot more plugins.