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I'm .... confused. What's "headless" about it? It's got a GUI. Headless means "no GUI" or.. no visible "head". hugo, jekyll and most static blogs are "headless

I'm .... confused. What's "headless" about it? It's got a GUI. Headless means "no GUI" or.. no visible "head". hugo, jekyll and most static blogs are "headless" CMSs. This is very explicitly setting itself apart from those by HAVING a "head".

jasonlotito 3y ago
From the Post: "I tried to combine what can be seen as 3 separate products into one: - WYSIWYG editor (with the addition of code-specific tooling like code editor or formatter) - Kanban dashboard (inspired by my experience of tools like Trello used in larger technical content teams to manage content production process) - The actual headless CMS (content delivery via API, integrations, etc.)" Read the last part.
arek_nawo 3y ago
Hugo, Jekyll, etc. are Static Site Generators (SSGs) Content Management Systems are likes of WordPress, Ghost, Contentful and Strapi - they help you create and manage content. From those, headless CMSs form a distinct group, which only provide a dashboard for you to manage and create content with, but no built-in frontend. Instead you have to use API and other means to create your own frontend based on the content from CMS.
- masukomi 3y ago
  but this DOESN'T "only provide a dashboard" or api. this SPECIFICALLY provides a GUI to manage it. your definition makes sense to me, but since this has a GUI it doesn't fall into that definition.
  - arek_nawo 3y ago
    Content presentation layer is the "head" in this case. Any frontend or blog you might have. The management dashboard is a separate thing not really considered in this definition - every CMS has it. Maybe this article will explain things better: https://www.contentful.com/headless-cms/ https://www.contentful.com/headless-cms/
j45 3y ago
Headless means the CMS itself is an API. It can be hard to visualize so people may ask what could this look like? From there a headless cms can use the api to render the data as a site. It can be static, or dynamic.
- masukomi 3y ago
  but it specifically has a GUI. It touts the features of its GUI. Like... i feel like i'm not understanding something obvious. I get the idea of an API only server. I've written many. BUT by shipping a GUI (as part of it or separately) and then touting the features of that gui for managing the CMS they're no longer talking about a "headless" thing. They're talking about a GUI that may talk to a "headless" cms but the entire point of the GUI is to get around the "headless" part.
  - jaywalk 3y ago
    "Headless CMS" doesn't mean it has no management GUI. It means that the output is an API instead of actual HTML pages. The "head" is HTML pages, like what you get with WordPress. "Headless" says nothing about how the CMS is managed, just what it outputs.
  - j45 3y ago
    A bare bones api will sell faster with an example gui and management interface almost always. It’s a starting point to both see what’s possible, and also a way to maybe have some boiler plate to experiment with right away to help users start using the api by example of usage not just by a call but in a front end. I appreciate what you’re saying, got me it’s like finding an app and then wondering if it has an api. Both are useful
stefanos82 3y ago
Replace "headless" with "frontend-less"; in other words front-end agnostic, also known as "use the front-end of your choice".

jasonlotito 3y ago

From the Post: "I tried to combine what can be seen as 3 separate products into one: - WYSIWYG editor (with the addition of code-specific tooling like code editor or formatter) - Kanban dashboard (inspired by my experience of tools like Trello used in larger technical content teams to manage content production process) - The actual headless CMS (content delivery via API, integrations, etc.)" Read the last part.

arek_nawo 3y ago

Hugo, Jekyll, etc. are Static Site Generators (SSGs) Content Management Systems are likes of WordPress, Ghost, Contentful and Strapi - they help you create and manage content. From those, headless CMSs form a distinct group, which only provide a dashboard for you to manage and create content with, but no built-in frontend. Instead you have to use API and other means to create your own frontend based on the content from CMS.

masukomi 3y ago
but this DOESN'T "only provide a dashboard" or api. this SPECIFICALLY provides a GUI to manage it. your definition makes sense to me, but since this has a GUI it doesn't fall into that definition.
- arek_nawo 3y ago
  Content presentation layer is the "head" in this case. Any frontend or blog you might have. The management dashboard is a separate thing not really considered in this definition - every CMS has it. Maybe this article will explain things better: https://www.contentful.com/headless-cms/ https://www.contentful.com/headless-cms/

j45 3y ago

Headless means the CMS itself is an API. It can be hard to visualize so people may ask what could this look like? From there a headless cms can use the api to render the data as a site. It can be static, or dynamic.

masukomi 3y ago
but it specifically has a GUI. It touts the features of its GUI. Like... i feel like i'm not understanding something obvious. I get the idea of an API only server. I've written many. BUT by shipping a GUI (as part of it or separately) and then touting the features of that gui for managing the CMS they're no longer talking about a "headless" thing. They're talking about a GUI that may talk to a "headless" cms but the entire point of the GUI is to get around the "headless" part.
- jaywalk 3y ago
  "Headless CMS" doesn't mean it has no management GUI. It means that the output is an API instead of actual HTML pages. The "head" is HTML pages, like what you get with WordPress. "Headless" says nothing about how the CMS is managed, just what it outputs.
- j45 3y ago
  A bare bones api will sell faster with an example gui and management interface almost always. It’s a starting point to both see what’s possible, and also a way to maybe have some boiler plate to experiment with right away to help users start using the api by example of usage not just by a call but in a front end. I appreciate what you’re saying, got me it’s like finding an app and then wondering if it has an api. Both are useful

stefanos82 3y ago

Replace "headless" with "frontend-less"; in other words front-end agnostic, also known as "use the front-end of your choice".