CMS Made Simple Forums

I am a small website designer currently doing occasional websites for clients using Microsoft Expression and HTML. I currently have 2 potential clients wanting CMS at some stage in the future and envisage more as time goes by.

1  Can I create a website in Microsoft Expression and then use CMS Made Simple at some stage in the future to give a client ONE self-updateable news page with multiple news sections, each news section consisting of 1 image and some text? This news page would be accessible from the main Expression website?

2  For a separate client - an artist wanting an online art gallery of about 40-50 pictures split between 2 pages - can I use CMS Made Simple to create an entire website for her so that she can update pictures with descriptions? I wasn't sure from the Help info I read whether CMS Made Simple is right for picture updates.

3  If CMS Made Simple is OK for picture updates, can I then import a script (Lightbox) into it so that I can have a slide-show effect for these pictures?

4  Finally, I noticed that CMS Made Simple costs £4.99 per month - is this a cost for EACH website or does this £4.99 give me a license to use the product for multiple clients?

I know it's asking a lot, but I would very much appreciate an early reply if at all possible - a prospective client phoned this morning asking what I could offer him and I really need to let him know someting tonight - or at least take my best guess when answering him.

Many thanks to anyone who takes the trouble to help.

I think with CMS Made Simple, you'll find you won't need Microsoft Expression to develop websites.

1 - CMSMS has a News module, which is very adaptable, via templates.

2 - The Album module will give you this capability.

3 - Yes.

4 - CMS Made Simple is free software.

Nullig

Nullig - many thanks for such a speedy reply and for answering each of the points in turn.

Two other questions:

1 is creating a website in CMS Made Simple an achievable goal for someone like myself who is used to adapting Expression templates and dipping into the HTML as and when necessary but who does not have programming experience? My partner has previously done work with databases.

2  Does CMS Made Simple allow me design freedom - eg
2a choosing exactly (to the pixel) where I want to place the masthead, content (1 or 2 coloumn design), navigation, footer sections and specifying how big each section is to be
2b specifying border size,
2c specifying exact shade of each section and / or background pictures to be used, either repeating or non-repeating pictures?

Or are there restrictions as to what designs I can do? I find with Expression that I can design pretty well whatever design I want, without restrictions, and that, if I design something, I can find a way to achive it. Is CMS Made Simple the same or does it have any annoying restrictions from a design viewpoint?

Many thanks again.

10 minutes of reading saves two days of asking questions and waiting for replies.

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/support/faq

in addition to what calguy said...

there are no design restrictions whatsoever.  You have full access to the page templates and CSS (and source code, if you need to go that far.)

Many thanks for all your help. We have downloaded a copy of CMS Made Simple and are about to start experimenting with it.

The first CMS site we want to build will begin as a simple art gallery for which the customer wants to be able to update her pictures and use Paypal to sell prints of them. Eventually she might want a proper ecommerce system with stock controll for about 70-80 items. Would CMS Made Simple be able to handle this stock control - or is there any other database / ecommerce software which we can add on to a CMS Made Simple site at a later date - if required - to handle the stock control side?