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Content Management System
A CMS (Content Management System) is software that lets users create, manage, and publish digital content—typically for websites—without needing to code. It provides tools for editing pages, navigating, searching, organising content, controlling access, and customising design.
Selection of TTC's CMS
The TTC's content management system was chosen to meet several design and operational goals:
- must be easy to install, maintain, backup, secure
- must not reply on one person for content or technical management
- must require a low level of technical skills to operate and maintain
- must be sustainable by the club. This means:
- the website must not require a high level of expertise to maintain
- the website must have minimal operational costs
- the website must have a potential lifespan of decades
- must be usable by club members and the public. This means
- accessible on a range of device types,
- working on low bandwidths, printable, and
- club members must be able to make simple contributions directly to it
- must allow for flexibility in presentation though skins, templates, stylesheets, and formatting and markup
These criteria lead to the selection of PmWiki for the following reasons
- free open source (GPL2 licence)
- CMS similar to the widely used Wikipedia
- well documented, active and supportive community based on email lists and the software's website
- simple to install, only requiring PHP, with data stored in flat files (no database complexity)
- provides skins, based on templates, good markup, wide range of add-ons (recipes)
- supports HTTPS and depending on the skin, mobile devices
- strong support for image thumbnailing (reducing bandwidth usage)
- can be contributed by anyone securely
- provides full change and revision history, and page restore
Characteristics
These characteristics are judged to be crucial for the success of TTC's website for over 25 years.
- file based data storage
- runs on any platform that supports PHP and a webserver, especially Windows and Linux
- security to protect against bots, spam, and email address harvesting while allowing open access
- easy to include images and file attachments
- supports multiple navigations options including anchor links, hyperlinks, backlinks, page trails, page table of contents, site map, search, and categories (tags)
- supports page inclusion (transclusion) of parts of other pages
- supports printable pages
Key PmWiki Features
The PmWiki content management system is a wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites.
The pages are normal web pages, and they have an "Edit" link that makes it easy to modify existing pages and add new pages into the website, using basic editing rules. You do not need to know or use any HTML or CSS.
Custom look-and-feel
A site administrator can quickly change the appearance and functions of a PmWiki site by using different skins and HTML templates. If you can't find an appropriate skin already made, you can easily modify one or create your own. TTC has its own skin.
Extensibility
One principle of the PmWiki:PmWikiPhilosophy is to only include essential features in the core engine, but make it easy for administrators to customise and add new markup.
- Cookbook plugins: features are available by using extensions (called "recipes") that are available from the PmWiki Cookbook.
- Internationalization: Multi-language support.
- Version control: Page history and rollback.
Search & Navigation
- Built-in search: Full-text, group-specific, and customisable.
- Wiki trails and page lists: Structured navigation paths and dynamic indexes.
- Sidebars and menus: Easily customised for site-wide or group-specific use.
- Categories: Tagging system for thematic organisation.