Allowing clients to update sites?

ButtermilkJack

Hi,

I'm quite new to web-design so not really sure about this one. I have been asked to develop a site so that various members of the organisation can add/edit content on a small number of pages.

The site is hosted on eircom.net free servers and plans to stay that way. Also budget is an issue so fancy Macromedia software is a no no unfortunately.

Is there any easy way to do this? It would literally be for 2 or 3 pages max!, and purely text and/or images.

BTW the site is built with validated XHTML and CSS and I would like to see it stay compliant if possible (ie: not allow client to change design/style of site in any way)

Cheers!

Seth Brundle

You could make it database driven and allow the client to add/edit/delete in articles, etc. However, this may not be cost efficient for you.
There are a load of free xhtml wysiwyg type editors out there

seamus

I'm not sure if it would be possbile to create pages that allow them to add their own content and then it appears on the page, without moving to a proper web host, or paying eircom.net more.

If it's a money-paying organisation, you're probably better off getting an account with a host who supports server-side languages like PHP or ASP.

At a stretch, you can write your default page, show them where they stick in their content, and allow them to upload the page to your server.

But there's no real way of preventing them from editing the style or HTML.

JustHalf

From what I can remember, Eircom's free package is a right pain in the ass for dynamic stuff. I would recommend moving to another host. You should be able to get alright hosting quite cheaply.

Hosting365 are only a 100 euro a year, and offer a far more useful service than eircom free does. They also can charge monthly (around a tenner a month with a twenty-quid set up charge).

You might be able to get cheaper hosting somewhere else if you look hard enough, or if someone else recommends something else.

Ph3n0m

ButtermilkJack wrote:

Hi,

I'm quite new to web-design so not really sure about this one. I have been asked to develop a site so that various members of the organisation can add/edit content on a small number of pages.

The site is hosted on eircom.net free servers and plans to stay that way. Also budget is an issue so fancy Macromedia software is a no no unfortunately.

Is there any easy way to do this? It would literally be for 2 or 3 pages max!, and purely text and/or images.

BTW the site is built with validated XHTML and CSS and I would like to see it stay compliant if possible (ie: not allow client to change design/style of site in any way)

Cheers!

Your first problem is that eircom's free webspace does not allow for any kind of database run website.

And even though eircom allow you to run CGI scripts, as far as I remember, they have to approve any kind of CGI/perl script that you upload to their servers (that would have to be checked out)

Eircom's free space is a no frills plain webspace for storing html files and images - that is essentially it.


There are plenty of decent hosting companies out there, Hosting 365 was mentioned, here are the urls of some companies

www.blacknight.ie
www.hosting365.ie
www.host.ie
to name but 3 - there are others, shop around and get the best value for money for your client

ButtermilkJack

Thanks a lot folks, much appreciated.

I reckon I'll try hit 'em for another 100 quid and go for a superior hosting package. Makes more sense in the long run...

Thanks again!!

JustHalf

Remember that that's a yearly cost.

ChicoMendez

You cant beat www.powweb.com for bandwidth/space - superb value too!

The Corinthian

ButtermilkJack wrote:

The site is hosted on eircom.net free servers and plans to stay that way. Also budget is an issue so fancy Macromedia software is a no no unfortunately.

I'll be honnest, with big spenders like this, I'd probably tell them to come back when they're serious. If they don't want to spend €60 on hosting with PHP & MySQL, I'd hate to know how much they're paying you.

You can't use a server side database/scripting if hosted on eircom.net free servers, so it'll have to be done client side and uploaded. The only way of doing this, off the top of my head, would be to give them some application that they can use to generate pages, based upon a template, locally and then upload them. There might be something out there available if you Google for it, otherwise it would be very easy to code up in VB.

The Corinthian

Ph3n0m wrote:

to name but 3 - there are others, shop around and get the best value for money for your client

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57012

MrVestek

There's a deal on at www.dreamhost.com

Not sure if it's run out yet or not but basically they're offering 2.4 gigs of webspace and a free domain name for about $120 a year. Not bad you might say, but here's a little tip, enter 777 as a special promotional code and ya get the whole shebang for just over $9!!!

Score or what?

Seth Brundle

Achilles wrote:

There's a deal on at www.dreamohosting.com

I get a 404 with that (also tried dreamhosting.com)

Achilles wrote:

Score or what?

what

Ph3n0m

The Corinthian wrote:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57012

thnks Corinthian, I knew there was a page with a list of links - just couldnt be arsed to find it

MrVestek

Sorry my bad, it's www.dreamhost.com
I amended that in my original post.

ChicoMendez

Achilles wrote:

Sorry my bad, it's www.dreamhost.com
I amended that in my original post.

Whats thier support like??

MrVestek

Extremely good. Although to be honest i've had the account for about 2 weeks now (but the site only went up about 2 days ago as I didn't have time) and i haven't had any trouble since setting it up.

The forums are excellent and other users can help u out if u have a problem. I've checked reviews and that and they very rarely have any downtime. The only issue i've heard of so far is that once a month or so MySQL will go down for about 10 minutes during whatever day it happens to happen. But... in all honesty nobody will really notice unless you're running a very database intensive site.

Seth Brundle

did you get your domain separatley or did they register it for you? I see you are the full owner though.

MrVestek

They register it for you. All nice and simple...

Cork Skate

ButtermilkJack wrote:

various members of the organisation can add/edit content on a small number of pages.

Tell them to get themselves round to www.wikipedia.org

MrVestek

How is that relevent to this thread? Or his problem for that matter?

mneylon

If you want to be able to offer your clients a CMS then there are a number of options available. Our site was done using Typo3 and it very easy to update and manage. The standard settings are not fully XHTML compliant, but it can be "beaten" into submission

Regarding domain registration - make sure that the domain is in your client's name and NOT in the name of the hosting company.