The user experience
Are they easy to use and administer?
CMSs are designed to serve one function: help you create a website with the minimum hassle. Once installed, a CMS shouldn’t get in the way of content creation. But a CMS is a complex piece of software. The sheer number of elements and configurable options for a typical modern website makes administration a difficult task. A good CMS must find the right balance between pleasing users and administrators alike.
From creating users and managing their permissions, to extending functionality with add-ons and performing maintenance tasks such as backups and updates, the administration interface must find a way to help you navigate between the elements logically.
Whether it’s with the help of a sidebar, or tiles on the Dashboard or via drop-down menus on the top bar, the CMSs on our list have each found a way to not overwhelm the users with their administrative capabilities. The administrator interface features a collapsible sidebar that provides quick access to different sections such as User Management and Layout. Click Site Admin >Settings – Global Settings to configure mail and other essential configuration such as enabling the maintenance mode for the website.
The top bar also features a quick link to the official documentation and what the project refers to as unhandled notifications. The project insists that you delete the installation files, and publishes a notification if you fail to comply.
To navigate back to the Dashboard home page, click Home under CMS on the left sidebar. You can create new content using the content manager, which provides a preview so you can test how it will appear and tweak the design accordingly.
If you’ve never used a CMS before, you’ll feel right at home with CMSMS. The Concrete5 administrative interface features a sidebar on the right. The main screen features slides for a popular tool, deal of the day on the marketplace and featured add-on and theme.
Once logged in as the administrator, when you visit your website, the panel at the top features buttons to help you edit the page, or add new content/pages. The project supports in-line content editing. You don’t have to navigate through the admin interface to edit the content on your website. Instead, you can do that by clicking an element, such as sidebar and click Edit. You can also make design changes for each element, such as the background colour, by clicking the element and then clicking Design.
The project keeps a record of all the changes you make on any given page, and you can revert to a previous version of the page if you want.
The administrative bar at the top of the page features several tabs such as Content, Structure and Appearance. Unlike the other projects, Drupal creates a local repository of its documentation and provides a link to it on the top bar.
Click Configuration to set up cron jobs for maintenance tasks, put the site on maintenance mode, import/export configuration, edit the site for performance by enabling caching, and more.
You can quickly add new content to your site by clicking the Content tab. The project also produces a number of important reports, such as possible security issues which you can access by clicking Reports>Status Reports
You’ll be informed of any updates for the core software or any installed module when you click Configuration. You can also schedule a cron job for the project to automatically check for updates. You’re informed of available patches for the core software as soon as you log in as the administrator. Unlike other CMSs that feature a dedicated administrative interface, Exponent’s administrative functions can be accessed by clicking the Exponent button. This produces a dropdown menu which provides access to User Management, Site Management, etc. The Super-Admin Tools is the catch-all menu for all other functions such as managing extensions, performing database backup and switch the site to maintenance mode.
Like Concrete5, Exponent also support in-line content authoring and editing. This may take some getting used to, especially because instead of buttons, the project often relies on plain-text links such as ‘Add a New Blog Article’ or ‘Edit’. If you have a content heavy page, you could very well miss these links unless you know what you’re looking for.
Even if a user has administrative privileges, you can’t use the login screen on the main website to access the administration interface. You must click Site Administration after which you’ll be asked to login again. You can alternatively point your browser to http://127.0.0.1/ sitename/administrator.
The administrative interface of Joomla is called the Control Panel and features a row of drop-down menus on the top bar as well as a sidebar. Updates for the core software and installed extensions are listed under Maintenance section on the sidebar.
The nested menus on the top bar are faster ways to navigate the control panel. For instance, clicking Users on the sidebar drops you to the users page, where you must click New if you wish to create a new user. Compare this with the top bar, where navigating to Users> Manage>Add new user takes you to the same page.