The StoneHenge blog

When it comes to usability in content management systems, for the editor the details make all the difference.

That point was driven home this week while migrating content from our current CMS, Joomla!, to our new CMS, Umbraco. Now both Joomla! and Umbraco are very good CMSes, but they approach the task of editing a website from two different points of view. The result: similar in general, but frustratingly different in specifics. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Nav tree

I wanted to move a page from one section of the site to the other. Here are the steps.

• Joomla: 1) Find the page in the Article Manager. Change its Section and Category parents. Republish. 2) Find the menu item in the Menu Manager. Move its Menu Links to the new location. Republish. 3) Find all associated Modules on the page. Re-associate them to the page. Republish.
• Umbraco: 1) Find the page in the nav tree. Right click on it, select Move. Drag & drop it to the new location. Republish.

The winner: Umbraco. Simple, intuitive, one step.

The Umbraco nav-tree content interface offers intuitive content controls

2. Text styling

I wanted to use a headline with an arrow icon on a page. Here are the steps.

• Joomla: 1) Select the text. Style it Heading 1. 2) Select the text. Style it "icon-arrow". Republish.
• Umbraco: 1) Select the text. Style it Heading 1. 2) Switch to HTML view. Type in [h1 class="icon-arrow"]. 3) Switch back to WYSIWYG view to double-check the display. Republish.

The winner: Joomla. Even though both use the TinyMCE rich-text editor, Joomla as the more mature CMS has added separate drop-down lists for formatting (like [h1]) and styling (like class="icon-arrow.")

The Joomla rich-text editor interface offers dual drop-down lists

The moral of the story

There are hundreds of content management systems available on the market, ranging in price from free to a half-million dollars. Which one is the best for your needs?

While several websites, such as CMS Watch, present comparative lists of features, there is no substitute for getting inside and using the system yourself. If you think your site will have a lot of page management -- publishing, unpublishing, and moving -- then a nav-tree interface like Umbraco is better. If you think your site will have a lot of special text dressing, then you'll want a mature rich-text editor like Joomla uses. OpenSourceCMS is a cool site that allows you to try out various interfaces; I'd highly recommend it.