Updating HTML data, How to show a customer how to keep her Web site up to date? Options

[James]

Some time ago I built a Web site for a computer customer of mine, a Dorper sheep stud (www.lilachilldorpers.com.au – btw it is not quite finished due to lack of input [lack of data] from my customer), and since then I have been updating it, as required, for the lady concerned.

Now she would like to take over the editing of her pages, herself - not the structure or styles, just the data, and I agree with that, since I am currently providing a free service in that regard. If she needs any changes to style or layout, she will come back to me. I think she probably has other sheep stud friends who have created their own Web pages using a commercial WYSIWYG text editor, and who use the same editor to change the data on their sites, and this has prompted her to want to do her own data editng, too.

I coded the CSS style sheet and the HTML documents (with a little help from you guys) - no WYSIWYG editor used here! - so I am not sure how to approach the matter of showing her how to update her data, herself. She is a bright lady and a fairly competent computer user, not expert, but well above "beginner" level - at least “intermediate”. I think if I tell her to leave the Style Sheet alone, but show her the HTML code for the differing pages on a suitable text editor (I use Crimson Editor), and show her how to use an FTP application to upload alterations to her ISP's server, I think she should cope - what do you think? The main reason I am bothering you with this is in case I have overlooked, or am unaware of, some application which will simplify the task of updates for her.

I need to go see her sometime next week and would be grateful for any advice you can give me in the meantime.

Many thanks, James

[Brian Chandler]

<p>If the content is basically text, all she needs to understand is the <idea>idea</idea> of enclosing things in balanced tags - and to do everything by copying the previous version and just changing where necessary.</p>

<p>Any calm and normally competent person can learn to do this, I'm sure...</p>

[Christian J]

Using a text editor might work, except for characters that should be written as HTML entities ( "&" should be "&amp;", etc). A WYSIWYG editor might take care of that (and also manage file transfers), but then you must make sure it doesn't change the HTML and CSS automatically, some (FrontPage?) are notorious for that. Possibly Dreamweaver can be trusted but I have no personal experience.

If the client uses a WYSIWYG editor and becomes tempted to make smaller changes to the HTML (such as adding an item in a list, or dividing a text block in two), it's possible that CLASS attributes will not be copied. E.g., if you have

CODE

<ul>
<li class="foo">Lorem</li>
<li class="foo">Ipsum</li>
</ul>

and the client adds another LI, the result might look like

CODE

<ul>
<li class="foo">Lorem</li>
<li class="foo">Ipsum</li>
<li>Dolor</li>
</ul>

If you instead use

CODE

<ul class="foo">
<li>Lorem</li>
<li>Ipsum</li>
</ul>

adding another LI should work better, at least as long as the HTML editor doesn't begin a completely new list:

CODE

<ul class="foo">
<li>Lorem</li>
<li>Ipsum</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Dolor</li>
</ul>

[pandy]

You are from the old board! I recognize that site.

I have nothing to add.

[James]

You are from the old board! I recognize that site.

I have nothing to add.

Yep ... from the old board ... went away from Web design for a while, but now I am back, still a newbie and even more rusty

Thanks to all who replied to this question. You have confirmed what I felt in the beginning, and that is to stay away from WYSIWYG editors as they have the potential to make a real mess of the site. The customer is an intelligent lady and I think I iwll take the approach that what she sees in the HTML text editor is essentially a template in which she can alter the variable data. For any alterations to the template she should come back to me (or any other Web designer). Once FTP Explorer or one of the other freebies is set up for her, she will have no trouble uploading.

Many thanks, James.

[pandy]

Wubby!

[Christian J]

The customer is an intelligent lady and I think I iwll take the approach that what she sees in the HTML text editor is essentially a template in which she can alter the variable data.

Just make sure she has good mouse control. Some people tend to highlight and delete/copy too little or too much by mistake, that was it's easy to break the HTML syntax. Keeping HTML tags and their content on separate lines might help:

CODE

<p>
Lorem ipsum
</p>

at least as long as browsers don't behave like in http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/all.html#image-nospace

Using lots of comments might help too, so it's clear what every HTML element is for.

[John Pozadzides]

I strongly believe that newbies should use Wordpress as a content management system to avoid having to edit HTML altogether while still maintaining a high degree of compliance and accessibility.

I know that doesn't help much now, but I'd like to recommend that for future projects you look into it because Wordpress is easy to install, configure and use.

John

[Brian Chandler]

I strongly believe that newbies should use Wordpress as a content management system to avoid having to edit HTML altogether while still maintaining a high degree of compliance and accessibility.

I know that doesn't help much now, but I'd like to recommend that for future projects you look into it because Wordpress is easy to install, configure and use.

John

Well, it doesn't help *at all* for the OP's question, but I wonder why Wordpress should be singled out as somehow a "replacement" for writing html documents. I have zero experience of using a CMS, so I'd be grateful if you could explain how in Wordpress one indicates the basic structure in a simple lump of text. Paragraphs, marked bits of text (bold, underline, etc), and how one organises laying out images.

Obviously the idea of a CMS seems good for "blog" content, where essentially the writer has more or less no need of control over layout, but are you saying that all websites should/could be written in Wordpress?

[Peter1968]

I'll throw my $0.02 in and state that Wordpress isn't a CMS. While it can imitate certain portions of a CMS (news posts, syndication, basic downloads system), Wordpress is essentially "Dear Diary" software - let's face it.

It can post news, and requires plug-ins and hacks to really do anything else, which can create problems. If you need a full-blown downloads module, or real and defined user levels, then a CMS is the way to go, not Wordpress.

Wordpress has all the issues that a template-based app (or a CMS) has - mess with that template or add something to the basic mix and you're running the real risk of having an inaccessible website or compatibility issues.

Plus, Wordpress requires PHP and a database, which puts it beyond the reach of many people who don't feel confident with either or can't or won't pay for "proper" hosting to utilise such things. As simple as the WP crew try to pitch it, it is simply an alien idea to many users.

@Brian - essentially, you can post news in Worpdress formatted in a limited HTML set. Bolding, italicising, links, paragraphs, images, etc, but not much else.

Also, Wordpress is on the XHTML gravy train, which is something I personally don't like.

This post has been edited by Peter1968: May 9 2007, 05:27 AM

[Brian Chandler]

@Brian - essentially, you can post news in Worpdress formatted in a limited HTML set. Bolding, italicising, links, paragraphs, images, etc, but not much else.

Right, so the thing I really don't understand is how much simpler this can be than writing html for Bolding, italicising, links, paragraphs, images, and etc[?]. I suspect not at all, really; and if you want to maintain your own website which some friendly developer has created for you, are you going to be able to get that developer to try to do everything in wordpress too.

[The All Powerful]

Right, so the thing I really don't understand is how much simpler this can be than writing html for Bolding, italicising, links, paragraphs, images, and etc[?]. I suspect not at all, really; and if you want to maintain your own website which some friendly developer has created for you, are you going to be able to get that developer to try to do everything in wordpress too.

I'll throw in my two cents on the subject of content management systems, as an amateur who's done CMS & non-CMS based sites for various friends...

CMS (I use Mambo) has advantages where you want to build a site which the site owner wants to be able to update regularly, for example http://www.jdwroughtiron.co.uk where the guy I built it for wanted to be able to add information on a regular basis himself. When the owner wants to add something, he logs into the back-end of the site, selects "add content", and then uses the WYSIWYG editor (which looks very much like the editor on this site for posts) to create the content and link it to the menu. Despite the fact that he's not much of a techie, he only needed a couple of hours of training and a couple of follow up visits to learn how to use it properly. The CMS on the site also means that he can do what he likes and there is no chance at all of him inadvertently destroying the template, since content and presentation are kept completely seperate.

Additionally, if he wants a new feature, like an online shop for example, or a photo gallery, there are various versions already available, and integrating them is as simple as clicking the "add/remove components" button.

HOWEVER, CMS has limitations... It eats server space, generally requires something like PHP/MySQL, which increases your hosting bill, Can cause unexpected quirks in your code, and is overkill for anything that's not going to be updated regularly. Additionally it CAN be a nuisance in terms of teaching people to use it...

To summarise, CMS has its place on sites which you want to be regularly and easily updateable, and have a fair amoutn of web traffic, but are pointless for fairly static pages with low traffic...

Just my two cents