Need help: simple way for newbie to update a page

[Jim Royal]

A while ago, I put up a site for a client that had a very simple
mechanism for providing a small bit of dynamic content. I'm looking for
something better.

The front page of the site has a weekly specials column. The entire
site is unchanging aside from this small list of sales. I didn't feel
that a CMS for such a simple site was warrented (and the client
previously had a bad experience with a proprietary CMS and was leery of
it). So I created a text file for the specials that I include using
SSI. The text file is formated like this:

<p>Item name</p>
<p>Item details</p>
<p class="price">Item price</p>

And so on. It was my intention that a secretary could update this page
on a regular basis with an hour of training. Six months later, we're
finally getting around to training her.

However, it now looks like the company wants to create customized
landing pages for some of its clients. And I'm thinking that while
updating one such text file would be manageable for the secretary,
multiple ones might easily confuse her.

So I'm looking for suggestions. The vast majority of the site will
remain static. There's no need to rebuild the site using a CMS. But is
there anything that would make this small amount of updating easier on
the company's staff?

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Jim Royal quothed

A while ago, I put up a site for a client that had a very simple
mechanism for providing a small bit of dynamic content. I'm looking for
something better.

The front page of the site has a weekly specials column. The entire
site is unchanging aside from this small list of sales. I didn't feel
that a CMS for such a simple site was warrented (and the client
previously had a bad experience with a proprietary CMS and was leery of
it). So I created a text file for the specials that I include using
SSI. The text file is formated like this:

<p>Item name</p>
<p>Item details</p>
<p class="price">Item price</p>

And so on. It was my intention that a secretary could update this page
on a regular basis with an hour of training. Six months later, we're
finally getting around to training her.

However, it now looks like the company wants to create customized
landing pages for some of its clients. And I'm thinking that while
updating one such text file would be manageable for the secretary,
multiple ones might easily confuse her.

So I'm looking for suggestions. The vast majority of the site will
remain static. There's no need to rebuild the site using a CMS. But is
there anything that would make this small amount of updating easier on
the company's staff?

Uh, what's a "CMS"?

 

[Wÿrm]

"Neredbojias" <[email protected]> kirjoitti
viestissä:[email protected]...

Uh, what's a "CMS"?

Content Management System

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Wÿrm quothed

Content Management System

Thanks, Wyrm. (I really didn't know though probably should've figured
it out.) Glad it wasn't anything like "PMS".

 

[chrcollins]

...
I didn't feel that a CMS for such a simple site was warrented (and
the client previously had a bad experience with a proprietary CMS
and was leery of it).

it now looks like the company wants to create customized
landing pages for some of its clients.

The vast majority of the site will
remain static. There's no need to rebuild the site using a CMS. But is
there anything that would make this small amount of updating easier on
the company's staff?

It seems like anything you do *will* be a CMS. There's no need to
completely overhaul the site, just set up a system that will simplify
updating for the things that need updated.

 

[data64]

And so on. It was my intention that a secretary could update this page
on a regular basis with an hour of training. Six months later, we're
finally getting around to training her.

However, it now looks like the company wants to create customized
landing pages for some of its clients. And I'm thinking that while
updating one such text file would be manageable for the secretary,
multiple ones might easily confuse her.

Will the information that needs to updated on the landing pages be the same
or is it vastly different for each page. If it is the same, then something
like server side includes would work.

data64

 

[Jim Royal]

Will the information that needs to updated on the landing pages be the same
or is it vastly different for each page. If it is the same, then something
like server side includes would work.

I'm already using Server Side Includes, as I stated in my original
posting.

The issue is coming up with a simple mechanism that allows a
non-HTML-savvy person to make these small changes. This is a situation
where a full-blown publishing engine is overkill.

 

[Robert Frost-Bridges]

Jim Royal wrote:

[...]

The issue is coming up with a simple mechanism that allows a
non-HTML-savvy person to make these small changes. This is a situation
where a full-blown publishing engine is overkill.

Write out the data from a mysql database via php. If you look at the address
in my sig, the news items on the home page are done this way. A
non-HTML-savvy friend of mine logs in to an admin site where he can type
into <input>'s and <textarea>'s. When he clicks 'Send' the db is updated
and thus the page. The relevant php is merely slotted in to the html of the
site preserving the original styling (such as it is ). It's actually
slowly built up to a situation where he can now easily update most of the
site without my intervention.
hth


regards,