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I'm working on helping schools understand how to use Joomla and WHY.

Can anyone point to a well-done explanation of the differences between a CMS and a Page Design system??

Maybe even a table of differences?? Hmmmm...

...It sure wasn't clear to me in the beginning :-)

PS: This is cross-posted; can anyone tell me if the is a best-way to post in 2 forums here? A cross-posting system I missed?? Tnx.

Hmm someone will doubtless come up with a better explanation but it never does any harm to say what you (I) think...
I'll probably be corrected and learn something   Im just setting this out as I think....

My understandings are on 2 levels
A CMS includes a page design system but much more... that is it has what became knows as ephemerals, in terms of news items, news flashes and the like... along with polls and way more than I can mention extra componenets. 
If you turn these all off then you are left with a page design system in a way...

A more fundamental and probably correct explanation is the design....
the CMS is data oriented.... that is a clear seperation between the data and the layout... for instance css and stuff should be seperate ...

As with all these things, the edges are a little blury.... you can use a CMS like a page layout program and you can extend a page layout program to act like a CMS...

in many ways a CMS is the natural evolution from a page layout system.... or perhaps we should say a page layout system that has over extended itself....

Anyway these are just my thoughts..... or my perspectives... certainly not definitive and probably not correct....
The rules change.... the correct answer is the one the examiner expects....

TerryKing wrote:PS: This is cross-posted; can anyone tell me if the is a best-way to post in 2 forums here? A cross-posting system I missed?? Tnx.

Please do not crosspost, see the Forum rules: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,65.0.html
I deleted the other post....

a CMS manages content on the page design
in the management side, all the content is available at one location allowing editors to more easily add/edit articles

in many ways a CMS is the natural evolution from a page layout system.... or perhaps we should say a page layout system that has over extended itself....

yup

Please do not crosspost, see the Forum rules: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,65.0.html
I deleted the other post....
[/quote]
OK, Peter. Still there ARE occasions where something has a wider scope; thus the Usenet methods of 'cross-posting without using extra space'...

I will not cross-post again...
I will not cross-post again...
...

Thanks to those who have responded so far; I will collect some of this stuff and post what I have as a starter for my document in a day or so...

TerryKing wrote:Still there ARE occasions where something has a wider scope; thus the Usenet methods of 'cross-posting without using extra space'...

I understand your feeling about it. However it isn't a space issue, it's an "attention issue": people might invest some of their time in answering your question, while the question might have been answered already in the other thread (which is a waste of their time).

TerryKing wrote:I'm working on helping schools understand how to use Joomla and WHY.

Hi!
I'm working with schools too and I always try to point out the benefits in a short an clear way (like I would do it for children...  )
So the way I would explain it goes like this:

*Content Management is all about content. It gives a school the possibility update the content easily and often.
*Content Management is about communication. Joomla Content Management gives the one the possibility to communicate content to people outside the school (parents...) continually. Parents love to know what happens inside classrooms.
*Joomla Content Management is about working together. It enables more than one teacher to update the content of the website. No one has to be a tech freak to do website updates.
*(Joomla) Content Management is about continuity. You don't need to think about layouts and outfit anymore. Once built well, a layout can last for a long time.... in the best case this is true for a Page Design system too. With the difference that an averange Joomla author user doesn't have access to cange the layout.

The same way I would draw a picture of a Page Design system as I understand it (Dreamweaver, etc..):
*A Page Design system is about how to build a webpage. Worry about layouts, positions, colors, pictures...
*A Page Design system how to build a webpage (now) that helps us communicate (later).
*A Page Design system can be handled just by one person (teacher) in the majority of cases I experienced.

But: To build a Joomla Layout (template) some kind Page Design Program is needed. Or a company to do that. Or a tech freak teacher...

Sorry for my more or less broken English... hope I could help a bit
greetings!
cherchri

cherchri, Your English Ain't Broke: Don't Fix it!!!  Viele Dank!

This is a great explanation, and particularly appropriate to the people I need to explain it to!

Thanks for taking the time to put that together.  I'll be in touch when I want to use that on an Education site...