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I redesigned a website that was using CMS Made Simple. It's a relatively small site and I'm learning as I go along, so I first built the redesign using just HTML but I'm now going to use PHP includes.

But I don't know how to integrate what I'm building into the CMS. I searched around the server and I can't find any traces of the pages built with CMSMS, so I assume that everything is contained somewhere within the CMS.

But I want something that will allow pages to be built and edited both inside and outside the CMS. If it's done outside, I want to be able to just FTP the new or changed content to the server.

Is this possible, and if so, what would be the best free CMS?

Thank you.

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2 Answers

I don't know if I understood yout question, but I think you don't understand the concept of a CMS.

The redesign you made should only change the Theme/Style files, the content itself should be changed only in the administration of the CMS. What you may change from outside and FTP is only the theme files.

Things work this way so the person that put content in the site doesn't have do be a designer/developer.

BUT, there are some kind of CMS that may allow you to do what you want, but they are not completely free. Give it a look at CushyCMS and PageLime.

Since they intend to be a CMS for editing already made static sites, you may use it and if needed you can pull some page from FTP, edit it and then push it back.

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Thanks, Brunno. You're right, I don't completely understand CMS. Once a site is built with a particular CMS, is it forever integrated into that CMS? I still can't figure out why there aren't any individual pages other than index.php on the server. The old website was absolutely terrible and the server was a complete mess, so I just blew it up and started from scratch, which is why I didn't just change theme/style files. But CushyCMS looks promising and seems to be free enough, so I might give it a shot. –  Beau Aug 3 '10 at 20:56
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You can try Template Externalizer http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/externalizer, which will give you FTP Access to Edit different content blocks, all templates, css and some content. I'm sure it will make your life easier when developing or integrating HTML into the page.

Template Externalizer, "watches" a FTP folder. and when you upload files onto the server, it saves the changes into the database making your change visible right away.

The files willl be located here: CMSROOT-INSTALLATION-PLACE/tmp/externalizer/

I hope this helps a bit.

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protected by Quentin Mar 19 '12 at 15:47

