Let the real CMS please stand up
December 29, 2009
Something New
Last weekend was a new experiment.
For the most part, when I make websites, I do all the planning, graphics, and markup myself. I’m normally a one man shop (although I’m actively looking for new people to collaborate with), writing most of the (X)HTML and CSS by hand. That control is very important to me.
However, while writing everything by hand plays well to my OCD desire to have control over everything, it takes time, and I’m limited to only the things I know to do. So, naturally, a quality CMS would be a great next step. It would allow me a little more power, and hopefully remove some of the time to write markup.
Enter the CMS search.
I have looked around and haven’t really found much that I was pleased with. However, about a year ago I was introduced to Squarepace.com. I looked around and it claimed that you have control over the whole process and that it would be easy for you to move modules around, edit them, and delete them. After a year of curiosity, I finally found an appropriate project to start last week.
So I met with my client, got everything planned out, and explained that it would be an experimental process, but we were hoping to get the site done and live pretty quickly. And we did it. AmyLashelle.com launched within a week of me starting the design process – by far a new record for me.
The Rundown
I’ll start by saying that, by using squarespace, I was able to make a somewhat powerful front-end experience with very minimal effort. The site has a nice (although not fully customized) contact page, a jquery shadowbox slideshow, an integrated blogging engine, and another slideshow on the home page. Nothing too fancy, but keep in mind, I built the whole site in a little under three days worth of work. I felt pretty good about what the site can do.
Here’s where it gets a little rocky. The user experience of building this site was frustrating at best. To the best of my knowledge, Squarespace is aimed at “designers”. It appears to me though, that those would be graphic designers, and not web designers. It seemed that almost every step was just a little harder than it should have been.
Messy Markup
Control over styles is supposed to be easy in their interface, but some key features (like width) are not editable there.
Once or twice, I wanted to wrap something in a div tag and couldn’t do it because their editor only lets you add HTML inside specific places. I upgraded so I could have “code injection points”, but it turns out that those points are very specific, I still cannot access all the HTML. The points also weren’t where I really wanted them. For instance, some things like Cufon and Google Analytics are supposed to be right before the end of the body tag, but their interface made me put it inside a nested div somewhere near the bottom of the content.
While I can appreciate that a template gives me all the markup I will need, it really needs to be flexible so that I can cut out unnecessary markup. This was a big issue on this site. I was incredible unhappy with the final markup. It is incredibly cluttered, messy, and non-semantic.
It also only allowed me to edit some commonly editable styles. The main page styles were not accessible. For example, I could not change the font stack for the whole site. I could change one main font in their interface, but not the whole stack.
Here’s the one that got me the most. You can export the styles… in an XML file. And the main page styles are minified! It’s as if they were trying to make the process as hard as possible for me.
Little things like this meant that I had to relinquish control over the markup – something I didn’t want to do.
User Experience
As far as the Squarespace interface, it did a couple things that made me use a lot of hacks to present the page well. I could not add a class or change the ID of page links, which meant I had to inspect the code with Firebug, find the randomly generated ID, copy it, paste it in the custom styles section, and create a new style – which was overriding current styles, instead of just editing them.
I suppose I could go on, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
What to do?
So essentially, I’m still looking for a quality CMS designed for front end web designers like me. I can’t imagine I’m really that much of a minority. I’m looking for something that gives me complete control over the markup without making me wade through piles of PHP.
If there is a CMS out there like this, I would really appreciate hearing from you. Otherwise, maybe this means I need to work with someone to make this type of product. I know I would love to use it.


























