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Is there a CMS that supports custom/new content types?
- 24 March 2008
Has anyone found a CMS that makes it easy to create a new content type? To me, this is such an important feature, but it’s been hard to find software that supports it. Drupal seems to only nominally support this — what it calls a new content type seems to be simply a web page with an admin-chosen type name.
Here’s what I mean by “new content type”, in case this isn’t clear:
A CMS usually comes pre-designed to support a few pre-chosen content types. For example, a common one is:
WEB PAGE
Attribute Name: Title
Data Type: Text string, <= 255 chars.Attribute Name: Content
Data Type: Text string, unlimited length.
What I find extremely useful is a system that allows new content types with a new set of attributes to be created by the admin. Then, users can create instances of these types via custom-tailored dialogs. They’d then be displayed via custom-tailored style sheets. For example, a new content type might be:
COMMITTEE REPORT
Attribute Name: Committee Name
…Attribute Name: Report Date
…etc.
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Well, as a matter of fact, Ellis Labs’ ExpressionEngine does. They call it “custom weblog fields,” which is their way of saying create new content types (it’s really got nothing to do with blogs and I hear they’re changing the name to avoid confusion). Here’s a link: http://expressionengine.com/docs/cp/admin/weblog_administration/custom_weblog_fields.html and this one shows how they’re actually streamlining this very process: http://expressionengine.com/ee2_sneak_preview/
Drupal with the CCK module will do this just fine. A lot of people also use the views module when using CCK.