Web Content Management SYSTEMS, FEATURES, AND BEST PRACTICES Deane Barker www.allitebooks.com Web Content Management Web Content ManagementContent Web Looking to select a web content management system (CMS), but “This book is long overdue confused about the promises, terminology, and buzzwords? Do you want and a much-needed to understand content management without having to dive into the underlying programming? This book provides a clear, unbiased overview antidote to the industry of the entire CMS ecosystem—from platforms to implementations—in a reports and vendor language- and platform-agnostic manner for project managers, executives, white papers that have and new developers alike. dominated the CM Author Deane Barker, a CMS consultant with almost two decades of discussion for so long. experience, helps you explore many different systems, technologies, and platforms. By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge necessary Hooray for Deane!” to make decisions about features, architectures, and implementation —Bob Boiko methods to ensure that your project solves the right problems. author of Content Management Bible (Wiley) ■ Learn what content is, how to compare different systems, and what the roles of a CMS team are ■ Understand how a modern CMS models and aggregates content, coordinates workflow, and manages assets ■ Explore the scope and structure of a CMS implementation project ■ Learn the process and best practices for successfully running your CMS implementation ■ Examine the practice of migrating web content, and learn how to work with an external CMS integrator Deane Barker, founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Blend Interactive, has been working in web content management since the mid- 90s, before the discipline even had a name. Since then, he’s worked on hun- dreds of CMS implementations, ranging from small marketing sites to massive publishing operations. CONTENT MANAGEMENT Twitter: @oreillymedia facebook.com/oreilly US $39.99 CAN $45.99 ISBN: 978-1-491-90812-9 www.allitebooks.com Web Content Management Systems, Features, and Best Practices Deane Barker Beijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol Tokyo www.allitebooks.com Web Content Management by Deane Barker Copyright © 2016 Deane Barker. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/ institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. Editor: Allyson MacDonald Indexer: WordCo Indexing Services Production Editor: Colleen Cole Interior Designer: David Futato Copyeditor: Rachel Head Cover Designer: Randy Comer Proofreader: Susan Moritz Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest March 2016: First Edition Revision History for the First Edition 2016-03-09: First Release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781491908129 for release details. The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Web Content Management, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights. 978-1-491-90812-9 [LSI] www.allitebooks.com For Mom. I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. www.allitebooks.com www.allitebooks.com Table of Contents Foreword. xiii Preface. xv Part I. The Basics 1. What Content Management Is (and Isn’t). 1 What Is Content? 3 Created by Humans via Editorial Process 3 Intended for Human Consumption via Publication to an Audience 4 A Definition of Content 5 What Is a Content Management System? 5 The Discipline Versus the Software 6 Types of Content Management Systems 7 What a CMS Does 9 Control Content 9 Allow Content Reuse 10 Allow Content Automation and Aggregation 11 Increase Editorial Efficiency 11 What a CMS Doesn’t Do 12 Create Content 12 Create Marketing Plans 12 Effectively Format Content 13 Provide Governance 13 2. Points of Comparison. 15 Target Site Type 16 v www.allitebooks.com Systems Versus Implementations 17 Platform Versus Product 18 Open Source Versus Commercial 20 Technology Stack 23 Management Versus Delivery 25 Coupled Versus Decoupled 26 Installed Versus Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) 27 Code Versus Content 28 Code Versus Configuration 29 Uni- Versus Bidirectional Publishing 30 Practicality Versus Elegance, and the Problem of Technical Debt 32 3. Acquiring a CMS. 35 Open Source CMSs 36 Business Models of Open Source Companies 37 Commercial CMSs 39 Licensing Models 40 Software Subscription 42 Software-as-a-Service 45 Build Your Own 47 Questions to Ask 49 4. The Content Management Team. 53 Editors 54 Site Planners 56 Developers 57 Administrators 58 Stakeholders 59 Part II. The Components of Content Management Systems 5. CMS Feature Analysis. 65 The Difficulties of Feature Analysis 65 “Fitness to Purpose” 66 “Do Everything” Syndrome 67 The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts 68 Implementation Details Matter 69 An Overview of CMS Features 71 6. Content Modeling. 75 Data Modeling 101 76 vi | Table of Contents www.allitebooks.com Data Modeling and Content Management 80 Separating Content and Presentation 81 The “Page-Based” CMS 84 Defining a Content Model 85 Content Types 85 Attributes and Datatypes 88 Built-in Attributes 90 Attribute Validation 91 Using Attributes for Editorial Metadata 92 Content Type Inheritance 93 Content Embedding 97 Relationships 103 Content Composition 104 Content Model Manageability 105 A Summary of Content Modeling Features 107 7. Content Aggregation. 109 The Shape of Content 111 Content Geography 114 Editorial Limitations on Geography 117 Secondary Geographies: Categories, Taxonomies, Tags, Lists, Collections, and Menus 118 The Tyranny of the Tree 119 Aggregation Models: Implicit and Explicit 120 Should Your Aggregation Be a Content Object? 121 The URL Addressability of Aggregations 122 Aggregation Functionality 122 Static Versus Dynamic 123 Variable Versus Fixed 125 Manual Ordering Versus Derived Ordering 125 Type Limitations 127 Quantity Limitations 128 Permissions and Publication Status Filters 128 Flat Versus Hierarchical 129 Interstitial Aggregations 129 By Configuration or by Code 130 A Summary of Content Aggregation Features 133 8. Editorial Tools and Workflow. 135 The Content Lifecycle 136 The Editing Interface 138 Content Findability and Traversal 138 Table of Contents | vii www.allitebooks.com Type Selection 140 Content Preview 142 Editing Interface Elements 144 Versioning, Version Control, and Version Labels 151 Dependency Management 153 Content Scheduling and Expiration 155 Changeset Publication 156 Content Expiration 156 Workflow and Approvals 157 Approvals 157 Workflow 157 Collaboration 160 Content File Management 162 Adding Content Files 162 Content Association 163 Image Processing 164 Permissions 164 A Summary of Editorial Tools 170 Content Traversal and Navigation 170 Type Selection 170 Content Preview 170 The Editing Interface 171 Versioning, Version Control, Scheduling, and Expiration 171 Workflow and Approvals 171 Content File Management 172 Permissions 172 9. Output and Publication Management. 173 The Difference Between Content and Presentation 173 Templating 175 Templating Philosophy 177 Templating Language Functionality 179 The Surround 185 Template Selection 190 Template Abstraction and Inclusion 193 Template Development and Management 195 Responsive Design and Output Agnosticism 195 Publishing Content 196 Coupled Versus Decoupled Content Management 196 Decoupled Publishing Targets 199 A Summary of Output Management and Publication Features 201 Architecture 201 viii | Table of Contents www.allitebooks.com Templating 201 Decoupled Publishing 202 10. Other Features. 203 Multiple Language Handling 204 Nomenclature 205 Language Detection and Selection 206 Language Rules 208 Language Variants 209 Beyond Text 210 Editorial Workflow and Interface Support 211 External Translation Service Support 211 Personalization, Analytics, and Marketing Automation 213 Anonymous Personalization 214 Analytics Integration 218 Marketing Automation and CRM Integration 218 Form Building 220 Form Editing Interfaces 221 Form Data Handling 223 URL Management 224 Historical URLs, Vanity URLs, and Custom Redirects 225 Multisite Management 226 Reporting Tools and Dashboards 228 Content Search 229 User and Developer Ecosystem 233 11. APIs and Extensibility. 235 The Code API 236 Event Models 239 Plug-in Architectures 243 Customizing the Editorial Interface 245 Customizing Rich Text Editors 246 Repository Abstraction 246 Pluggable Authentication 247 Web Services 248 Scheduled or On-Demand Jobs 249 Part III. Implementations 12. The CMS Implementation. 253 Principle Construction Versus Everything Else 254 Table of Contents | ix Types of Implementations 255 Preimplementation 257