Anti-CMS Evolved

At the 2009 PHPNW Conference Michael presented some of the work he’d led at Edge Hill University. This was around building an “Anti CMS” system to manage different types of data rather than using expensive off the shelf systems that don’t do what you want. At the end of that talk he mentioned that “Anti CMS” was great for many things but wasn’t a perfect solution. He indicated that he’d like to come back and show how they’d tried to solve the problems of delegating control of websites to non-technical users, mixing together a variety of PHP systems to produce a seamless looking website and doing it all on a close to zero budget.

The talk will cover the following:

• Recap how originally an “anti CMS”system was built using symfony to manage structured data: normal content management systems can be great for some sites but no good if you’re managing more advanced sites and want to easily reuse data.
• Delegating control over department websites using WordPress as a lightweight-yet-powerful CMS: making use of WordPress Multisite and deeply embedding it into the rest of the site.
• Customising WordPress with themes, plugins and hooks: making WordPress look right and providing the right functionality for your users.
• Overcoming the challenges of adopting new systems: build it and they will come – or will they?
• Getting “buy-in” from management.