Written by Heather Floyd All umbraco versionsReference
What umbraco is, what you need, how to get started.
Some very basic info about umbraco:
umbraco is an ASP.Net open-source Content Management System (CMS)(written in C#).
Slightly expanded...
umbraco is optimized for the presentation of human-readable and human-editable website content. It is a completely customizable system - in other words, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING with umbraco, it's just a matter of how and if you need to use technologies outside of the basic umbraco framework.
umbraco is written using ASP.Net technology, but to create a website in umbraco you don't need to know anything about programming in ASP.Net, or C#. You can create your entire website in umbraco's web-based interface. (Check out some of the cool How-To articles for screenshots of the umbraco interface.)
Stuff you can do with umbraco's interface (not at all a comprehensive list!):
- Create document types with whatever properties you want
- Add/edit content on your site
- Set your XHTML and CSS templates for different document types
- Upload and use photos and other images
- Create a basic membership system, to allow logged in people to view certain sections of your site
- Create separate user accounts with customizable permissions to access the back-end to write, edit and publish content
- Have a multi-lingual site
- Create dynamic navigation and pull your content dynamically (aka showing "latest" items on the homepage)
- Have your site consume RSS feeds
There are however, cool things you can do with your umbraco site if you know ASP.Net:
- Integrate with external systems
- Use web services
- Create custom ASP.Net user controls and use them in umbraco pages
If you can program it, you can do it...
Read on for more about the technical and skills requirements...