Matt – great to see you supporting this cause! I recently attended WordCamp UK 2008 – and was overwhelmed by the number of people using WordPress as a CMS! I did a presentation called ‘WordPress is not a blog’ (also titled ‘WordPress is a blog… and a whole lot more!’) at WordCamp UK I think you would be surprised at the level of interest in this area!!
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability… I couldn’t have put it better myself! Keeping the main codebase fairly light, with great opportunities for plugin developers and designers for customisation means we all get a flexible platform that’s a lean, mean publishing machine!
I run a site over at http://www.wp-cms.com that is all about helping people adapt WordPress to use it as more of a CMS rather than blog – it hasn’t been running too long yet, but has some helpful info on it already.
I have also carried on the good work of Mark Jaquith and his ‘Clutter Free’ plugin, to recently launch the ‘WP-CMS Post Control’ plugin over at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cms-post-control/ which allows you to control what is displayed on the ‘write’ screens – 99% of users simply don’t need all those options and it goes one step further to making it easy to turn WordPress into more of a CMS type system.
Keep up the good work… and keep ridin’ that Crazy Horse – would love to see the Admin interface developments rolled out in future releases of WordPress!
Hi, Matt, I even use WordPress as an online book catalogue for a publisher (check this: nalar.co.id), and it work perfectly! However I still wonder if someday you guys can make WP add more sections (ability to add more Posts and more Pages, what I mean).
Sorry, but isn’t using WordPress as a CMS like using a butter knife to slice bread? WP’s a blogging tool, and if it was trying to be both a blogging tool and a CMS—trying to compromise—it would be a bit poo, a kind of “jack of all trades, ace of none”.
Have just posted a few thoughts on this as well – proving the point that WordPress is an awesome
CMS one of the sites just completed doesn’t have a blog, but runs entirely on WordPress. And it just gets better every release.
I read that article too. It’s got some great information about this subject. I believe the fact that WordPress allows you to use custom fields, and manipulate them via plugins, is what extends it beyond a blogging platform.
You get the built in SEO advantages with every post, but your posts don’t have to be “bloggy”.
I set up WP as a cms on our news site at http://today.ttu.edu. It’s been absolutely fantastic so far, and much better than anything we had before.
Of course it would be wiser to build your own system, and even using your own media server instead of Youtube API. But if we are talking about low-fi projects, with low budget, short deadlines and not much advanced usability, WP is the choice. It’sthe easiest to use for the client, the easiest to custom, and has one of the most active community developing plug-ins. Comparing to Drupal, Joomla and others, WP is my choice. But if you need more advanced and different stuff or dealing with a very big project for a very big client, the go study some PHP. That’s what I am doing now. But until I got my PHP pretty sharp, WP is my choice.
Last year, I created our church’s site using WP. Everything is dependent of the CSS styling of the index & single files. Once you know where to put things, everything is cake.
Of course it is fully possible to use WP, but if I knew all the work it would take to make everything work as I needed, maybe I would look for something else. In My opinion one should consider two things: the back and front end.
The back end is easy. Even if others are to run the site, there are plugins available to simplify the “control panel”.
On the front end everything depends on how complex your site is. The most crucial part missing – which is most “blogish” – is that you can only post to ONE page. I found a way around this, but it took a lot of time – with the Page links to plugin as the most crucial. Now I (and my copilots) can easily post to about 35 different pages.
Another problem is that you need lots of plugins, and that all of them both need to work and work together. Not too easy to figure out, also because I needed 3-4 plugins to be adjusted/upgraded just for me – thanks guys!) And with 40 plugins active, there is also a delay before they all (hopefully) are upgraded for eg WP 2.6.
But all in all, after some moths of work the site is running smoothly. (Still on 2.51, but I don’t miss anything.)
Have a look if you like on dolcevita.no. (All pages in the far left menu are postable, and all pages have different sidebars thanks to a ton of widgets – just to mention some features :o)
Kjetil – Norway
My site’s built using WP as a CMS. There’s a blog element to it, but most of the content was created as static pages, with submenus, categories etc. The category management in WordPress works a treat.
I have set up three WP sites so far. It’s great — has enough flexibility plus it is easy for non-code-savvy users to manage once I show them the ropes. I like playing with the looks and layout.
I was just doing some maintenance on my workplace’s site when I noticed the link so I dropped in.
It may be worth mentioning that there’s a new plugin that brings true CMS features to WordPress. It allows for actual datatypes (or “pods”) to be created and assigned to posts, thus allowing complex relationships among posts.
For managing more complex content, we’ve simply installed cakePHP on our server and with the exec-php plugin, simply include pages from cake into our WordPress pages.
It offers complete freedom to get our hands dirty in the CMS stuff, and the sophisticated WordPress environment.
We’ve been using WordPress as a CMS for two years — would love any feedback from you!
Matt – great to see you supporting this cause! I recently attended WordCamp UK 2008 – and was overwhelmed by the number of people using WordPress as a CMS! I did a presentation called ‘WordPress is not a blog’ (also titled ‘WordPress is a blog… and a whole lot more!’) at WordCamp UK I think you would be surprised at the level of interest in this area!!
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability… I couldn’t have put it better myself! Keeping the main codebase fairly light, with great opportunities for plugin developers and designers for customisation means we all get a flexible platform that’s a lean, mean publishing machine!
I run a site over at http://www.wp-cms.com that is all about helping people adapt WordPress to use it as more of a CMS rather than blog – it hasn’t been running too long yet, but has some helpful info on it already.
I have also carried on the good work of Mark Jaquith and his ‘Clutter Free’ plugin, to recently launch the ‘WP-CMS Post Control’ plugin over at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cms-post-control/ which allows you to control what is displayed on the ‘write’ screens – 99% of users simply don’t need all those options and it goes one step further to making it easy to turn WordPress into more of a CMS type system.
Keep up the good work… and keep ridin’ that Crazy Horse – would love to see the Admin interface developments rolled out in future releases of WordPress!
Thanks for the link Matt.
Will be useful for me as I am working on a CMS theme right now.
Hi, Matt, I even use WordPress as an online book catalogue for a publisher (check this: nalar.co.id), and it work perfectly! However I still wonder if someday you guys can make WP add more sections (ability to add more Posts and more Pages, what I mean).
I would say that WP has always been a CMS type of software.
Everything you type is content and then the content gets managed.
Sorry, but isn’t using WordPress as a CMS like using a butter knife to slice bread? WP’s a blogging tool, and if it was trying to be both a blogging tool and a CMS—trying to compromise—it would be a bit poo, a kind of “jack of all trades, ace of none”.
Have just posted a few thoughts on this as well – proving the point that WordPress is an awesome
CMS one of the sites just completed doesn’t have a blog, but runs entirely on WordPress. And it just gets better every release.
http://robertouimet.com/2008/08/wordpress-up-to-the-challenge/
I read that article too. It’s got some great information about this subject. I believe the fact that WordPress allows you to use custom fields, and manipulate them via plugins, is what extends it beyond a blogging platform.
You get the built in SEO advantages with every post, but your posts don’t have to be “bloggy”.
I set up WP as a cms on our news site at http://today.ttu.edu. It’s been absolutely fantastic so far, and much better than anything we had before.
I republished my website in WordPress when I discovered the K2 theme. I wrote about this in my first post: http://wp.jeffreyjmorgan.com/2008/05/moving-to-wordpress-and-k2/
I think wordpress can be used as a CMS.
I used to do it, you just need plugins to suit your needs.
@ Josh,
Of course it would be wiser to build your own system, and even using your own media server instead of Youtube API. But if we are talking about low-fi projects, with low budget, short deadlines and not much advanced usability, WP is the choice. It’sthe easiest to use for the client, the easiest to custom, and has one of the most active community developing plug-ins. Comparing to Drupal, Joomla and others, WP is my choice. But if you need more advanced and different stuff or dealing with a very big project for a very big client, the go study some PHP. That’s what I am doing now. But until I got my PHP pretty sharp, WP is my choice.
Last year, I created our church’s site using WP. Everything is dependent of the CSS styling of the index & single files. Once you know where to put things, everything is cake.
http://www.MyElevationChurch.com
We have always looked at WP as a CMS because of its versatility. We build sites on it all the time.
Of course it is fully possible to use WP, but if I knew all the work it would take to make everything work as I needed, maybe I would look for something else. In My opinion one should consider two things: the back and front end.
The back end is easy. Even if others are to run the site, there are plugins available to simplify the “control panel”.
On the front end everything depends on how complex your site is. The most crucial part missing – which is most “blogish” – is that you can only post to ONE page. I found a way around this, but it took a lot of time – with the Page links to plugin as the most crucial. Now I (and my copilots) can easily post to about 35 different pages.
Another problem is that you need lots of plugins, and that all of them both need to work and work together. Not too easy to figure out, also because I needed 3-4 plugins to be adjusted/upgraded just for me – thanks guys!) And with 40 plugins active, there is also a delay before they all (hopefully) are upgraded for eg WP 2.6.
But all in all, after some moths of work the site is running smoothly. (Still on 2.51, but I don’t miss anything.)
Have a look if you like on dolcevita.no. (All pages in the far left menu are postable, and all pages have different sidebars thanks to a ton of widgets – just to mention some features :o)
Kjetil – Norway
Thanks for linking to my article, Matt, I appreciate it!
My site’s built using WP as a CMS. There’s a blog element to it, but most of the content was created as static pages, with submenus, categories etc. The category management in WordPress works a treat.
Joe
I have set up three WP sites so far. It’s great — has enough flexibility plus it is easy for non-code-savvy users to manage once I show them the ropes. I like playing with the looks and layout.
I was just doing some maintenance on my workplace’s site when I noticed the link so I dropped in.
It may be worth mentioning that there’s a new plugin that brings true CMS features to WordPress. It allows for actual datatypes (or “pods”) to be created and assigned to posts, thus allowing complex relationships among posts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pods/
For managing more complex content, we’ve simply installed cakePHP on our server and with the exec-php plugin, simply include pages from cake into our WordPress pages.
It offers complete freedom to get our hands dirty in the CMS stuff, and the sophisticated WordPress environment.