Advice/help on best way to build custom CMS please

ukphp

Hi,

I'm looking to build a custom CMS using PHP and MySQL and am after a bit of help first on ideas how to build, what's best to use, how to go about it and a tutorial if available anywhere.

For the CMS I need pages with are visible for general public and then secure pages which are restricted for admin and content editors only. The site needs a WYSIWYG editor behind it which can edit/update pages on the website. It needs to have a page which displays all editiable pages (in a grid) which you can select to edit the page which then takes you into the page with the WYSIWYG editor with the page content loaded into it.

I've come across this guide http://www.developphp.com/view.php?tid=322 and this basic overview http://www.anil2u.info/2011/07/simple-steps-to-build-a-custom-cms-application-using/ finally http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/site-builds/how-to-build-a-maintainable-site-using-cushycms-and-twitter/ however they seem quite basic and lacking in security. Is there any videos or articles which provide a better guide?

This is my first time building a CMS, any advice would be great.

Thanks in advance

planetphp

why not just use one that already exists. there's no point in re-inventing the wheel.

You could try hacking wordpress a little or use joomla or similar.

Ashley_Sheridan

I agree with planetphp here, although I think there are certainly many reasons why you'd want to roll your own.

Personally, I build mine from scratch on a website by website basis, but that's because I know I can, I'm aware of the security issues, I want it to be bespoke and simple and I have too much free time on my hands! From the sounds of it you're requirements are nothing that doesn't already exist in Wordpress (or any other CMS you'd care to mention), so you'd be a lot better off I think going that route. It means that you'll often have a community of support behind you (depending on your choice of off-the-shelf CMS) that you can add to your own knowledge of coding, and you won't have to get bogged down with the mundane/fiddly issues, like general security, concurrent access, etc.

ukphp

I see, thanks. Yeah when I looked at building my own it did look quite time consuming building from scratch and quite a bit of work required to make it secure. I've been looking at using Drupal, but the site I'm looking to build doesnt really need a lot of the functionalities Drupal includes which to be fair a simpler CMS could be used. I've come across Wolf CMS which looks pretty good. Any thoughts on this, any good or would you reccommend going for any others?

Thanks for your help 🙂

Ashley_Sheridan

I've heard Wordpress is good and Drupal is very comprehensive and full of features. Aside from that, I don't really use CMSs myself, at least not off-the-shelf ones, so I couldn't advise you on the best one, especially as I know little about your requirements. I was just trying to disuade you from building one yourself if you're unfamiliar with some of the trickier concepts in PHP and if there was probably something out there that did what you need.

planetphp

Wordpress is very easy to hack and use as a CMS.

ukphp

Thanks for the feedback everyone, answers my question.