A Brief Overview of Concrete5 CMS
Every business today has the option to choose from a wide range of open source content management systems. Some of the content management systems are popular while others are lesser known. However, some of the lesser known content management systems, such as Concrete5, come with a variety of features to simplify the development and management of a variety of websites and web applications.
As an open source content management system (CMS), Concrete5 helps users reduce website development and management costs. At the same time, it simplifies web application development and management by providing several robust features, along with community and enterprise support. These features make many companies prefer Concrete5 to other popular content management systems.
Understand the important features of Concrete5 CMS
Themes, Plugins and Extensions
Concrete5 enables web developers to quickly design websites using a number of free and commercial tools. Also, developers can easily add functionality to the web application using various free and commercial plugins. Themes and plugins allow developers to quickly build custom websites without writing additional code. At the same time, developers can extend the CMS using business extensions such as internationalization, HTML exporter, and multi-step content workflow.
content publisher
The content editor provided by Concrete5 helps the developers to customize the website according to the precise business requirements. The WYSIWYG content editor also allows developers to customize the website without writing or modifying code. Furthermore, it comes with strong features like in-context editing, easy theme controls, and dynamic forms. Developers even have the option to drag and drop blocks of content within a template.
style editor
Corete5 allows developers to customize the design of the website using a variety of fonts, layouts, and colors. Developers can further edit these elements using the style editor provided by the CMS. The style editor further simplifies website customization by providing features like image editor, video editor, gallery, blocks, stacks, templates, and page layouts.
mobile optimization
Concrete5 enables developers to optimize websites for mobile devices by adopting responsive web design. Developers can make web pages look good on different devices using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Additionally, they can optimize the web app for mobile devices by taking advantage of the features provided by Concrete5: responsive images, responsive layouts, responsive video, and mobile navigation/menus.
form builder
Concrete5 allows users to speed up digital marketing campaigns by dynamically creating forms and surveys. Developers can use the form builder provided by the CMS to create forms and surveys without writing additional code. Users can collect user data more efficiently by taking advantage of the features provided by the form builder: custom form fields, form validation, error detection, and drag and drop.
Integrated reporting tool
Concrete5 also comes with tools to generate a variety of built-in reports. It allows users to create a variety of reports using a single interface. Website administrators can use the interface to generate reports based on form results, survey results, error logging, user session tracking statistics, and email logging systems. These reports help managers speed up the decision-making process and monitor marketing campaigns more efficiently.
security features
The security features provided by Concrete5 help developers to protect the web application from various targeted security attacks. Developers can easily enhance website security by making use of features like captcha, email verification, content approval, SSL enforcement, audit trail, and login history capture. They also have the option to override the CMS’s default security settings without changing its core architecture.
User and permission management
Concrete5 further enhances website security by allowing administrators to create multiple user accounts and enforce access restrictions. Depending on your organization’s policy, an administrator can create custom groups, profiles, attributes, exclusions, and individual pages. They can also make individual web pages accessible to specific users and groups. Additionally, they can trigger workflow-based events against saved permissions.
blog and comment
Concrete5 comes with features to make it easy to integrate blogs and online discussions. Users can easily integrate customizable blogs into their websites by making use of features like themes, multiple authors, post display options, and RSS syndication. They can also use the built-in commenting system provided by Concrete5 to efficiently moderate both individual and threaded comments.
Social Integration and SEO
Concrte5 helps users to divert traffic to their websites from popular search engines and social networks. Users can easily increase the search engine ranking and visibility of their websites by making use of a variety of SEO features provided by the CMS: XML sitemap, description meta tag, page titles, custom URLs and bulk updating of SEO pages. Similarly, they can use the social sharing plugin provided by Concrete5 to integrate the website with popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
However, Concrete5, like other content management systems, has its own shortcomings. For example, it increases the cost of developing web applications by requiring companies to purchase commercial plugins. Businesses can still use Concrete5 to build and manage a variety of web applications seamlessly.
