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Web Standards, Part II: The Problem with Content Management Systems

This article was originally posted at Blogs@SI on April 22, 2005.

Content management systems are the only sane way to manage Web sites. Once you've worked with a CMS, you will not want to go back to the bromidic and irksome labor of diddling with static Web pages.

I don't care how large or how small the site is; pull it out of that WYSIWYG editor, get it into a CMS of some kind, get it under control, and make the most of your content. There's a world of open-source tools and accompanying support communities out there; you do not have to purchase a behemoth.

That said, if you are evaluating content management systems, watch out for the code cranked out at the other end. There are some very laudable systems that produce standards-compliant Web pages (see www.cmswatch.com). Others, however, generate verbose and mungy code.

Still another issue is WYSIWYG editors. Not the kind like Dreamweaver, but the online variety that work as part of the CMS toolkit. Find me an online WYSIWYG editor that successfully disallows all naughty bits of uncompliant code from entering into the system through the front door, back door, side window, or cat door. I'm really asking you. Find me one.

If the WYSIWYG editor has a certain colanderlike quality, it doesn't matter if the CMS does a stellar job of generating standards-compliant code. This can all get botched by goofball tags dumped in from Microsoft Word, shaggy HTML imported during page migration, or content providers who pride themselves on their knowledge of font and table tags.

The caveat:

1. Validate several Web sites generated by the CMS that is courting you, and go through the source code with a flea comb.
2. Test the CMS by attempting to pour garbage code into it (this is kind of fun).
3. Educate your content providers, and monitor the code side of the content as part of your workflow. I can't emphasize this last one enough.


07.08.2006
Followup to this post: Two open-source WYSIWYG editors - Kupu and FckEditor - both used with Zope/Plone, have done a very good job of addressing this issue.

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