# What is the best way to approach a CMS?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 8, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370 "2008-03-08T21:49:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370/1 "2008-03-08T21:49:14Z")

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I posted on a question with erb in SQL entries because I’ve been  
building a CMS for my own website. I’ve built them before, but in  
ColdFusion, and I’m not sure how best to approach it in Rails.

Right now, I have a simple database schema:

create\_table “comments”, :force =\> true do |t|  
t.column “post\_id”, :integer  
t.column “created\_at”, :datetime  
t.column “comment”, :text  
end

create\_table “events”, :force =\> true do |t|  
t.column “title”, :string  
t.column “desc”, :text  
end

create\_table “pages”, :force =\> true do |t|  
t.column “title”, :string  
t.column “body”, :text  
end

create\_table “posts”, :force =\> true do |t|  
t.column “title”, :string  
t.column “created\_at”, :datetime  
t.column “body”, :text  
end

create\_table “users”, :force =\> true do |t|  
t.column “name”, :string  
t.column “hashed\_password”, :string  
t.column “salt”, :string  
end

The trouble is with pages. Right now, I just have the page load its  
title and its body, which contains HTML. My problem is I need to have  
pages with different layouts–in particular layouts that use AJAX to  
dynamically load content.

I’m starting to think that maybe I’m structuring this incorrectly.  
I’m just not sure how else to approach structuring the content other  
than SQL entries. Any suggestions as to how a) I can create different  
layouts and b) get some layout functionality in my SQL entries?

For example, I’m looking into liquid. That looks promising. But its  
starting to look unrealistic to load both the content and the layout  
from a SQL entry.

Thoughts?

Ron

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370/2 "2008-03-08T21:57:20Z")

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Ron wrote:

> Right now, I have a simple database schema:
> 
> create\_table “comments”, :force =\> true do |t|  
> t.column “post\_id”, :integer  
> t.column “created\_at”, :datetime  
> t.column “comment”, :text  
> end
> 
> create\_table “events”, :force =\> true do |t|  
> t.column “title”, :string  
> t.column “desc”, :text  
> end
> 
> create\_table “pages”, :force =\> true do |t|  
> t.column “title”, :string  
> t.column “body”, :text  
> end
> 
> create\_table “posts”, :force =\> true do |t|  
> t.column “title”, :string  
> t.column “created\_at”, :datetime  
> t.column “body”, :text  
> end
> 
> create\_table “users”, :force =\> true do |t|  
> t.column “name”, :string  
> t.column “hashed\_password”, :string  
> t.column “salt”, :string  
> end

> Ron

model Comment: check  
model Event: check  
model Post: check  
model User: check  
model Page: wtf???

Your architecture looks very sensible but i don’t have the foggiest as  
to why you would need the Page model… Isn’t the main reason you are  
using rails is to create your pages dynamically? Does page refer to  
something else? What is page needed for?

Hoping to provide further assistance or at least solve the “page”  
mystery… 🙂

ilan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370/3 "2008-03-08T22:09:13Z")

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Well, Ilan post is for the blog page. The blog page is a separate  
controller. The pages controller handles the pages, which are  
basically database entries with a title and a body. I added the page  
controller because I thought I wanted to have a dedicated controller  
for the presentation part of the website. I created an admin  
controller for editing the pages so I could put it behind a login.  
The pages are generated dynamically, as the content is from the page’s  
SQL entry.

Does that make more sense?

Ron

On Mar 8, 12:57 pm, Ilan B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370/4 "2008-03-09T00:36:05Z")

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So maybe the best way to approach it is to use posts as a general  
catch all for text content. Then I could create a few different  
templates and associate the page with one. It would then fill in the  
appropriate content.

What do you think?

Ron

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@ron](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ron)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-approach-a-cms/131370/5 "2008-03-10T03:04:52Z")

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Ron wrote:

> Well, Ilan post is for the blog page. The blog page is a separate  
> controller. The pages controller handles the pages, which are  
> basically database entries with a title and a body. I added the page  
> controller because I thought I wanted to have a dedicated controller  
> for the presentation part of the website. I created an admin  
> controller for editing the pages so I could put it behind a login.  
> The pages are generated dynamically, as the content is from the page’s  
> SQL entry.
> 
> Does that make more sense?
> 
> Ron
> 
> On Mar 8, 12:57 pm, Ilan B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

Ohhh… wait a sec, now I get it, you created the “Page” model as you  
think you needed a Page controller. I think you are absolutely correct  
that you should delegate out the functionality for the pages to a Page  
controller but that doesn’t mean you need to have a page model… I  
think that perhaps you are over engineering it a little… Rails is very  
adaptable to sudden design enhancements and modifications so I would  
start very simple… Probably something like this

1. User model
2. User controller
3. User views
4. User test cases
5. Post model
6. Post controller
7. Post views
8. Post unit test cases
9. Post functional test cases
10. Post/User integration testing
11. Comment model
12. Comment controller
13. Comment unit test cases
14. Comment functional test cases
15. Modify Post views to have comments attached
16. Integration for tests for point 15  
etc…

There is no need to have a heavy up front design, you can just go ahead  
like Dave T. suggests in his Agile book and build up your site  
little by little. The test cases are really key as they will greatly  
speed up your development and make your next steps in the design  
painfully obvious.

My apologies if you already know all this stuff but it sounds like you  
are coming from a more formal coding convention such as a rup, modified  
rup, etc… and rails is much better suited to agile development  
practices…

hth

ilan