Mambo - a free content management system removing the need to know HTML
June 3rd, 2008 Posted in Building my websites, Great new URLsWhat’s CMS?
As I’ve explained elsewhere in this blog, when taking a look at E107, CMS means ‘Content Management System’ and is what you use if you have a big, growing website with loads of content on it.
Wikipedia gives a full description of what CMS is, but basically it’s used to create, edit, manage, and publish website content in a consistently-organized and templated manner.
You should use a CMS system if you’re going to be writing a lot of pages, or if several people want to write pages on the same site, and you want it to be searchable and have RSS feeds.
It’s particulalrly useful if lots of people will have access, some limited and some at administrator level.
I’d recommend it for school, small business and club websites, but would suggest considering a straightforward blog if it’s just you going to be adding articles for the benefit of others.
Meet Mambo
As a Fantastico user, I’ve opted for Mambo which I get on extremely well with … and which I’ve used for webcumbria.co.uk as well as my ‘of the shelf’ designs for the following websites:
scrap-yard.co.uk site created with Mambo
doorstep-delivery.co.uk site created with Mambo
big-group-cottages.co.uk site created with Mambo
your-local-shop.co.uk site created with Mambo
The other popular CMS system is called Joomla which is very similar to Mambo, just as easy to use and extremely popular and widely used.
In this blog, I’m going to look at Mambo in more detail, talk about the pros and cons and why I opted for it over Joomla.
Mambo vs Joomla
I started out with Joomla originally, and liked it a lot straight away.
It’s easy to install, there are loads of add-ons, plenty of support and it’s straightforward to get to grips with.
The reason I ‘jumped ship’ to Mambo was over a simple security issue which I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer to via the Joomla forums.
If you’d like to read the thread on the Joomla forums, it’s here.
In fairness, I’d have to flag up that it was my own lack of technical ability that caused me to make the move and if I was better at this php lark, I’m sure the solution would be perfectly simple.
However, it’s so difficult to get a simple, straightforward answer sometimes (one of the reasons for starting this blog!) so I experimented with Mambo, got the easy solution I wanted and made the switch for good.
Please do give Joomla a look, don’t write it off because of what I say, because it’s a great piece of kit … this user just isn’t competent enough to make it work properly!
And the winner is?
So, why do I like Mambo?
- It’s incredibly easy to use
- It has a brilliant support network via the forums
- It’s easy to train other people to use it if you’re making sites for them
- It’s easy to upgrade
- I’m happy with the straightforward solution to site security … you simply tick a checkbox to make your key configuration file unwriteable by others
- It has loads of templates available
- There are plenty of add-ons available
- You can create your pages via HTML or WYSIWYG, and bolt of a variety of WYSIWYG editors into the bargain …
- It uses a ‘banners’ system which allows you to manage and move around your ad campaigns
- It has RSS built in
- It has a search system built in
- It has an integrated passwords system, with password reminders and auto-authentication included
- You can give users different levels of access to the site, so some can just write features, but others have the permissions to publish them.
Can you tell that I like it?
I really have done a lot of work with Mambo, I’ve made a couple of private sites which I haven’t linked to here, which really push the features of Mambo and I’ve been impressed with it every time.
It’s worth a look at the FAQ guides that I supply with my Mambo sites, as these will make your journey much swifter if you do decide to give it a try.
In the meantime, now I’ve changed my hosting service to nativespace.co.uk I think I’ve convinced myself to give Joomla another try … I may have been too harsh!
