Black Square's modular CMS

All Black Square websites are built to allow the client to manage their own content. We have developed a basic framework model the forms the basis of all our websites. From this base, we add or customise whatever modules are required to build the required website. For custom built websites, each module is carefully planned, designed and customised to produce a system exactly tailored to the client. For website packs, we build the modules just once, and then use those for each instance of the pack.

At its most basic level, the CMS consists of four basic modules:

User Management

This module allows us to keep track and manage users of the site. Every site must have a list of users because the CMS itself must be login-protected. In its most basic form, the user module will include just one user – the administrator – and handle login and security for the CMS only. It can be expanded, however, to allow many administrators, and limit each one’s access to specific modules. It can also be extended to the site itself, to allow customers to register and sign up to the site, which is required for e-commerce sites, for example.

Standard Content

The standard content module provides a framework for the content of the site. It manages the menu system, allows new pages to be added to the site, and allows the client to edit the content of the site. This is THE core module of the site, and all other modules plug into this one in order to interact with the front-end of the website. We will dedicate several posts to delving deeper into the complexities of this module very soon, but for now let’s move on to the others.

Resource Management

Clients will often want to add external files to their web pages. These can include images, PDF downloads or videos. The resource manager behaves something like a file system, and allows the client to upload these external files to the server. Other modules (most notably the Standard Content module) will then allow the client to choose an appropriate file from a list of resources.

Settings

The settings module simply allows the client to control global settings for the site. These are usually simple things like default meta-tags and contact email addresses, but may include any settings that custom modules require as well.

In its most basic form, these four modules make up the Black Square CMS, and will allow a client to build and manage a content driven website. In the next post, we’ll look at some examples of modules we’ve built to extend the CMS...