Simple CMS...the first step takening

[KevinM1]

This will be my first attempt at using OOP to make a fully functional, real project.  The law firm at which my brother works wants their site redone, and he suggested me.  Unfortunately, most of my PHP experience is in the form of writing code that modifies/improves existing systems.  I've never created one from scratch before.

 

The firm's site already has a simple CMS.  One that allows one of the secretaries to add a new lawyer bio and/or text for other pages, but not the ability to add items to the navigation menu or change any of the existing main graphics.  I believe, however, that they can add images to the pages (such as a new laywer's photo).

 

There doesn't appear to be too much in the way of database info.  Most of the pages on the current site appear to be static, from what I can see.  With the exception of the admin area - which is where the secretary goes to add/modify pages on the site - there's no membership to speak of.

 

I'm thinking, for the public side of the site, to use a Front Controller.  Would I need anything else?  In particular, are there any other patterns I should think of (Registry, Command, etc)?

 

The admin backend seems a bit more tricky.  Obviously, there needs to be a simple login system, but I'm having trouble trying to see how to handle both the creation of new pages, and the editing of existing pages.  In particular, how would I handle the text input?  Simple textarea field?  Embedded TinyMCE editor?  Something else?  What about a file naming scheme?  Should I just use a numeric id (probably the easiest in terms of mapping the files to the database)?  Something more user friendly?  This is the part that will trip me up the most, so any input here would be greatly appreciated.

[mkoga]

Why not store page content in the db? Or skipping the db and map url data to files. Try taking a look at some other cms to see what they are doing. I've looked at drupal before, it gave a lot of insight.