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Xara or CMS?
Hi,
I have been lurking around for a while and decided to post.
I know that this has been asked and answered before, but I just can't seem to get a definitive answer.
Firstly, I have to say that I think all Xara products are really easy to use and I find them highly productive.
As my job isn't in design or web development (rather IT consulting) I kind of know what a CMS is and what Dreamweaver is etc. I have used many of them. (Joomla, Mambo, WebGUI, Concrete5, Drupal etc)
What I would like to know is where the 'gotchas' are.
Why use a CMS?
- You may want to change the look of the site, but keep the content the same
- Many users are updating the site on a regular basis
- You want to publish information which will expire on a certain date
- You need a search engine on the site
Why not use a CMS?
- The setup of the template is complex, time consuming and restrictive
- You need to constantly upgrade the CMS software, or you get behind
- When you want to make a change to one page, you might find it hard to do
- Changing the template can be hit and miss
Sure, there probably are lots more pros and cons.
Now, if I was managing a site with 100's of pages, then I would use a CMS, or just wordpress.
But, for my own website, which is about 50 pages and doesn't need a CMS I am wondering if I should just build it in Xara?
Xara is so easy to use, it almost seems that it is a toy and that I will get stuck somewhere. I am worried that when I get 99% into the site, I will hit a wall, especially with SEO.
When I look at some of the sites which I like, they might be built on a CMS, but their look is clean and modern. For example, the BI tool we sell is QlikView and to build a similar site in Xara would be possible.
Thanks for any feedback.
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Re: Xara or CMS?
Welcome to TalkGraphics
The nice thing about Xara Web Designer or Xara Designer 6 Pro is you do not need to worry about stuff like this. I am sure that others will disagree. But I would rather design the site I want to design and not worry about the behinds the scene stuff.
On the other hand, 50 pages is a lot of pages to manage. I find Xara's Page and Layer Gallery a little unwieldy for such a large site. But then I really do not build many really big sites. So Designer Pro 6 is fine for me.
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Re: Xara or CMS?
I edited your post and removed the link to your business site. Please refer to the rules on this page http://talkgraphics.com/showpost.php...24&postcount=2
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Re: Xara or CMS?
Hi Jpdp and welcome to Talk Graphics.
I run a website for my club (see my signature) that has about 35+ pages in it. Is a site this large slightly unwieldy? Sure, but not overly so (IMO). Would it be any more unwieldy if I were to add another 15 pages? Not really (again IMO). Just to be clear, what I mean by unwieldy is that I can't always find the page that I am looking for within 1 or 2 seconds, sometimes it takes me 5-10 seconds to find the page.
It all depends on your point of view and how often you have to make changes. I only make occasional changes to the club's website but even then, I don't really have any problems finding the page and making the changes.
I would suggest that you give it a try and form your own opinion.
Just my two cents.
Eric
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Re: Xara or CMS?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jpdp
Why use a CMS?
- You may want to change the look of the site, but keep the content the same
- Many users are updating the site on a regular basis
- You want to publish information which will expire on a certain date
- You need a search engine on the site
Why not use a CMS?
- The setup of the template is complex, time consuming and restrictive
- You need to constantly upgrade the CMS software, or you get behind
- When you want to make a change to one page, you might find it hard to do
- Changing the template can be hit and miss
You could always go hybrid - use Xara to build a website because of ease of use and powerful graphics capability. Then if you need to add CMS capabilities at some point you can easily add a product like PowerCMS from Webassist to answer some of the needs above (1-4). This also solves the problems 5-8 (maybe not 6). SEO should not be an issue.
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Re: Xara or CMS?
Thanks for the replies.
It seems that I go through this every couple of years, when the last CMS has caused me grief.
I probably will give it a go with Xara, as it is so easy to generate pages and then I may use a CMS (I might keep our Joomla system) just to manage it all.