10 ms·

CMS trends for 2014

34 points by audriusarj 13y ago

ericcholis 13y ago
I'd personally include the upswing on static site generators. Not exactly a traditional CMS, but still a system that manages content. In particular, I'd site NPR's work on their static site process: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/02/14/app-template-redux.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/02/14/app-template-redux.html
- gadders 13y ago
  Whenever I hear of these static content generators, I think of Fog Creek's City Desk [1]. Time for it to make a come back? [1]http://www.fogcreek.com/citydesk/ http://www.fogcreek.com/citydesk/
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  NPR stuff looks good, but their focus (from an initial skim) appears to be we apps - correct? That might be running before we can walk - how about getting all content-driven sites (blogs, portfolios, etc.) onto SSGs first - I think that's where the really big wins are.
  - ericcholis 13y ago
    Yes, I'd say that their sites fit into more of an "app" category. More reading, for the curious: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/09/13/using-a-static-site-to-crowdsource-playgrounds.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/09/13/using-a-static-site-to-c...
theboywho 13y ago
The article doesn't mention API based CMSes, which are IMO a better approach to content management. http://prismic.io http://prismic.io seems promising.
- justincormack 13y ago
  Yeah I think the main omission was the whole trend towards markdown/git/api based "CMS" which basically means that most tech people have junked the whole idea of a traditional CMS, few of which have an API though there is CMIS.
  - X4 13y ago
    Wrong. Personally for me a dead end criteria is a CMS without an API. But you mean most people don't need it right? I also think that's not right, because many companies want Mobile Apps, Intranet tools etc. and integrating their crap with the CMS through an API makes a whole lot sense. I looked at http://prismic.io http://prismic.io, but I haven't found anything that's opensource and comes close to it. Do you know something like that?
    - justincormack 13y ago
      No not saying most people dont need it, they are a reducing pool, the people who do need it have moved away already.
      - X4 13y ago
        >> […] people who do need it have moved away already. hmm, what do you mean and to which platform? I was thinking of enterprise users and companies who mostly start with a cheap cms, then add features here and there then an app, then an intranet thingy and at the end you have a spaghetti architecture, because everything has it's own front-end without a unifying API. It's rare that developers write their own solutions, you can say, hey nobody would do that, but the reality is far from that. Most devs simply use what's there and try to integrate different projects "by their own way". I found some things that can be done better at prismic.io and think there is some wasted potential there. - It requires writing your own controller that needs to implement caching or you have a 500ms delay for API requests - No multilanguage from the beginning (gotta bake your own solution, that's not so fun) - Slugs for objects in collections are ugly (see blog example) Here are all REST API based "CMS", unfortunately, none of them is actually perfect. http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/CMS?protocol=REST http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/CMS?protocol=REST
danso 13y ago
One static site generator that I recently discovered and plan to make frequent use of next year is Middleman (Ruby), which is like Jekyll, except less focused on blogging and more app-like conveniences...for example, being able to use erb rather than going through Liquid: http://middlemanapp.com/ http://middlemanapp.com/ Overall, I'd like to see static-site generators become more widespread as an option. I've seen a few great sites/products recently in which the developer felt they needed to deploy a Wordpress instance even though their site was little more than a landing page and a few about pages. The less friction there is to getting content up, the easier it is to be motivated to create content.
- ericcholis 13y ago
  I think what's missing for static site generators to gain traction is a consumer-friendly admin interface. Kirby comes to mind here: http://getkirby.com/ http://getkirby.com/
  - danso 13y ago
    Agreed...but what I think improvement has to come from both sides, not just in the software, but in the content creators. Is it so hard for people to learn Markdown? Not just geeks, but anyone? How hard is it compared to learning the myriad of word processing tools that you're expected to know by high school? How much time does it take to learn Markdown compared to the minutes per day that you spend trying to debug the hidden markup of Rich Text/WYSIWYG editors (e.g., why is this text have the same font-weight as the headings now)? Once the average person learns how to disassociate content from presentation and how markup is the key thing, then static site generators, and the real power of simplicity, become obvious.
    - dageshi 13y ago
      I think to your average person markdown looks like a step down from WYSiWYG, especially when there's a massively successful, user friendly alternative called Wordpress. I think that's a battle already lost.
grimmdude 13y ago
"From writing code we will move to dragging and dropping, having everything visual and instant." Sure, if he says so...
bbx 13y ago
I'm slighly confused by the article's premise ("2014 will be the Content’s year") and it mentioning tools such as Wix, Squarespace, or even Macaw, who can't be considered as CMS but rather complete website builders. Apart from its templating system and its vibrant community, one of WordPress' strengths is sticking to an admin interface that is actually focused on content: simple form elements and a decent WYSIWYG. Drag & drop and in-place editing are technically impressive but don't belong in a CMS: I don't see editors and website owners using it on daily basis to update and manage their content.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  I think the biggest hurdle we still face when it comes to online publishing is the clash between WYSIWYG and structured markup. Editors, in my experience, don't like working with structured content. But the web is not WYSIWYG. Tools like markdown attempt a compromise, but are still not suitable for many non-technical editors. Do we need a mind-shift, or a new piece of technology to solve this?
  - rartichoke 13y ago
    Yeah this is the main problem but I don't think it's really fixable in the near future. There's 3 types of content: - Arbitrary written content This is where markdown shines and IMO completely solves content creation. - Arbitrary written content with mixed in assets Nothing works here. Ever try floating some text to the right of an image when you don't have access to CSS or the raw html because we have to assume the content creator has no technical knowledge. Even wordpress fails horribly at this but it's such a common thing you want to do. - Structured content that has clear properties This is pretty easy to design a nice UI for because it's no longer "anything". For example a todo item or a photo that belongs to a gallery. All you have to do in this case is create a form field for each property. It's something a non-technical person could do.
    - bbx 13y ago
      - Arbitrary written content with mixed in assets Nothing works here. You're right. Offering a simple way for a non-technical user to manage (locally) his layout is the challenge of most WYSIWYG. I don't use Medium but was quite impressed by this quick demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8hysXMfvQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8hysXMfvQ Check out around 2:00 how images are inserted within the text. The interface works because it offers only 3-4 possibilities: zoomed in/normal size, full width/left float. Also, there are only 2 levels of heading. This limited interface is a great compromise between a content-focused experience, and some layout flexibility.
Joeboy 13y ago
A friend just asked me about doing a website for her bicycle repair business, and after thinking about it I thought that what I would like is a docker container that runs a lightweight httpd for serving static pages, a git server to allow her to push updates, and probably a simple web interface for deploying them. That way after the initial deployment my involvement should be pretty minimal. Maybe something like it already exists? Edit: http://hyde.github.io/ http://hyde.github.io/ looks like it might be a good starting point for something like the above, with bonus static site generation, markdown etc.
rartichoke 13y ago
I always thought the C stood for compromise because that's almost always what you have to do when you use a CMS. I don't think the future is drag/drop codeless systems. Good luck when your clients ask for very specific work flows that you can't bundle up in a pretty little draggable box! Then get sad when you realize you have to dive deep into the code except now you're dealing with a 100,000+ line codebase that you didn't write or even worse a large plugin that some random dude wrote which has the worst coding practices possible.
lcnmrn 13y ago
His examples are exactly what's wrong with content management systems. They're too complex. I'm trying to build an insanely simple system at http://markdawn.com/ http://markdawn.com/ which emphasis content in a very strong way — content and only content. I'm really working to make the interface as invisible as possible and mobile (iPhone) first. I hope I can get an API out in 2014, then it can be integrate with all Markdown editors and apps out there. It's cloud hosting for your Markdown files.
parag_c_mehta 13y ago
I am not sure about the future of these "website builders". They have been around a long time, however for anything serious they almost/always disappoint.
toddmorey 13y ago
I had to do a double-take on Wix. (Even went to look at the numbers myself.) I had no idea that it had 1 Billion + in market cap. That's crazy impressive for a company in the crowded website builder space. Edit: Back in August (most recent numbers I found), they had 679,536 paid subscriptions. That's insane.
wyck 13y ago
This article is horribly flat, once again bundling a blanket term "CMS" to apply to multiple needs and applications, and then using a great title like "Trends"....In essence this post is blogspam.
jeffehobbs 13y ago
I am a little tiny bit dumber for having read this.
actionscripted 13y ago
> Next year WordPress will still be a leader. > 2014 will be yet another year of doing more while writing less code...Webydo, Froont or Macaw Yeah right. As someone who'd consider themselves a WordPress expert and has been building clients sites with it (and other OSS offerings like Magento) for a long time there is no way in hell someone is going to use a WYSIWYG builder to create WordPress themes/sites. If WordPress is the leader, maybe the argument that there is less code writing going on is a general one that means folks are using the CMS with plugins instead of rolling their own solutions -- where clicks replace code, in a sense. But you or someone else still needs to build the templates, customize the admin, register functions and nav and widgets, etc. I suppose if you're really hell-bent on building a site with WordPress without coding you could like at a DMS add-on like PageLines but really, for most work with WordPress, you're writing code at some point.

CMS trends for 2014

34 points by audriusarj 13y ago

I'd personally include the upswing on static site generators. Not exactly a traditional CMS, but still a system that manages content. In particular, I'd site NPR's work on their static site process: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/02/14/app-template-redux.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/02/14/app-template-redux.html

gadders 13y ago
Whenever I hear of these static content generators, I think of Fog Creek's City Desk [1]. Time for it to make a come back? [1]http://www.fogcreek.com/citydesk/ http://www.fogcreek.com/citydesk/
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
NPR stuff looks good, but their focus (from an initial skim) appears to be we apps - correct? That might be running before we can walk - how about getting all content-driven sites (blogs, portfolios, etc.) onto SSGs first - I think that's where the really big wins are.
- ericcholis 13y ago
  Yes, I'd say that their sites fit into more of an "app" category. More reading, for the curious: http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/09/13/using-a-static-site-to-crowdsource-playgrounds.html http://blog.apps.npr.org/2013/09/13/using-a-static-site-to-c...

theboywho 13y ago

The article doesn't mention API based CMSes, which are IMO a better approach to content management. http://prismic.io http://prismic.io seems promising.

justincormack 13y ago
Yeah I think the main omission was the whole trend towards markdown/git/api based "CMS" which basically means that most tech people have junked the whole idea of a traditional CMS, few of which have an API though there is CMIS.
- X4 13y ago
  Wrong. Personally for me a dead end criteria is a CMS without an API. But you mean most people don't need it right? I also think that's not right, because many companies want Mobile Apps, Intranet tools etc. and integrating their crap with the CMS through an API makes a whole lot sense. I looked at http://prismic.io http://prismic.io, but I haven't found anything that's opensource and comes close to it. Do you know something like that?
  - justincormack 13y ago
    No not saying most people dont need it, they are a reducing pool, the people who do need it have moved away already.
    - X4 13y ago
      >> […] people who do need it have moved away already. hmm, what do you mean and to which platform? I was thinking of enterprise users and companies who mostly start with a cheap cms, then add features here and there then an app, then an intranet thingy and at the end you have a spaghetti architecture, because everything has it's own front-end without a unifying API. It's rare that developers write their own solutions, you can say, hey nobody would do that, but the reality is far from that. Most devs simply use what's there and try to integrate different projects "by their own way". I found some things that can be done better at prismic.io and think there is some wasted potential there. - It requires writing your own controller that needs to implement caching or you have a 500ms delay for API requests - No multilanguage from the beginning (gotta bake your own solution, that's not so fun) - Slugs for objects in collections are ugly (see blog example) Here are all REST API based "CMS", unfortunately, none of them is actually perfect. http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/CMS?protocol=REST http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/CMS?protocol=REST

danso 13y ago

One static site generator that I recently discovered and plan to make frequent use of next year is Middleman (Ruby), which is like Jekyll, except less focused on blogging and more app-like conveniences...for example, being able to use erb rather than going through Liquid: http://middlemanapp.com/ http://middlemanapp.com/ Overall, I'd like to see static-site generators become more widespread as an option. I've seen a few great sites/products recently in which the developer felt they needed to deploy a Wordpress instance even though their site was little more than a landing page and a few about pages. The less friction there is to getting content up, the easier it is to be motivated to create content.

ericcholis 13y ago
I think what's missing for static site generators to gain traction is a consumer-friendly admin interface. Kirby comes to mind here: http://getkirby.com/ http://getkirby.com/
- danso 13y ago
  Agreed...but what I think improvement has to come from both sides, not just in the software, but in the content creators. Is it so hard for people to learn Markdown? Not just geeks, but anyone? How hard is it compared to learning the myriad of word processing tools that you're expected to know by high school? How much time does it take to learn Markdown compared to the minutes per day that you spend trying to debug the hidden markup of Rich Text/WYSIWYG editors (e.g., why is this text have the same font-weight as the headings now)? Once the average person learns how to disassociate content from presentation and how markup is the key thing, then static site generators, and the real power of simplicity, become obvious.
  - dageshi 13y ago
    I think to your average person markdown looks like a step down from WYSiWYG, especially when there's a massively successful, user friendly alternative called Wordpress. I think that's a battle already lost.

grimmdude 13y ago

"From writing code we will move to dragging and dropping, having everything visual and instant." Sure, if he says so...

bbx 13y ago

I'm slighly confused by the article's premise ("2014 will be the Content’s year") and it mentioning tools such as Wix, Squarespace, or even Macaw, who can't be considered as CMS but rather complete website builders. Apart from its templating system and its vibrant community, one of WordPress' strengths is sticking to an admin interface that is actually focused on content: simple form elements and a decent WYSIWYG. Drag & drop and in-place editing are technically impressive but don't belong in a CMS: I don't see editors and website owners using it on daily basis to update and manage their content.

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
I think the biggest hurdle we still face when it comes to online publishing is the clash between WYSIWYG and structured markup. Editors, in my experience, don't like working with structured content. But the web is not WYSIWYG. Tools like markdown attempt a compromise, but are still not suitable for many non-technical editors. Do we need a mind-shift, or a new piece of technology to solve this?
- rartichoke 13y ago
  Yeah this is the main problem but I don't think it's really fixable in the near future. There's 3 types of content: - Arbitrary written content This is where markdown shines and IMO completely solves content creation. - Arbitrary written content with mixed in assets Nothing works here. Ever try floating some text to the right of an image when you don't have access to CSS or the raw html because we have to assume the content creator has no technical knowledge. Even wordpress fails horribly at this but it's such a common thing you want to do. - Structured content that has clear properties This is pretty easy to design a nice UI for because it's no longer "anything". For example a todo item or a photo that belongs to a gallery. All you have to do in this case is create a form field for each property. It's something a non-technical person could do.
  - bbx 13y ago
    - Arbitrary written content with mixed in assets Nothing works here. You're right. Offering a simple way for a non-technical user to manage (locally) his layout is the challenge of most WYSIWYG. I don't use Medium but was quite impressed by this quick demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8hysXMfvQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8hysXMfvQ Check out around 2:00 how images are inserted within the text. The interface works because it offers only 3-4 possibilities: zoomed in/normal size, full width/left float. Also, there are only 2 levels of heading. This limited interface is a great compromise between a content-focused experience, and some layout flexibility.

Joeboy 13y ago

A friend just asked me about doing a website for her bicycle repair business, and after thinking about it I thought that what I would like is a docker container that runs a lightweight httpd for serving static pages, a git server to allow her to push updates, and probably a simple web interface for deploying them. That way after the initial deployment my involvement should be pretty minimal. Maybe something like it already exists? Edit: http://hyde.github.io/ http://hyde.github.io/ looks like it might be a good starting point for something like the above, with bonus static site generation, markdown etc.

rartichoke 13y ago

I always thought the C stood for compromise because that's almost always what you have to do when you use a CMS. I don't think the future is drag/drop codeless systems. Good luck when your clients ask for very specific work flows that you can't bundle up in a pretty little draggable box! Then get sad when you realize you have to dive deep into the code except now you're dealing with a 100,000+ line codebase that you didn't write or even worse a large plugin that some random dude wrote which has the worst coding practices possible.

lcnmrn 13y ago

His examples are exactly what's wrong with content management systems. They're too complex. I'm trying to build an insanely simple system at http://markdawn.com/ http://markdawn.com/ which emphasis content in a very strong way — content and only content. I'm really working to make the interface as invisible as possible and mobile (iPhone) first. I hope I can get an API out in 2014, then it can be integrate with all Markdown editors and apps out there. It's cloud hosting for your Markdown files.

parag_c_mehta 13y ago

I am not sure about the future of these "website builders". They have been around a long time, however for anything serious they almost/always disappoint.

toddmorey 13y ago

I had to do a double-take on Wix. (Even went to look at the numbers myself.) I had no idea that it had 1 Billion + in market cap. That's crazy impressive for a company in the crowded website builder space. Edit: Back in August (most recent numbers I found), they had 679,536 paid subscriptions. That's insane.

wyck 13y ago

This article is horribly flat, once again bundling a blanket term "CMS" to apply to multiple needs and applications, and then using a great title like "Trends"....In essence this post is blogspam.

jeffehobbs 13y ago

I am a little tiny bit dumber for having read this.

actionscripted 13y ago

> Next year WordPress will still be a leader. > 2014 will be yet another year of doing more while writing less code...Webydo, Froont or Macaw Yeah right. As someone who'd consider themselves a WordPress expert and has been building clients sites with it (and other OSS offerings like Magento) for a long time there is no way in hell someone is going to use a WYSIWYG builder to create WordPress themes/sites. If WordPress is the leader, maybe the argument that there is less code writing going on is a general one that means folks are using the CMS with plugins instead of rolling their own solutions -- where clicks replace code, in a sense. But you or someone else still needs to build the templates, customize the admin, register functions and nav and widgets, etc. I suppose if you're really hell-bent on building a site with WordPress without coding you could like at a DMS add-on like PageLines but really, for most work with WordPress, you're writing code at some point.