Website Development on Craft CMS

Website Development with CMS Craft CMS

Craft CMS is a PHP/Yii-based CMS with source code on GitHub, running on MySQL or PostgreSQL. It stands out with a flexible field system, powerful Twig templater, built-in multi-site support and localization. It occupies the niche between WordPress (too limited for complex structures) and fully custom solutions.

Strengths of Craft CMS

Matrix Fields — content blocks of arbitrary structure within a field, similar to WordPress Gutenberg, but with code rather than UI constructor. Allows building page builder without plugins.

Sections — three types: Channel (blog, news), Structure (page hierarchy), Single (single pages). Each Section has its own Entry Types with different field sets.

Relations — native two-way relationships between Entries of any types.

Live Preview — the editor sees changes in real-time in an iframe with the actual page.

Typical Site Architecture

Sections:
├── Homepage (Single)
│   └── Entry Type: homepage
│       └── Fields: hero (Matrix), about (Matrix), stats (Table)
│
├── Services (Structure)
│   └── Entry Type: service
│       └── Fields: intro (Text), features (Matrix), cta (Object)
│
├── Blog (Channel)
│   ├── Entry Type: article
│   │   └── Fields: body (Matrix), author (Users), tags (Tags)
│   └── Entry Type: video
│       └── Fields: videoUrl (URL), transcript (Redactor)
│
└── Team (Channel)
    └── Entry Type: teamMember
        └── Fields: role (Text), bio (Redactor), photo (Assets)

Matrix Field — Foundation of Flexible Layout

Matrix Field contains blocks of different types. Example of a pageContent field:

Block Types:
├── richText: body (Redactor)
├── imageBlock: image (Assets), caption (Text), alignment (Select)
├── codeBlock: code (Code), language (Select)
├── quote: text (Text), author (Text), role (Text)
├── cta: title (Text), text (Text), buttonLabel (Text), buttonUrl (URL)
└── gallery: images (Assets multiple), columns (Select 2/3/4)

In Twig template:

{% for block in entry.pageContent.all() %}
  {% switch block.type %}
    {% case "richText" %}
      <div class="prose">{{ block.body }}</div>

    {% case "imageBlock" %}
      <figure class="image-block align-{{ block.alignment }}">
        {% set image = block.image.one() %}
        {% if image %}
          <img src="{{ image.getUrl('large') }}"
               alt="{{ image.alt }}"
               width="{{ image.width }}"
               height="{{ image.height }}">
          {% if block.caption %}
            <figcaption>{{ block.caption }}</figcaption>
          {% endif %}
        {% endif %}
      </figure>

    {% case "cta" %}
      <div class="cta-block">
        <h3>{{ block.title }}</h3>
        <p>{{ block.text }}</p>
        <a href="{{ block.buttonUrl }}" class="btn">{{ block.buttonLabel }}</a>
      </div>

    {% case "gallery" %}
      <div class="gallery cols-{{ block.columns }}">
        {% for image in block.images.all() %}
          <img src="{{ image.getUrl('medium') }}" alt="{{ image.alt }}">
        {% endfor %}
      </div>
  {% endswitch %}
{% endfor %}

Queries via ElementQuery

{# Latest posts with pagination #}
{% set query = craft.entries()
  .section('blog')
  .type('article')
  .status('live')
  .orderBy('postDate desc')
  .limit(12) %}

{% set totalPosts = query.count() %}
{% set posts = query.offset(pageInfo.offset).all() %}

{% for post in posts %}
  {% include '_components/post-card' with { post: post } %}
{% endfor %}

{% if pageInfo.totalPages > 1 %}
  {% include '_components/pagination' %}
{% endif %}

Image Transformations

{# Transformations — Named Transforms or inline #}
{% set transform = {
  width: 1200,
  height: 630,
  mode: 'crop',
  position: 'center-center',
  format: 'webp',
  quality: 85
} %}

<picture>
  <source
    srcset="{{ entry.heroImage.one().getUrl({ width: 800, format: 'webp' }) }} 800w,
            {{ entry.heroImage.one().getUrl({ width: 1600, format: 'webp' }) }} 1600w"
    type="image/webp">
  <img
    src="{{ entry.heroImage.one().getUrl(transform) }}"
    alt="{{ entry.heroImage.one().alt }}"
    loading="lazy">
</picture>

Plugin Ecosystem

Development Timeline