How do deal with inherited website.

Black Dog

With apologies, as I am a complete newcomer to website editing, but I can think of no better place to pose my questions:

http://www.irishgardenplantsociety.com/

This is the website of the Irish Garden Plant Society and its care is being passed into my hands. To date, any updates were done by a person who used html but I have absolutely no experience with this.

It is my hope that you can recommend an easy to use website editing programme for me. I don't mind paying for one - the society will pick up the tab.

Adobe Dreamweaver was recommended. Frontpage was mentioned also. I don't know which might better suit my needs.

My little background reading to date indicates that it would be a help to know what programme was used originally to create the website. I don't even know who made it never mind what programme was used. I realise that people experienced in web design might be able to identify the programme used.

My intention is to add material to the site - descriptions of plants with photographs, book reviews, notes on garden visits with photographs, photo albums of events.

The hope is that the site might attract new people to the organisation as well as inform present members though, and I don't think I will hurt any feelings by saying this, the age profile of present members is certainly on the old side and they might not be the most regular users of websites.

Any help/comments/advice would be most welcome - I can already hear a "I'd scrap what you have and start again" coming but that would simply pose another set of problems for me. So, if you don't mind, advice on making the most of what I have for the moment.

My thanks if you have had the patience to read this far and I look forward to your comments.

mneylon

Frontpage is defunct

I think Microsoft have a newer editor that might be viable, though I've no idea on costs

Dreamweaver is very good, but will cost you a lot of $$$$

Black Dog

Many thanks for your reply.

I have seen Dreamweaver priced at 149.99 Euro. Will it do what I want it to? And be suitable for a person of no previous experience in web design/editing?

amen

While you can certainly teach yourself html and web design I'd suggest you bite the bullet and get someone to convert the website to a common Content Management System (CMS). The CMS allows you the end user to easily and quickly add new article change the text etc just as you would in MS Word without having to know any programming.

sf80

amen wrote: »

While you can certainly teach yourself html and web design I'd suggest you bite the bullet and get someone to convert the website to a common Content Management System (CMS). The CMS allows you the end user to easily and quickly add new article change the text etc just as you would in MS Word without having to know any programming.

I'd agree, that site looks like it would fit well into Wordpress

Black Dog

I just love practical comment and advice. My sincerest thanks. Much appreciated.

Is it a big deal to change the site to common Content Management System?

TonyStark

Black Dog wrote: »

I just love practical comment and advice. My sincerest thanks. Much appreciated.

Is it a big deal to change the site to common Content Management System?

You can get it setup pretty easily, plenty of guides on how do do it.

The real task here is loading the information into the CMS. The key factor is the amount of content you have.

Black Dog

Many thanks, Tony.

To be honest, I don't understand all the advice I have been given but it puts me on to something I can learn.

Very kind of you.

sf80

If you set up something like Wordpress you will have a blank slate to start from. It comes with all you need to create pages, blogs, user authentication etc. You can extend it with all sorts of modules as well.

You would have two main steps for migrating the current site, one is the look and the other is your page content.

For the look you need to create a Wordpress theme, or download a free one and use as-is or modify it to suit.

Your existing content looks quite simple, I think you would mostly just have to create a new page in WP, then past your content into it - it's very easy.

Wordpress is easy to install too, but it can depend very much on the type of hosting you have. Some companies will provide an easy installed for common apps like Wordpress (Blacknight has a great app system - I'm not affiliated, but I use them).

Trojan

How you should approach it depends on the amount of time you have available for the project, your budget, your technical skills, and your contacts who might have technical skills.

One possible way of approaching the project is:

1) Create a simple CMS template based on existing site. (~€150-300 or ~3 hours work)
2) Install CMS at temporary location, migrate all site content into CMS with template. (~€200-500 or ~4-6 hours work)
3) Go live with CMS site, redirect old page (~€150-300 or ~3 hours work)
..
4) Design/develop new CMS template with modern standards (html5, CSS page layout) and switch over later. (~€150-1500+ depending on approach, if custom design required etc.)

Costs are estimates only. You can postpone stage 4 if you're happy with keeping the same site design, but you might run into issues with that so good to switch to new design when it's affordable.

Note: personally I would choose WordPress as the CMS, but you could choose another like Drupal, Joomla, Expression Engine if you are more familiar with them. Costs might be higher if it's a less popular CMS.

Black Dog

Many, many thanks for your comments. I hope to make contact with the person who designed the site. It was done for free as his mother has been very involved in the garden club.

tatrman

Black Dog wrote: »

With apologies, as I am a complete newcomer to website editing, but I can think of no better place to pose my questions:

http://www.irishgardenplantsociety.com/

This is the website of the Irish Garden Plant Society and its care is being passed into my hands. To date, any updates were done by a person who used html but I have absolutely no experience with this.

It is my hope that you can recommend an easy to use website editing programme for me. I don't mind paying for one - the society will pick up the tab.

Adobe Dreamweaver was recommended. Frontpage was mentioned also. I don't know which might better suit my needs.

My little background reading to date indicates that it would be a help to know what programme was used originally to create the website. I don't even know who made it never mind what programme was used. I realise that people experienced in web design might be able to identify the programme used.

My intention is to add material to the site - descriptions of plants with photographs, book reviews, notes on garden visits with photographs, photo albums of events.

The hope is that the site might attract new people to the organisation as well as inform present members though, and I don't think I will hurt any feelings by saying this, the age profile of present members is certainly on the old side and they might not be the most regular users of websites.

Any help/comments/advice would be most welcome - I can already hear a "I'd scrap what you have and start again" coming but that would simply pose another set of problems for me. So, if you don't mind, advice on making the most of what I have for the moment.

My thanks if you have had the patience to read this far and I look forward to your comments.

Hi, I can see why are you getting replies like scrap and start again. It's all done as table and no CSS. Once you start converting the site to common CMS you will quickly realize that you need code it again. But don't be too disappointed if you are sure about the look and feel it is already a big help you don't need to think about design and layout.
The site looks clean and simple and any standard CMS with little tweaking would do the job.

Black Dog

I needed that bit of encouragement as I was beginning to feel a little swamped by all that was being suggested - now, I realise this is most likely because of my lack of experience and those with experience would most probably not be daunted at all but it just looks like a big uphill struggle at the moment. Fortunately, I have been offered help by a friend who designed and maintains a similar but much larger site so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Many thanks to all for taking the time to offer very valuable and appreciated comment. Very kind of you all; greatly appreciated.