9 Top Features Of A CMS

Via peter : 02 Jul 08 : cms, textpattern, txp

What are the most important features of a great content management system? What are the top features of your CMS?

Here is a Textpattern feature list in no particular order. Have your say on the order of importance and if there are features missing.

1 Fast

Lightweight core
Installation and updating (approx every 6 months) in minutes
Quick conversion of plain text to valid XHTML with Textile
Quickly search old articles by keyword
Fast intuitive editing of articles, links, comments, page elements
Up-to-the-minute visitor/referrer logs

2 Flexible and Free

Unlimited page layout and styling
Unlimited site sections
Unlimited article, link, file and image categories
Unlimited site authors
No cost and open source

3 Friendly and Fully-Featured

Wide range of plugins provide many extra functions
Plugin installation is simply copy, paste and activate
Browser-based plugin installation and maintenance
Browser-based template and CSS editing
Browser-based file and image upload and organization
Txp tags are human friendly, XML-like, familiar if you already know HTML

4 Secure and Stable

Most effective anti-spam mechanism
Thoroughly tested
All bugs usually fixed before release
Textpattern is not in a race to get shiny new features out first

5 Easily Managed

Assign a variety of posting, editing and design privileges
Import content from other content management systems

6 Great For You

Minimal, client-friendly interface – “just write”
Clean URLs
Adjustable date/time stamps on articles
Articles can be set to appear at future date/time
Comments are accepted on a per-article basis
Comments may be closed after a fixed time or on the fly
Password-protect articles

7 Great For Your Visitors

Built-in search engine
Many ways to navigate
Browse categories and sections via popup or link list
Easy to communicate via comments
Standards compliant by default
Visitors can subscribe to custom article and link XML feeds

8 Excellent Support

Forum is renowned for its friendly, helpful community
Developers listen and solve problems too

9 Multi-lingual Support

There are over 30 languages available, and growing

Are all the top CMS features listed? Which are the most important?

Sven Ellingen <|prev|home|next|> Txp:Variable Uncovered

Readers said...

1 · Mike Dennis

02 Jul 08

“updating (approx 6-monthly) in minutes”

I know you mean updates happen about every 6 months, but I think it could be read as there are approximately 6 updates/month :)

“Password-protect site sections, or even specific articles”

Out of the box? Did I miss this somewhere?

2 · Peter

02 Jul 08

Thanks Mike, I’ve updated the updating bit :)

According to the password protect page on Textbook, it can go anywhere, but now I notice there’s a warning about protecting sections down at the bottom. So well spotted and I’ve changed that too.

I’m glad you mentioned it. I don’t know if I forgot that tag was available or didn’t know it. Either way the only methods that came to mind were recommendations I’ve read over the years involving ign_password and mem_’s membership plugins or htaccess modifications.

I love learning or relearning new things ;-)

Thanks Peter

Mike

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