info about Content Management Systems...

I don't know too much about these.

I *DO* know that it's tedious, "uncomfortable", and highly prone to error when I have to enter more than a few lines of text between <td> and </td> cells.

I assume that a "Content Management System" provides some (external?) way of interfacing text/pictures in certain spots of my website without having to strain my eyes to make sure i'm in the correct set of <td>'s.

I've tried doing some research but the details on these things are complex and seem difficult to set-up.

Has anybody used any CMS's and can you please break down the concept for me?

One solution i've thought of in the past is to make an "Admin Page" for websites that I design for my clients. The page could include a text-area for the "Administrator" to type the desired content and when saved, the website would be (dynamically) updated accordingly.

This seems a little "messy" and I'm wondering if there's a better way to do it.

Thanks,

-Costas-

Well you could check out Xoops and PHPNuke to start, they are CMS. There are tons out there or you can create your own.

Also for news postings check hotstripts.com, there are lots of opensource news posting systems you could setup using PHP.

HTH

I've looked at the PHPNuke site, but (ironic as this might sound) : It was so full of content that it confused me!

I didn't find a "breakdown" of what the thing actually DOES... only lots of talk about XML and stuff I'm not up-to-date on.

how exactly do they work?

check out Xoops.. you can turn on and off the modules so you can only have News section and Links if you wanted. Basically they are a complete website management system, you login as administrator and you can control everything about your site from the admin web pages. Install it and play around with it, can't hurt...