CMS - a perspective

CMS, the content management system, may have all kinds of various names. But it is mean to organize the information.

After years of effort try to organize information, I came to a system that I think I would like to have at this point. I have to say this in a reserved way since people grow and there might be better way that I haven't envision yet.

There is no new idea here. I think all the features I am going to mention have exist in one system or the other and people may already have and using it. My intention is simply to point out my thoughts and it may benefit readers that haven't have their idea system yet.

I am envision a wiki like system with necessary securities and I think this idea can extended to file system of today's computer.


Personally, I think a lot of people are like me that kept document in computers, some at home and some at work. Personally I also have web spaces that I kept my notes.

For documents that I kept in computers, I organize them info folders and in each folder I would have a _ReadMe.txt file that describes things related to document in the current folder. In order to manage documents, I also use links if a document need to present in multiple folders based on the organizing logic.

On the web, I use a Wiki to keep my notes so that I can access from anywhere. This is important to me since I may come up with ideas at the work while it is not appropriate for the work by is totally OK for personal pursuit. Of cause, it can go the other way too. Therefore, it benefits not just the work but also personal life - Credit to my former boss, Steve Brown. He never prevent me from pursuing career outside my work place and he did mentioned that it benefits both.

One important feature of the Wiki is that it allows user to create linked page easily. It is, therefore, very easy to create a tree/graph like data structure. For example, I start the Wiki with ME as the beginning. I then create links to pages based on my roles - As a member of the family, as an employee of a company, as a citizen of a city, as a citizen of a state...etc. Each page can then link to other topics related to topic of the page. For example, under the citizen of a city, you can have link and note to, say, city government, legislature, TV stations, news papers ... etc.

Thinking the Wiki and my folder-organization in the computer, it occurs to me that the system I wanted is that of the Wiki with storage/upload - a lot of Wiki system do allow you to upload files - it just that I never enable the feature.

Thinking back, I remember there was a period of time, Windows is allowing user to create a html file in each folder and the html file will be opened by default when user navigated to that folder. As you can see this is almost idea to what I wanted if I spend enough time to build those html files - I am not sure if Windows still have this capability build in.

The other concept exhibits in this Wiki-storage system is that I really don't care where the upload file are stored - as long as I can access them via links.

So does the idea of folder obsolete? I think not. But I like to mention the idea of virtual or logical folder as existed in Hyland's OnBase product. The logical folder is created based on user's organization logic and not the physical location of the file in the file system. This made the logic folder a very good fit to the Wiki-storage system. As OnBase did, the content of the folder can be dynamically updated, based on criteria you set, as files are added to the organization system. For example, if you have a Wiki page that shows your personal music collection, it will be nice that when you add a file, it automatically show that new file. So, for Wiki-storage, this is a feature to be added.

As to the computer OS, the logical folder should be what most people wanted since most user really don't know or care where and how files are stored.