Content Management System (CMS)

A Content Management System for a website is a means of updating web content by filling in forms on a webpage. This is normally done by logging to an administration area using nothing more than a browser.

This CMS is a legacy application that I have worked on for some time. As new tools and methods become available on the web the CMS and the applications it contains are often being re-written and improved.

Designed for Town and Parish Councils this CMS contains a lot of useful features. I started working on it in 1999 at the request of a couple of Town Clerks in Surrey who inspired me greatly.

The CMS features:

The core CMS features currently include:

I am working on more core features. All councils have access to all features at no extra cost. The pricing is very simple and depends only upon the number of residents.

Agendas and minutes

The business of council meetings lies at the centre of what a council does and documents the decisions it's members have made. There are many lines of text in these agendas and minutes which constantly re-appear this could be for informative, or legal reasons.

A Wysiwyg editor allows a committee clerk to enter text as if they were using a word processor. There is a high promotion of text re-use.

All agendas and minutes are treated as individual objects, and relationships are built up between each item. This is very unlike a word or pdf document.

Upon publishing, a number of what I have coined "text transformations" are made upon the agendas and minutes. These text-transformations turn correctly spelled text into hyper-links to other documents. For example mention of a councillor turns into a link to that councillors' home page. These text transformations are council specific.

The reason for making these text transformations is to make agendas and minutes correctly formed, stand-alone webpages, and not just pdf or word documents. Without these text transformations they would constitute what I term "Info-bahn-cul-de-sacs".

This is the way the internet works, users can freely move in and out of web pages pursuing a particular thread or idea. They should be able to move freely into other documents, other webpages or even other websites in a transparent way.

Each agenda or minute may contain supporting documents and reports. These reports would not have been designed to work as webpages can be uploaded and attached to an agenda or minute from the CMS.