Not sure what CMS is. Is this the proper App for me?

By jamesmeyn on 1 Apr 2009 at 04:24 UTC

I am having a hard time figuring out if Drupal would be right for me. I currently do web design, but pretty much stick with HTML and CSS through Dreamweaver CS3 and 8. I can use Flash 8 and Photoshop & Illustrator as well. I have never had a need for Drupal, that I know of, and have considered it a blogging tool. I have yet to create a blog. What is CMS in laymans terms?
My real question is this: I have a number of clients that I have created very nice static HTML pages for. Quite a few of them are restaurant owners. I offer update/maint. services to all of my clients. A few of my restaurant clients are using this service to update daily specials on their pages. I was wondering if Drupal could help with this. They send me the updates daily and I currently use Kompozer to edit the pages with the new specials info. (I use Kompozer because it is free and easy to use. I have it installed on all of my PC's so I can do updates from anywhere. It also has FTP ability.) This wouldn't be such a problem, but some of these places don't close until late and the managers don't send the updates until late. This requires me to stay up late or get up early to do a task that literally takes less than 2 minutes to complete.
If Drupal can do this, will I have to redesign the sites? Will I be able to make it look like the rest of the site? What module would I use to do this?
Thank you for any information you might have. I noticed that many questions have very fast responses on this forum.

Comments

CMS stands for Content

nevets commented 1 April 2009 at 04:47

CMS stands for Content Management System, in simple terms it allows you to update your Drupal site from the site it's self. Instead of static HTML, content is stored in a database and rendered through a set of templates that provide the look of the site.

One aspect of this is the clients could update their daily specials themselves. With the schedule module they could even pre-enter the daily specials and have them "self publish" on the appropriate day.

So Drupal could probably handle the type of websites you do but it would mean a change on how you do things. I would suggests setting up a test site, taking for a spin and then deciding if it's for you.