Since 2005, McClintic Design Inc. has been building a Content Management System (CMS). During that time we’ve run into pitfalls and the inevitable scope creep that a development project can become.

Our initial goal was simple:

Create a content management system that anyone can use and taylor it to web designers that just need to get a site out and don’t want to spend weeks or years learning the platform that they are building on.

We spent months working with Joomla and Drupal and while both have their merits, most normal people don’t need that much functionality. Most webmasters just need to get in, modify a page or two, and get out. They don’t need to spend weeks reading a book on how to use their chosen CMS.

Our CMS (currently called MDSM for McClintic Design Site Management) was built on PHP and MySQL and is currently running on several commercial websites and has several in the works. MDSM is a great solution for businesses that just don’t want to pay a designer or webmaster to modify one page a month. MDSM also includes the ability to extend it’s functionality with a module framework that can assist with functionality like Photo Galleries, testimonial capture and approval, and will soon have it’s own blog module.

While MDSM isn’t currently free, we’re not ruling out a free version at some point. Right now we have to get several design issues resolved and streamline (okay, make more OOP compliant) and get some installer/updater features working. Since most people are happy that the site functions and shows the information about their business, we’re always striving to make it easier to install and manage modules and templates.

If you are interested in finding out more about our CMS project, have a look at http://mdsm.mcclinticdesign.com and feel free to contact us for a quote.