hello people.
a very trivial question from me today:
i’m not getting what CMS is really for? or better: when is it really necessary?
i understand that you cant manage content in an easier way - but since we are working with webflow and we have an very intuitive user interface and we can customize everything we want - for what do we need a content managment system?
fo example: if i want to write a blog post-i could just copy and paste my standard blod post layout and thats it right?
why than using cms?
i need somebody showing me the real benefits so i can decide…
If your use case is making blog posts - you can totally just copy the pages and modify content. Try and see if this suits you. CMS is obviously for when people wouldn’t want to get into designer (read - most clients) and need things to work without any manual job.
You could theoretically copy/paste the elements from each of your blog pages to a new page that you created, producing the same result. With classes you might even be able to manage the content and styling pretty closely. However, this method would be wildly inconvenient, not to mention inefficient and problematic when you want to make a change to all of your blog posts, and not just one (ie. adding social links at the bottom of each page, changing the style of the title section, etc…). Nobody builds blogs statically anymore.
What you’re describing is Static pages. They’re individually managed and therefore don’t affect each-other. Most web-pages are built statically and include some dynamic content (think your most common pages: About, Contact, Home, etc…)
This is where dynamic pages, aka CMS (Content Management Systems) comes extremely handy. Let’s say I want to run a blog on my website. We can assume that I want each blog to carry a similar format and style: Title section, author profile picture with name and social links, rich text field for blog page, 2 or 3 photos, footer at bottom of website, etc… I could build each of these pages individually, copying the style and using the front-end designer to edit the blog for each page. OR using Webflow’s CMS system, I can build the style guide only ONCE, then use the backend to simply write my blogs, plug in the required fields, and press publish; Webflow will automatically create and format your page without any need to access the designer.
CMS carries an endless stream of possibilities for organization and content management. Here’s a few examples:
Running a blog
A venue website that needs an easy way to add events.
An artist who uses his website to show his tour dates. Can easily add and change.
A restaurant that has hundreds of menu options. Using CMS they can add food items and categorize them by time of day (breakfast, lunch, dinner), type (appetizers, entrees, sides, deserts, etc…) then create CMS pages that filter to exactly what they want to show.
A sports team management site that has profiles for each player, including their number, team, position, age, weight, height, etc…
The possibilities are endless. If you’re still not convinced check out the Webflow University and watch some of their tutorials on CMS functionality.
Look at CMS from the perspective of a client. Why would he pay a designer/developer to implement every single change on a website with constantly changing content when one of his current employers, or himself, can do it for a fraction of the cost? CMS just gives the owner of a website more flexibility and more control over the website.
you convinced me i guess haha…
the point with the global changes for blog post like changing the font or ad social media links or something like that is very crucial!
the only way to have a more complicated workaroung would be with the webflow-feature of symbols, but this would still not be on the same level!
I see what you are saying now, I thought you meant CMS in general. Yes, for a portafolio you don’t need to add dynamic content, your blog could be static, why bother with the cms right? Also that way each blog could look different. If you get a chance please share your CMSless portafolio. Take care.
Sure thing! I love helping out when I can, especially since I was a total beginner less than 6 months ago haha.
Symbols are not to be disregarded. They’re heavily useful when you are using the same element across multiple pages. For example, a navigation bar that stays consistent across each of your pages. In this instance, it’d be the most efficient to turn that nav bar into a symbol, so that each style change/link update/etc… updates across all of your pages.
Typically when I design a site I will create several symbols, including navigation bars, footers, certain sections (tiles, banners, etc…), email signup sections, etc… that I would want to reuse in other places within the project.