If you are a website creator, I am sure you faced this dilema more than once:
“Should I use an existing CMS or start from scratch and write my own small backoffice?”
CMS are getting better and better, and offers plenty of functionnalities. On the other hand, it means you’ll need to dive into their code deep enough to do the tuning you want. Very often, it will take you almost as much time as if you started from scratch. And since there will be many functionnalities you won’t use, the maintenance will be harder.
I have nothing against CMS, and actually, LCS was supposed to be one when I started this project. However, when I realised many websites didn’t need more than a structure editor, a style editor, and somewhere to edit/add content, I changed the orientation of the project : it became a generic backoffice rather than a CMS.
So how LCS is different than a Joomla, Drupal or even WordPress?
Standard CMS approach
- – Install the system
- – Check a test page
- – Understand the templating system, and write the modifications you need / Write a custom theme
- – Adapt an existing style to what you need
LCS
- – Install the system
- – Create an HTML/CSS/javascript template from scratch
- – Replace the hard-coded text by LCS Calls
So unlike common CMS this approach does not need any knowledge of the system to start a website.
LCS Installation
The installation is pretty straightforward : decompress the archive on your computer, upload the files to your server, and call the /admin page. One setup page later, you should be done with the installation.
There is no database, every data is stored in the “content” folder. For security reason, you may want to more this folder out of the http rootdoc. It is possible directly from the setup page, or by changing the path in consts.inc.php.