In the early days of the internet, the primary way to publish a website was with flat HTML files. If you remember sites from the 90s and early 2000s, you may have an image of a flat white background, with serif font text, and very simple styling. The FSU Libraries website from 1997 is a perfect example of this.
While it may be tempting to think of static sites as merely a matter of aesthetics, the crux of static sites is largely what is happening on the back-end. Early static sites often consist only of flat HTML files that are generally hand-authored and styled by CSS. If a user had write-access to the server that the files were stored on, they could edit any part of the file, and any user with an internet connection could read the file. Additionally, any little blocks of text that you want to repeat on multiple pages (like blog excerpts in a blog roll or featured items in a digital collection), would potentially need to be written by hand into multiple locations.
With a content management system, you have a database on the back end that facilitates a lot of these user controls. For example, a content management system may allow a user to author draft content but not publish it. In other cases a logged-in user may be allowed to leave a comment, but a non-logged-in user would not be able to. Additionally, content management systems can help with things like creating feeds and block elements. For example, if you want a project team member to have a title, biography, picture listed on every blog post they write, you can use a CMS to create one snippet for each team member, and call that snippet in for every new post they author. CMSs reduce the amount of labor you have to do to keep a site coherent and secure.
Content Management Systems also help to limit the type of content that can appear on the page. This can help you keep consistent styles, layouts, and designs across your whole website. This is especially useful for projects whose content needs consistent metadata and description. It can also be helpful for projects with multiple collaborators who need structure to ensure they are all creating content in the same way.
And finally, CMSs create an administrative interface that lets you be at least one step removed from the code that underlies the site. While you will be given the option to create and edit HTML snippets, you will largely be able to use what we call a WYSIWYG (pronounced "wizzywig") editor. WYSIWYG is short for "What You See is What You Get." These visual editors make web creation much easier by allowing you to see the site as it will appear published while you are still editing content.
Overall, CMSs make the work of publishing your project's website much easier. But choosing a CMS that fits your project's goals and data is an essential part of building a website. In this unit, we will be discussing how CMSs work in CreateFSU, how to install applications, some commonly-used CMSs, and how to decide what CMS to use.
