Most Important Features for a CMS

Question

Suppose someone is build you a CMS (Content Management System) from scratch. What are the most important features to include and why?

Answer 1

1) WYSIWYG editor. Being able to edit HTML content as if it were in Microsoft Word. That includs the ability to upload your own images.

2) Creating new pages without query strings ie) not 'pages.aspx?pageid=5' but 'contact.aspx'

3) Additional features such as news, photo gallery, blog, user management, etc...

Personally I really like the CMS starter kit Microsoft has available on codeplex. It is very well done and uses XML file storage so it doesn't need a database!

Answer 2

I think from a developer's perspective it would be an open modular architecture. IMHO there are always things to add which the CMS platform isn't providing out of the box. Also, it should be database-based.

Existing modules should cover the most important tasks: news, contacts, documents, forums, shop, survey, events, image gallery, navigation, links, fulltext-search, login, newsletter, etc.

From the user's perspective I think that the content editor (WYSIWYG) is the most important piece. The ability to edit inside the "live" page is a great feature. Upload of images with automated resizing and the upload of files should be easy.

The existence of page/control and website templates is also very helpful when you're starting with a CMS. Versioning of documents/pages is also a often required feature and a work-flow engine, where there are authors who create content and editors who are allowed to unlock it.

RSS syndication is another important feature that should be available in a modern CMS.

For international site it very important that the CMS had some sort of built-in multi-lingual support.

Then I think a good CMS nowadays must provide tools for Search Enginge Optimization, e.g. there must be a way to define and insert search engine friendly URLs.

Answer 3

The features you need the most will naturally depend on how the CMS is going to be used, and by whom. For some, licensing will be the greatest issue, while for others, some obscure requirement like support for TIFF files could be the thing.

If you want en extensive list of CMS features, take a look at CMS Feature Lists

Answer 4

Not mentioned already: A CMS system should easily integrate into an existing software infrastucture, so interoparability is a strong requirement.

Example: If your CMS supported WebDav, you win Microsoft Office as editing tools without any extra expenses.

Answer 5

There are so many !

There is a comprehensive list at : http://www.cmsreview.com/Features/Lists.html

Answer 6

In addition to the things that others have mentioned:

Caching

If you page comprises lots of "pieces" - e.g. a Banner pane, Left pane, Main pane, Right pane and Footer pane, and perhaps each of those will have multiple "widgets" in them, then the effort of constructing the page becomes significant (both in database calls, and in rendering at the web server). Having some intelligent caching that is able to detect when any of the underlying content blocks has changed will make a big different to performance

CMS Matrix may be a useful comparison resource of existing CMS products

Answer 7

My number one requirement when choosing a CMS system is the ability to skin it easily and control the markup.

Users can be really fussy about getting the layout EXACTLY as they want.