Automating website maintenance

[Paul E. Schoen]

I have volunteered to take over website maintenance for the Sierra Club
Greater Baltimore Group, and I also want to replace its present
implementation http://maryland.sierraclub.org/Baltimore with one that has
the general appearance and functionality of the one for the Montgomery
group: http://maryland.sierraclub.org/Montgomery.

I cloned the Montgomery site and made some changes to reflect the updated
version, and my efforts so far can be seen at
http://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/. I am familiar with some basic HTML and
JavaScript but this project will be a learning experience for me. So far I
have just made changes to content and I have tried to simplify some of the
documents that will need frequent updating, such as upcoming events and
status reports. These files are
http://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/frame_events.htm and
http://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/Sierra_Club_events.htm. These are just
preliminary templates to which I will need to add much more information.

BTW, it seems that the drop-down lists on my website do not work as smoothly
as on the Montgomery site. I'm not sure what the problem there may be,
unless the embedded youtube movie (which replaced a slideshow) is somehow
confusing the OnBlur event that should roll up the drop-down menu.

What I would like to do is set up a system whereby other members may add
content without actually editing the HTML, and also minimize my involvement.
I can envision a form that may be filled in with required fields such as
title, date, location, and details, and then converted to HTML to be added
to the appropriate file(s). And I'd also like to be able to automatically
cull items that are older than the present date, and perhaps moved to an
archive file.

I realize that I will need to familiarize myself with form submission
through CGI applications on the ISP server, to have the content emailed to
me, or I will need to set up a way to have the server side file updated
directly. And this should probably be password protected and notification of
updates should be sent to me for review.

Before embarking on this project, I'd appreciate some ideas to point me in
the right direction. There may be some existing applications that will do
what I need without reinventing the wheel. And perhaps this discussion may
be better placed in the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html newsgroup,
although a quick look there does not look too promising. There is a thread
on "Easier way to edit my website" but it's not about what I am looking for.

TIA,

Paul

 

[Captain Paralytic]

I have volunteered to take over website maintenance for the Sierra Club
Greater Baltimore Group, and I also want to replace its present
implementationhttp://maryland.sierraclub.org/Baltimorewith one that has
the general appearance and functionality of the one for the Montgomery
group:http://maryland.sierraclub.org/Montgomery.

I cloned the Montgomery site and made some changes to reflect the updated
version, and my efforts so far can be seen athttp://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/. I am familiar with some basic HTML and
JavaScript but this project will be a learning experience for me. So far I
have just made changes to content and I have tried to simplify some of the
documents that will need frequent updating, such as upcoming events and
status reports. These files arehttp://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/frame_e...mart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/Sierra_Club_events.htm. These are just
preliminary templates to which I will need to add much more information.

BTW, it seems that the drop-down lists on my website do not work as smoothly
as on the Montgomery site. I'm not sure what the problem there may be,
unless the embedded youtube movie (which replaced a slideshow) is somehow
confusing the OnBlur event that should roll up the drop-down menu.

What I would like to do is set up a system whereby other members may add
content without actually editing the HTML, and also minimize my involvement.
I can envision a form that may be filled in with required fields such as
title, date, location, and details, and then converted to HTML to be added
to the appropriate file(s). And I'd also like to be able to automatically
cull items that are older than the present date, and perhaps moved to an
archive file.

I realize that I will need to familiarize myself with form submission
through CGI applications on the ISP server, to have the content emailed to
me, or I will need to set up a way to have the server side file updated
directly. And this should probably be password protected and notificationof
updates should be sent to me for review.

Before embarking on this project, I'd appreciate some ideas to point me in
the right direction. There may be some existing applications that will do
what I need without reinventing the wheel. And perhaps this discussion may
be better placed in the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.htmlnewsgroup,
although a quick look there does not look too promising. There is a thread
on "Easier way to edit my website" but it's not about what I am looking for.

TIA,

Paul

Basically you want a CMS and it has nothing whatsoever to do with
Javascript

 

[Jesse]

I have volunteered to take over website maintenance for the Sierra Club
Greater Baltimore Group, and I also want to replace its present
implementationhttp://maryland.sierraclub.org/Baltimorewith one that has
the general appearance and functionality of the one for the Montgomery
group:http://maryland.sierraclub.org/Montgomery.

I cloned the Montgomery site and made some changes to reflect the updated
version, and my efforts so far can be seen athttp://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/. I am familiar with some basic HTML and
JavaScript but this project will be a learning experience for me. So far I
have just made changes to content and I have tried to simplify some of the
documents that will need frequent updating, such as upcoming events and
status reports. These files arehttp://www.smart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/frame_e...mart.net/~pstech/SCGBG/Sierra_Club_events.htm. These are just
preliminary templates to which I will need to add much more information.

BTW, it seems that the drop-down lists on my website do not work as smoothly
as on the Montgomery site. I'm not sure what the problem there may be,
unless the embedded youtube movie (which replaced a slideshow) is somehow
confusing the OnBlur event that should roll up the drop-down menu.

What I would like to do is set up a system whereby other members may add
content without actually editing the HTML, and also minimize my involvement.
I can envision a form that may be filled in with required fields such as
title, date, location, and details, and then converted to HTML to be added
to the appropriate file(s). And I'd also like to be able to automatically
cull items that are older than the present date, and perhaps moved to an
archive file.

I realize that I will need to familiarize myself with form submission
through CGI applications on the ISP server, to have the content emailed to
me, or I will need to set up a way to have the server side file updated
directly. And this should probably be password protected and notificationof
updates should be sent to me for review.

Before embarking on this project, I'd appreciate some ideas to point me in
the right direction. There may be some existing applications that will do
what I need without reinventing the wheel. And perhaps this discussion may
be better placed in the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.htmlnewsgroup,
although a quick look there does not look too promising. There is a thread
on "Easier way to edit my website" but it's not about what I am looking for.

TIA,

Paul

I think your correct that this isn't the appropriate newsgroup to be
posting in.
Javascript is "typically" client side only, and what you're requiring
is a Content Management System (CMS), of which there is an abundance
of. CMS's use serverside scripting such as PHP or ASP.net and a
database system like mySQL or MS SQL server to store data persistently
on the server.

 

[Paul E. Schoen]

Basically you want a CMS and it has nothing whatsoever to do with
Javascript

I found a huge list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems Does anyone
have any recommendations?

A couple years ago I used a CMS called Atomz, but it seems to have morphed
into a search engine tool. I found it rather cumbersome and limiting.

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Jesse]

I found a huge list:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systemsDoes anyone
have any recommendations?

Depends some what on your level of experience and also what sever side
language your host has.
But if you have PHP and mySQL (I'll probably get shot down for saying
this) I'd recommend looking at wordPress.
It has a large community, heaps of extensions and pretty straight
forward

 

[Paul E. Schoen]

I found a huge
list:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systemsDoes
anyone
have any recommendations?

Depends some what on your level of experience and also what sever side
language your host has.
But if you have PHP and mySQL (I'll probably get shot down for saying
this) I'd recommend looking at wordPress.
It has a large community, heaps of extensions and pretty straight
forward

=======================================================================

I tried a demo with www.DotCMS.com which is written in Java and can use
MySQL as well as other databases such as postgreSQL. I installed it as a
windows service and I can use it through http://localhost, but I'm having
problems getting it to recognize /admin. It should be the same as when I go
to http://demo.dotcms.org/admin which asks for a user name and password and
allows changes to be made. It seems like a very powerful system as I suppose
most CMS are, but I'd like to have something really simple and I think it
could be implemented fairly easily by someone familiar with server side
programming. I also think it could be done with JavaScript. I could probably
do it using the WSH for local website updates but I don't know how to
implement it on the server side.

I'll take a look at WordPress. Thanks.

Paul

 

[Paul E. Schoen]

However, this is pretty much off-topic for this group, so let us
not continue this discussion here. You can post to
http://winhlp.com/ , if you like, or find a better-suited
newsgroup.

Hans-Georg

p.s. I saw only later that you multi-posted your message to
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html . Please don't do that.
Learn proper cross-posting.

Thanks for the information. I only posted on the other newsgroup when I got
a reply here that it was not really on-topic. If you read the last paragraph
of the post you will see that I explained that I was directed there from
this newsgroup. I very rarely cross-post or multi-post, and that is usually
when I do not notice multiple newsgroups in the message to which I reply.

Paul