Ask HN: Building a website ok, but a connecting to a CMS? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Building a website ok, but a connecting to a CMS?

3 pointsBilters4 comments

Question; I know my way around HTML and CSS (or SASS) but how do I connect my site to a CMS? So people can update their site i build for them, I don't want to keep updating their site in the HTML code every time. I can't seem to find a good connection (tutorial) on how to make this happen.

Hopefully you have some examples of how to connect my HTML designs to a (free) CMS.

Much appreciated!

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HTML and CSS alone would not be adequate for the kind of behaviour you are looking for - 'updating their site'. At the very least, you need to learn how to customise a CMS. A well known CMS that I would recommend is WordPress. However, there are others in other languages/platforms. But, since you are talking of a CMS, I thought I should point you towards the most widely used one. Thus, you need to invest your time in learning how that CMS works and what you need to do to customise it for your clients. You might also need to learn something about databases and MySQL would also be another good recommendation.

I'm familiar with Wordpress. I did set it up a couple of times, but I used a theme were i could re-do some colouring, and fonts etc. Now i've got a website, and I would like to add a CMS behind it, It could be Wordpress or another one, but the connection I can't seem to make. Build a website, then connect the HTML / CSS to Wordpress. Do you have any resources where I can look into to start making this connection?

Thanks

It's more typically the other way around: use Wordpress to build a website. That way all the plumbing is there. Another way of thinking about it is that a website is just one part of a CMS and it is an easier part much of which can be generated automatically. The harder parts are things like dashboards and security and asset management.

I would say that you need to start looking into frameworks if your goal is to build a custom CMS. I have done this on many production projects using the MEAN stack (MySQL, Loopback, Ng2, and Node). There is a lot to take on if you go this route if you are not familiar with any of these. I would suggest starting with Loopback + Node, and then move to Ng2. If this is to overwhelming, I would focus a lot on @sdiq points :)

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