A Content Management System

A content management system (CMS) is software that lets you create, edit, organize, and publish digital content on a website without writing code. Authors can write and revise posts. Editors can control what becomes public. Administrators can manage the site, and readers can open the published content (pages and other material).

WordPress is a free, open-source CMS created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little in 2003. Anyone can download the software, install it on a server, and use it to create and manage a website. At the time of writing, WordPress is the most popular CMS. It runs more than 43 percent of websites, according to WordPress.org. WordPress started as a tool for blogs. It now runs publications, company websites, online stores, membership sites, and many other kinds of websites.

WordPress is not one centrally operated application. Millions of independent websites run their own WordPress installations. The software itself is made up of several components and includes a plugin system and a system of templates known as “themes.” A site can add plugins that change its behavior and a theme that controls how its pages look. A database stores posts, user information, and settings. A core component performs the main processing for the entire system.

When a reader opens a page, the WordPress application receives the request. Its code finds the requested content, checks whether that content is public, applies the site’s theme, and produces the page returned to the reader. Core, the active plugins, and the theme all work together to produce that page.

HopPress in this lecture

We will use HopPress as the case study for this lecture. It is a fictional communications and publishing platform for Johns Hopkins University inspired by WordPress. We may revisit it in later lectures.

Imagine Hopkins using it to publish university news, research, appointments, policies, events, and other public information. Communications staff in central offices, schools, and departments may prepare material for their audiences. Readers may include students, faculty, staff, alumni, journalists, and the public.

HopPress begins with a deliberately small set of publishing behaviors. It is not all of WordPress, and it is not all of a university communications operation. We will add requirements when they help us learn about new design decisions.