kick-off Concrete5 CMS

Once you decide to build your website using a CMS, you will think of the big names such as Wordpress, Joomla .. may be Drupal.. right ? However, there are many other Content Management Systems which are considerable user-friendly for both, developers and end-users. We are going to talk about a quiet uncommon CMS called Concrete5.

1. What is Concrete5

“Concrete5 is a content management system written in the PHP programming language.. In 2008 Concrete’s 5th major version release was rebranded Concrete5(tm) and launched fully Open Source under the MIT license. Between 2008 and 2014, Concrete5 released 7 versions, further refining the interface and adding many additional features, including localization support and support for a full commercial and non-commercial marketplace. In 2014, Concrete5 version 7 completely overhauled both the interface and the underlying framework for modern PHP.

Concrete5 has allowed individuals involved with websites to easily manage their content and their site structure. Above all else, the goal behind Concrete5 has always been to make it easy for anyone to run a website.”

(What is Concrete5, Concrete5 documentation )

2. Why using Concrete5

Based on our experience with Concrete5 as a CMS, we will highlight the main points, which make Concrete5 user-friendly tool for coders and non-coders. Also, it helps our clients to manage and update their content easily.

We will not explain how to install Concrete5 and how to build your website or how to customize your own theme. You can check the installation steps here. Also, you can check Concrete5’s YouTube channel here where you will find a lot of essential and advanced tutorials.

a) UX: The page builder

For end users:

Concrete5 provides full functional blocks with a super light usability. It’s just a drag and drop for any block you need and put it in any part of the page. No need to write any additional code!

You can see in the above snapshot that a left SideNav appears once you click on the (+) button above it. That contains about 30 different blocks like “Page title”, “Image slider”, “Page list”, “Social links” and many more…

Also, you can easily edit any content within a block on the same interface view, compared to Wordpress where you need to open the admin dashboard and edit the data in table view.

For developers:

You can build your own custom block, but you have to have coding skills to do so, since you are required to create the block within Concrete’s block structure. You can learn how to build your own block here.

b) Author / Publishing

In Concrete5 you can manage your authentications and authorizations easily by navigating to Members >> User Groups. There you can create separate groups, each one contains specific users, then you can give each group a different permissions for your application.

c) The page attributes

Concrete5 supports a straightforward way to add or remove attributes for your web page like “SEO meta tags” and “Navigation and Indexing”. Also you can add your own custom attribute.

d) Multilingual Setup

If your website is multilingual, don’t worry it’s a straightforward process including the following steps:

- Go to System & Settings >> Multilingual setup page. 
- Choose the required language and the page you want to translate:

- Visit your “sitemap page” where you will find the added language. There you will be able to duplicate the pages by dragging each one of them to a new language.
- Finally go to “Translate Site Interface” in order to edit and translate any content. Again without coding!

e) Caching

Concrete5 allows you to control your web application cache. By going to System & Settings >> Cache & Speed Settings, it classifies the caching control to give you the ability to turn on or off the caching process, including your blocks, CCS files, JavaScript files or all of them. Furthermore, it gives you a notification related to the impact of turning on or off the caching for each option.

Another important feature in caching section that you can simply clear your previous cache by going to System & Settings >> Clear Cache then click on “Clear Cache” button to delete your web application cache. However, you should be aware that the caching function impacts changes you did in coding or content, since you might face some trouble to update them.

3. Community

Concrete5 community needs to get increased (check w3techs statistics for CMS market share here). As a result, the community will face an enhanced experience with Concrete5:

- Search for issues that you faced during your work. 
- Find more plugins and add-ons.

4. Summary

Generally speaking, we can say that Concrete5 is a powerful CMS written in PHP programming language. It is a considerable user-friendly tool which helps users to edit and manage content without any coding skills. Also, it allows the coder to customize his application according to his needs. I personally love the great features Concrete5 offers namely the page builder, page attribute and multilingual setup.