CMS Questions

Hi, i am completely new to CMS's and i was wondering could someone please help me with these 3 questions?

1. Can anyone advise me on any sites or info that i should look at in relation to CMS. I want to start adding them into sites that i build.

2. Do most of you use cms scripts/templates or do most people just create them from scratch

3. Should a CMS allow a webmaster to change the actual layout (navigation, menus etc...) or are they primarily for managing the content within a site.

Thanks in advance

 

Here's my 2 cents on this:
1. The best is to visit the websites of the different CMSs to see what they have to offer. For example http://drupal.org, http://joomla.org, http://modxcms.com, etc. They will all have demos and tutorials, and also user forums where you can see showcases of sites that members have built.
One way to start is by visiting http://opensourcecms.com where you can test drive most of the CMSs. The CMS you choose will depend on your needs. If you have fantastico on your hosting it comes with some CMSs that you can install easily and test, and if your host allows subdomains you can set up some domains and test the CMSs out. On one of my domains names I have set up three subdomains playground.mydomainname.com, playground2.mydomainname.com, and playground3.mydomainname.com, and I use these for testing different CMSs at a time.

2. I mix and match depending on the kind of website I'm building. But CMSs can make life simple in some cases. In other cases they can be overkill.

3. Both. Most CMSs will allow you to change the layout and to change themes, but the primary issue is content management.

 

Thanks for your reponse