Twenty teachers, one website
A school website has 200 pages. Twenty teachers must update them. Nobody wants to write code.
What if a teacher opens a page, types, and presses Publish? No code at all.
A content management system does this. It is used on a huge number of websites.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Content management system (CMS) | Software that lets people create, edit and publish content without writing code. | WordPress, Drupal |
| Content | The pages, text, pictures and files of a website. | |
| Search engine optimisation (SEO) | Making pages easy for search engines to find, so they appear high in the results. | |
| Analytics | Tools that count and show how people use a site. | |
| Workflow | The steps a page goes through before it is published, such as draft, review, publish. | |
| Theme | A ready-made design that sets how a CMS website looks. | |
| Plugin | A small add-on that gives a CMS a new feature. | |
| Rollback | Going back to an older version. | |
| Open API | A public way for other programs to read or add content. | |
| Multilingual | Available in more than one language. | |
| Database | An organised store of data that programs can search and change. | |
| Query | A question you ask a database. | |
| SQL | The language used to write a query. |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Twelve CMS features
| Feature | What it does | Why a school wants it |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Sets page titles, descriptions and web addresses | Parents find the school in a search |
| Page and screen management | Add, move and organise pages and menus | Easy to keep the site in order |
| Social media integration | Share buttons and auto-posts | News reaches social media |
| Analytics tools | Show visits and popular pages | See what parents read |
| Workflow management | Draft, review, approve | A head teacher checks news first |
| Publishing controls | Choose who publishes and when | Schedule a notice for Monday 9 am |
| Security features | Logins, roles, updates, backups | Only staff can edit |
| Versioning and rollback | Keep old versions and go back | Undo a mistake in one click |
| Content repositories | One store for pictures, files and text | Reuse the school logo everywhere |
| Open APIs | Other programs read or add content | The school app shows the same news |
| Multilingual support | Pages in many languages | Welcome page in Polish and Urdu |
| Support | Help, documentation and a community | A fix when something breaks |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Quick check: which feature?
Have a go
Quick check: which feature?
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Reading a query
| You see | Say it in words |
|---|---|
| SELECT version, body | Show me the version and body columns. |
| FROM page_version | Look in the page_version table. |
| WHERE page_id = 2 | Keep only the rows for page 2. |
| ORDER BY version DESC | Sort the rows, newest version first. |
| -- some words | A note for people. The database skips it. |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Try it: versions in a database
-- A CMS keeps every version of a page. This shows the history of page 2.
SELECT version, body, status, edited_by
FROM page_version
WHERE page_id = 2
ORDER BY version DESC;
-- Which version is the last one that was published?
Using a CMS in design and development
In design, you choose a CMS by its features. Does it have the workflow, languages and security you need?
In development, you build a theme for the look. You add plugins for extra jobs. You use the API to link the CMS to other programs, such as a mobile app.