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PHP

Php CMS development course required

I wish to make up a small level CMS in php. Will taking course from teamtreehouse enough? What else should I do?

4 Answers

I'm in the same boat. Tomorrow I actually plan to start building a micro CMS for work, with a very specific use and a small set of users.

I would say that the course at Treehouse will give you a great head start into a project of such. There is no "this is how to build a CMS" course here, but I feel that if you go through the lessons here, you'll get enough of a foundation to know where to find answers, and how to read and understand the language's documentation.

What language are you thinking about?

Thanks for answering Kevin. :) I plan to develop this in php exclusively. Since I need to do this in a short time so I'm starting the course right now. I've peeped into a book -> Head First php and Mysql. I think it may help too.

Sounds like it will! Yeah, if you dive in with PHP, and take the MySQL course here too, you should have a solid foundation to get started and understand how and what you're reading in the documentation.

Another valuable free resource I've found is PHP Academy on Youtube. Shorter lessons, but some really crucial ones like user sign-up, premium memberships, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/user/phpacademy/featured

The PHP development track will give you enough foundation in PHP and Mysql to create a small level CMS. It won't give you step by step instructions on a CMS, but the foundation is there for you to get creative with.

Thanks Joseph and Kevin. :)

Hey, thewebarchitect:

As Kevin Korte suggested, the MySQL course gives you the basics, along with the videos on using PHP's PDO class will give you the core understanding you'd need towards accomplishing being able to make a "small-level CMS"

Personal Recommendations

I recommend looking into PostgreSQL instead of MySQL, and evaluate diligently whether or not a relational database is even the best way of modeling the data you have to create a CMS for--though PostgreSQL can also handle non-relational data just fine through its hStore and JSON data types.

Make sure you take account mobile devices with the creation of your CMS, and recommend Karen McGrane seminal book Content Strategy for Mobile. This usually means having multiple variants of the byline supported and so on.

Furthermore, make sure you have the JavaScript and CSS skills to make the interface easy to use and accommodate people of various levels of experience with managing content on the web.

Being able to do things like preview images as they are uploaded (via the HTML5'sFileReader JS API) is crucial towards creating a CMS people would want to use.