Website Development on Concrete CMS

Website Development with Concrete CMS

Concrete CMS (formerly concrete5 until 2021) — CMS with built-in inline editor: content is edited directly on the page without separate backend. Architecture based on PHP with Symfony components and Doctrine ORM. Block system allows building pages from ready-made elements without coding knowledge.

Strengths for Development

Concrete CMS makes sense to choose when:

• client or their team edits content themselves without technical knowledge
• need flexible page system with different layouts
• require site hierarchy with different access rights for different sections
• project assumes complex permission system at page level

Site Architecture

Concrete CMS organizes content in page tree. Each page has page type with set of areas, each area contains blocks (Blocks).

Site
├── Home (page type: home)
│   ├── Area: Hero
│   │   └── Block: Image Slider
│   ├── Area: Content
│   │   ├── Block: HTML
│   │   └── Block: Feature List (custom)
│   └── Area: Sidebar
│       └── Block: Form
├── Services (page type: service-list)
│   ├── Development (page type: service-detail)
│   └── Design (page type: service-detail)
└── Contacts (page type: basic-page)

Page Types and Templates

Page Type created in /application/single_pages/ or as full type with template in theme:

// application/single_pages/services.php
// or packages/my-theme/themes/my-theme/page_types/service_detail.php

defined('C5_EXECUTE') or die('Access Denied.');
$view = View::getInstance();
?>
<div class="container">
    <h1><?= $c->getCollectionName() ?></h1>
    <?php
    $a = new Area('Main Content');
    $a->display($c);
    ?>
    <aside>
        <?php
        $sidebar = new Area('Sidebar');
        $sidebar->display($c);
        ?>
    </aside>
</div>

Page Attributes

Attributes (Attributes) — page metadata not tied to blocks:

// Get page attribute
$metaDesc = $c->getAttribute('meta_description');
$heroImage = $c->getAttribute('hero_image');

// In theme template
<meta name="description" content="<?= h($metaDesc) ?>">
<?php if ($heroImage): ?>
<div class="hero" style="background-image: url('<?= $heroImage->getURL() ?>')"></div>
<?php endif; ?>

Attribute types: text, textarea, boolean, select, image, file, date, geolocation, rating, URL.

Permission System

Concrete CMS has detailed ACL permissions — down to individual page level:

// Check permissions in template
$cp = new Permissions($c);
if ($cp->canEditPageContents()) {
    // show edit button
}

// Close page for guests
if (!$u->isLoggedIn()) {
    $response = Redirect::to('/login');
    $response->send();
    exit;
}

User groups with rights to specific site areas are configured without programming via admin interface.

Multilingual Support

Concrete CMS supports multilingual sites via Multilingual Sites. Each language version is separate page subtree:

/en/
/ru/
/de/

Language switching:

$locales = Section::getList();
foreach ($locales as $section) {
    $url = $section->getRelatedPageInLocale($c);
    echo "<a href='{$url}'>{$section->getLanguageText()}</a>";
}

Express Objects: Structured Data

Express (built-in since version 8) — ORM-like mechanism for storing data outside page tree. Like Custom Post Types, but with relational capabilities:

// Create Express Object record programmatically
$entry = Express::buildObject('product', 'Products', 'Product');
$entry->addAttribute('text', 'SKU', 'sku');
$entry->addAttribute('number', 'Price', 'price');
$entry->addAttribute('image', 'Photo', 'photo');
$entry->save();

Record addition form is generated automatically, available via Express Form block.

SEO and Performance

// Custom SEO in template
use Concrete\Core\Page\Page;
use Concrete\Core\Html\Service\Html;

$html = $app->make(Html::class);
$seoTitle = $c->getAttribute('seo_title') ?: $c->getCollectionName();

// Page caching enabled in Dashboard → System → Cache
// Full caching: Full Page Caching (Blocks)

Typical Project Structure

Development Timeline