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Over the past few years we’ve worked with dozens of different content management systems with varying levels of usability and workability. In a current engagement with a client we find ourselves having to learn yet another. Although this new system is actually very usable from a content editor’s point of view, it suffers from many of the following pitfalls.

5. Invalid XHTML

Writing valid XHTML enhances accessibility and sets your site up for forward compatibility. It is also the only way to ensure that your site will render correctly in all of today’s browsers and non-traditional devices. All code your developers write should be valid XHTML, expect nothing less from your CMS.

4. Missing or incorrect DOCTYPE

The DOCTYPE part of a document informs the browser what type of code is following and, as a result, how to render the page on the screen. It is not uncommon that a CMS automatically places a seemingly innocent copyright notice on the top of every page. What they may not realize is that unless the DOCTYPE is the very first thing on the page it does not take effect. This means that you could write perfectly valid XHTML code but because the DOCTYPE has been killed by your CMS, your site will not appear correctly in all browsers.

3. No RSS/XML support

XML/RSS is a great way to provide content. It allows users and other applications to pull in the data and use your content elsewhere, all the while linking back to your site. Today’s web is made up of streams in the form of news, events, status updates, etc. Your CMS should be able to participate in this form of sharing information.

2. No Support

A CMS is designed to only cover about 60 to 70% of updates necessary for maintaining a quality website, and even then no CMS is perfect. You will need help, whether it is design or development support for the site as a whole or dealing with the imperfections of your CMS.

1. Messy URLs

Your choice www.dynamit.us/index.php?action=content.display&id=7478&category=1212 or www.dynamit.us/services/web-development. There are tons of good reasons to want clean URLs: more user-friendly when linking, keyword-rich and good for SEO, indicative of a user’s place within a site architecture. The technology is there to make it happen, but your CMS has to be able to handle it.

Want to see what we’re talking about for yourself? Shoot us a note at info@dynamit.us to schedule a walk-through of our dCMS 5.0.

Just pushed the latest CMS build LIVE. Check it out.

Two big improvements to note:

1. We are now implementing the latest version of the FCK Editor, version 2.6.3. Hopefully, it will be a bit less finicky than the previous version we were running.

2. We now use HTML Tidy to keep the editor code clean and well-formed.

dynamIt users, login and have a look for yourself.

And, you know the drill, e-mail us quickly if you should happen across a bug.