New CMS: Initial Thoughts
When I said a while back that I was planning on redoing my CMS, I thought it’d take me forever to even get ’round to thinking about it (partly because of workload, partly because I didn’t know what I want to do with my site). However, the surge of comments on my free t-shirt post highlighted some very flaky code that caused a couple of MySQL max_connection errors and this needs to be sorted before it gets worse.
Of course, first things first is to clarify how this process is going to happen. I think when I originally asked if any of you were interested in hearing about my new CMS, some assumed I’d be giving away my code as I go along and this certainly isn’t going to be the case. I will be planning, I will make it my aim to publish as much helpful information and as many links as I can find but I am not going to write a tutorial on it (for now) or tell people how to write their own CMS. Nonetheless, what you do with what does get said is up to you.
One of the things that I will be doing as I recode the site is to restructure it. I’ll be getting rid of the crappy filler content like “awards” and some of the redundant domain info — these are all very teenybopper-esque and it’s an image I want to pull away from. I also want to make the content that is important and relevant more prominent, highlighting my factual articles and resources (scripts).
I intend to move away from hand-coded pages to a fully database driven website to improve the searchability and allow me to complete on-demand editing that I can do from anywhere. I want to utilise things like tags, which although I find personally infuriating, have their own unique benefits (in terms of SEO, interlinking, etc).
All in all I am trying to push a more professional approach to my website and hope that I’ll be able to create a spunky layout to keep the personal edge (I haven’t a clue how I’m going to manage that!) This probably all sounds like boring waffle to you guys but will help me organise my thoughts and plans as well as getting feedback from any of you brave enough to have just waded through 5 paragraphs of “blah blah blah”…
Claire said:
On 02 Jul at 7:16 pm
Sounds like a plan to me! ;) I’ll certainly be interested to see how you restructure the site once it’s sans fluff and filler. I also think giving the factual/useful content more prominence will communicate a more defined purpose. At the moment it’s a little woolly, for example the little pixel trophies seem strangely at odds with the articles on security issues in the “Stuff” section etc. Best of luck, I’m looking forward to seeing the end result(s).
Chris said:
On 02 Jul at 7:25 pm
I personally love most of the site, but that, of course, isn’t much help. To start off, you should use the new layout which showed a couple of weeks ago, I also feel that making the cms fully database driven is a good idea. You stated not giving code in this blog too, good for you, after all we don’t want hackers and all that lark do we? I think to make it more fuctional for the users is to make those small icons at the top of the side bar larger, as it means it is easier for us to actually change the style etc.. Thanks for reading! I hope I gave some useful feedback.
Meli said:
On 02 Jul at 9:03 pm
I’m a geek myself. I love reading this stuff. I would still be really interested in hearing the thought process behind building your own CMS. It would be stupid to give away a code you put so much effort into, though. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out!
Aaron said:
On 02 Jul at 9:17 pm
Oh filler content. I love it! I don’t care if it’s teenybooper-esque (as you so brilliantly put), it’s fun. Getting rid of it is definitely not a bad thing, though. It’s called filler for a reason.
Sumaiya said:
On 02 Jul at 9:46 pm
Sounds like fun :P Good luck with the restructuring, Jem ^_^
Daz said:
On 02 Jul at 10:01 pm
Will be interesting to read how you get on :) Good luck with the re-doing – all the cool kids are doing it at the moment (I’m redoing mine too. Rails ftw!)
Rhys said:
On 02 Jul at 10:20 pm
Meh, I’m lazy, I’m sticking with wordpress **Jembansme** Tags are interesting. If done correctly, they look lovely, if not (ie my blog), they look hideous.
Amelie said:
On 02 Jul at 10:33 pm
I have a fully database-driven CMS with tags and stuff that I can edit anywhere >:P But then I already knew my CMS > yours.
Amanda said:
On 02 Jul at 10:38 pm
But you know, even when you get rid of the teenybopper aspect of Jemjabella, there’ll still be some of us around who remember you when you capitulated to the masses. And we’ll use that to the best of our blackmail ability! *takes screenshots*
Sara said:
On 02 Jul at 11:41 pm
sounds cool jem
Paddy said:
On 02 Jul at 11:43 pm
The ONLY thing I’d change is “Worth Noting” – no matter how many times I correct myself; every time I look I read it as “Worth Nothing”. Hmmm, then again – I still don’t know what max_connection means so perhaps there ARE in fact things with higher priorities that need to be done…. Good luck! Can’t wait to see finished product.
Bobbi-lee said:
On 03 Jul at 12:04 am
Finally, now I know I am not the only dumb ass who can’t read properly. Anyway Jem, sounds good. Nothing wrong with moving away from the teenyboper side of your site, I think apart from that (the awards etc) your whole site is perfect. Good luck with fixing the max_connection errors
Hev said:
On 03 Jul at 12:13 am
Jem, it sounds good to me. Have fun with the re-constructing of Jemjabella. I can’t wait to see the finished results.
Matt said:
On 03 Jul at 12:45 am
I’m really excited about the new CMS and am looking forward to the posts outlining your thoughts and progress along the way!
Skye said:
On 03 Jul at 12:56 am
No “blah blah blah” there; I’ve actually been going through the same thoughts. Good luck. I can’t wait to read the articles that come as a result :)
Paddy said:
On 03 Jul at 5:30 am
..and just out of curiosity… have you ever thought of creating a public released CMS? Just imagine… BellaBlog could be everything WordPress should be!
Catherine said:
On 03 Jul at 8:01 am
You have perfect timing, it seems. In my web development class, we’ve just finished with Flash and are moving on to server side scripting, a period which ends in us having to develop our own CMS as the final project. So the idea of you posting links and other tidbits is probably going to be a blessing for me, as well as some interesting reading.
Kimmie said:
On 03 Jul at 1:44 pm
What I do when I want to reorganize my site is I’ll write down every single page I have in a list. Then, I’ll cross off the ones I no longer want. And if there’s anything new I do want, I’ll add those pages to the bottom of the list. And then I’ll cut them all out, throw them on the ground, and move the pieces around until everything falls under the new navigation categories I want. It actually works really well… Good luck with your CMS.
Nan said:
On 03 Jul at 3:24 pm
I wish you the best of luck on your CMS overhaul. I am excited to see how it turns out to be.
Jem said:
On 03 Jul at 4:32 pm
@Kimmie: I’m glad you suggested getting everything down in a list because I’ve started it and can’t believe just how much useless crap I have on my website..!
Rachael said:
On 03 Jul at 7:03 pm
@Kimmie: Maybe I’ll try that with my site… Splush!
Jessica said:
On 03 Jul at 7:19 pm
I’m so excited about this restructuring of your site. Your blogs were never boring. This time, I am somewhat excited to see your new layout. :)
Vera said:
On 04 Jul at 8:18 pm
Ah well coding is THAT important… though if you’re a beginner it might make a world of difference. Personally I would be interested in the idea of how to go about making a CMS. I’d love to someday code my own, but there are just a few issues I don’t really know how to integrate them. Not as far as coding goes but rather logically speaking (in programming term this would be me getting stuck in the analysis phase).
Claire said:
On 06 Jul at 7:42 am
Glad I could be of some help (makes a change!) Best of luck with it :)