It is a pain trying to have to write new code everytime you want to change something on my website. I know there is an easier way to update content. I read about COntent Management systems which apparently use XML. When I would enter the administartion area there woudl be dynamic fileds in which I could edit the data and when I click submit it would change. The thing is that I know how to add these forms to a page but I dont know how to create an adminstration area. I use php and one of my friends said to use XML. I have a book but it is taking a long time to read. Are there any quick sites I can go to? I know that there are content management systems for sale, but I would really not have to spend any money. Also, eventually with this CMS I would like to create an RSS feed but that is a logn way down the road. Can anybody help me with the CMS?

thanks.

Joomla, Wordpress, Mambo are all CMS packages.
Check them out.

I think Mambo or Joomla (which are almost the same) fits the bill. It lets you make new content pages just by filling in some fields, and you can add additional funtionality to your site with modules and components. And there is a feature for making RSS feads of content items.

There are a lot of open source CMS (which means they are free). Those are (i think all but I am not sure) generally based in php/mysql. Here at trap seventeen (if you are hosted) you can try in your cPanel a quick install of the mentioned above CMS, depending entirely on your site, the complexity and extension of your site (and the purpose) is which CMS you would go for.

I would strongly suggest Wordpress, as is both simple and standards compliant. I like a lot Wordpress (go to wordpress.org/download/ cause wordpress.com is for the online based blogging system, that means you can't completely control the administration of your site), because of its simplicity but also because you can control a lot of what's going on in the template code, and you can develop a standards compliant, full xhtml/css site (as oposed to joomla,for example).

I've been working a lot with joomla lately and I dislike the way it works, it has a lot of non-semantical html, it does not go with the philosophy of XHTML. Its very big and very powerful, but its also very complex, not very recommendable for a newbie.

Nevertheless, if you'd like to try and see what are the options you can browse to www.opensourcecms.com, the slogan is "try before you install" that means that they have installed on their servers all the cms they present, besides of an explanation and reviews for those... they have the admin panel and the "default" front end for you to see (I say default because you can, and most likely you would WANT to, edit the default template to fit your design). Very good resource site, you would find that there are several types of cms, for online education (like moodle), for blogging (like wordpress or b2evolution), for portals (like xoops, joomla or mambo), for e-comerce, etc...

The best of all: they are free!