salient concerns and questions to consider in designing a website content management system

Question

I'm designing my website and was curious, before I go rip someone else's ideas, what were the salient considerations and questions one should ask in designing a database?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think the most important question is, "Why are you doing it (the CMS, not the web site)?" This is very well-trod ground. Unless you have some really innovative ideas and unique insights into how you want it to be done ... and your question suggests that you probably don't ... you would probably be better-served by choosing an existing solution.

Answer 2

This is just off the top of my head:

• Content organization should be one of your primary concerns. How are you going to organize all the disparate pieces of content?
• Security, and what levels? do you need to only secure the ability to edit any content? certain pieces of content? How about viewing of content, does that need to be secured in any way?
• Versioning of content?
• Multilingual?
• What kind of content? Simple text? images? videos? blog postings?

That should at least get you started in thinking in the right direction.

Answer 3

In 99% of cases, writing a CMS is simply busy work for re-inventing the wheel. There are so many open-source CMSs out there that I can almost guarantee you can find one that will suit your needs.

That said, if you're still determined to write your own, I would only write exactly as much functionality as you need. Writing a CMS can be a very simple task. But it's one of those things that can become a convoluted nightmare of overlapping, unused features. Only write what you need, and you can add features as the need arises.