Sometimes, staying on top of which web
software is best for running a content managed web site can seem
like a full time job. Alongside the software we're already using
for our clients there are the ones we've tried and liked but not
yet used on a project and others that we’ve yet to evaluate. Some
are fleetingly fashionable bubbles that burst when the venture
capital runs out while others creep up slowly before becoming
another useful addition to the web toolkit. Each program has its
headline features and each new version is promoted on the latest
and greatest additions that will make the headlines on news sites
and be listed in comparison sites.
Often, though, it's the little things that
make all the difference to deciding which software is suitable for
managing your web site. Take, for example, running a site using
Joomla. A content manager needs to find articles in order to edit
them, a standard task in most CMS's. A few versions back in Joomla
you could filter a list of articles to get a set of articles to
work on, but once you'd worked on one, the filters had gone and you
were back to where you started. Changing a set of articles quickly
became a bit of a slog as each article had to be found before it
could be changed.
Then a new version of Joomla was released that
changed how the lists worked: now the list keeps the filtering
until you change or reset it. It's not a headline grabbing new
feature. It's a small improvement that's a big time saver when
working to make changes across a set of pages. It's the kind
of improvement that eases the chore of content management so a user
is going to want to keep using Joomla. It's the kind of improvement
we only appreciate because we're working with the software
regularly.