Lightweight PHP CMS – Revisiting Concrete5

• cms
• php

Well I’ve now got to the point where the HTML template for the site is complete, so it’s time to implement it.  I had three of the previously identified CMSes up and running and I was going to implement the template in each of the products to get a feel for how easy it was to implement a HTML template into the CMS. 

Given my prior investigations, the order in which I was going to attempt this was the following:

• TYPOlight
• Silverstripe
• Concrete5 (it’s still got me interested)

TYPOlight
Attempting to push the HTML template into TYPOlight felt like a pain in the butt.  The instructions are relatively clear, but the TYPOlight offers the ability to generate templates and customise CSS through the interface, and a lot of this functionality overcomplicates the process of importing a pregenerated HTML template.  Basically, as someone who is capable of creating a HTML template, I just want to get it in there and not have to muck around.  In short, template import abandoned at this stage – will come back to it if need be.

Silverstripe
Consulted documentation, clear enough but not compelling enough to implement after my experience with TYPOlight.

Concrete5
As I’d previously thought I wouldn’t be using Concrete5 I’m only investigating out of interest.  Sure enough though, it’s really simple (very similar implementation to wordpress).  To get started, I’d recommend having a look at the following screencast:

http://www.concrete5.org/index.php?cID=2878

I’ll provide a more detailed guide on simple templating if desired in a later post, but for now check out the screencast and run up Concrete5.