Development of an interface or CMS

[ANSEL]

I am a graphic designer but I do not make any static sites. But still, clients ask me almost about every interface to administer their website.

Since I do not know how to develop this, I have two solutions. The first, very critical time of dynamic languages is install a web page editor (Kompozer) and a free FTP client for them to do their updates to the old (modified locally and then upload). This forces me to train them quickly. The second is to give them a site from a CMS.

My clients often need very limited upgradation but well defined. For example, a site of cottages. The client would update the text content of the pages Home, News and Rates once or twice a year at most. Technically, his need is far below what can Joomla do.

My question is: if I develop a PHP interface identification with login/password and body modification of certain pages via a WYSIWYG editor like FCKEditor, how much would it cost roughly?

I ask myself to see if it's interesting or if I should rather build on my way to the CMS.

[kelfro]

Better go for a CMS, it will simplify your life, if only for the possibility of installing plugins over the need. Don't build a custom interface either internally or from outsider, since it will cost more and will be expensive. Instead the best solution is the use of current CMS which are nothing but the result of a lot of years of work with user feedback, etc. There is no chance that you can reach the same result quickly and at reduced cost with custom interface.

[ANSEL]

Thank you for your response. Its true that CMS's are the result of work of many developers and even entire communities. Having followed a few bug fixes, patches and other security SHIFT is true that it is impressive.

But I asked myself the question because as I tell you, I need much more basic than the most basic CMS. And I know some small boxes to create websites that have developed their own administration tool.

[Katty]

Yeah, well, having worked in some agencies as web space admin, its not necessarily better than those proposed by CMS like Joomla, Wordpress and Dotclear. I also think that using an existing CMS is a good idea: you'll win a lot of time and limit the risks of bugs. In addition some are fairly basic CMS (Wordpress, for example) and tailored to the needs of sites rather limited, not necessarily need to use a gas plant genus SPIP.