content management

[Vince Morgan]

Hi,
recently I was given the task of redesigning the layout of a
companies website.
Having completed the layout, a problem has begun to raize it's head. My
programming experience prior to this has been with compiled executables.
Having said that, you may understand why I have never had to consider
content management.
From month to month, and at other intervals, the content of some pages will
change. Text, pics etc. The persons responsible for changing it have no
knowledge of the underlying html and css, and to my horror recently began
recreating the front page with some piece of %$$# html editor in order to
update it.
Admittedly I did realize that the content would change from time to time,
but I am a newbie in this field and had/have, no idea how to guide them in
this regard.
Currently I am managing the changing content personaly while I find a
solution, but this cannot continue, as I'm sure you understand.
I'm sure that those of you here with much more experience than I have to
deal with this on a regular basis and some guidance in this regard would be
very highly appreciated.
TIA
Vince Morgan

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

Hi,
recently I was given the task of redesigning the layout of a
companies website.
Having completed the layout, a problem has begun to raize it's head. My
programming experience prior to this has been with compiled executables.
Having said that, you may understand why I have never had to consider
content management.

IMHO you need to contact a professional webdesigner. It's never good
practice to start a redesign without considering all the needs the new
website should satisfy. This is not a question of having a CMS or not,
but more a question of project-management you are facing. You don't need
to start from scratch, but I would ask a professional webdesign agency
to deal with it.

HTH
bernhard

 

[Vince Morgan]

IMHO you need to contact a professional webdesigner. It's never good
practice to start a redesign without considering all the needs the new
website should satisfy. This is not a question of having a CMS or not,
but more a question of project-management you are facing. You don't need
to start from scratch, but I would ask a professional webdesign agency
to deal with it.

HTH
bernhard

I should explain.
I was originaly engaged to write and rewrite some scripts and forms for this
companies database. Parts of the website are dynamic (php) and I was asked
to fix a problem at the backend.
The site was originally created by a webdesign company that specializes in
database integration etc. However, with all undue respect the site was
rubbish in the extreme. The code was almost purely html 1, even thought it
was written in 2005, and the php looked as though a child had written it.
Yes, they got shafted.
They asked me to make an additional page and liked the layout, so piece by
piece I ended up redoing most of the front end.
Web technologies are not my thing and I didn't plan to or expect to find
myself doing this.
However, that was then, and now I need to find a solution.
As much as I agree with your sentiments, it's not an option.
Regards,
Vince Morgan

 

[Chaddy2222]

I should explain.
I was originaly engaged to write and rewrite some scripts and forms for this
companies database. Parts of the website are dynamic (php) and I was asked
to fix a problem at the backend.
The site was originally created by a webdesign company that specializes in
database integration etc. However, with all undue respect the site was
rubbish in the extreme. The code was almost purely html 1, even thought it
was written in 2005, and the php looked as though a child had written it.
Yes, they got shafted.
They asked me to make an additional page and liked the layout, so piece by
piece I ended up redoing most of the front end.
Web technologies are not my thing and I didn't plan to or expect to find
myself doing this.
However, that was then, and now I need to find a solution.
As much as I agree with your sentiments, it's not an option.

If you already know PHP and if you are already useing a DB for parts
of the site. Then just make a CMS (content management system), or just
install one and customise it for your needs. Drupal and PHP Website
are ment to be good, I have used Mambo a little in the past, but some
will be better then others and customiseing them can be a pane.
The other option for more static things would be an includes type
system and to just use a decent WYSIWYG editor, such as KompoZer (the
unofficial bug fix for NVU.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

They asked me to make an additional page and liked the layout, so piece by
piece I ended up redoing most of the front end.
Web technologies are not my thing and I didn't plan to or expect to find
myself doing this.

Hmmm.. I don't want to be offensive, but I have heard such stories in
the past quite many times. It's the typical story of an 'organically'
grown structure of a website.
The needs of a website change, and nobody wants to spend some money,
because someone 'handy' and half-knowledgable is at hands to 'fix' or to
adapt the site to the grown needs.

However, as a professional myself, this is not a fruitful way and leads
to a lot frutstration. Guranteed. As you just seem to witness. The fact,
that you state that 'web technologies are not my thing' should give you
a warning. If it's not your 'thing' then why are you trying to do it? In
many terms this is unwise, and you will provoke probably more harm than
doing good for the company in question. IMHO: ask them to spend some
money on it, hire a pro and let him do it.
It's all a question of priority: if they think of themselves as
professionals in their business, then they should also work with
professionals. If this is not the case, and they don't consider the site
as important for them, then you are on the perfect right track

cheers
bernhard

 

[Vince Morgan]

If you already know PHP and if you are already useing a DB for parts
of the site. Then just make a CMS (content management system), or just
install one and customise it for your needs. Drupal and PHP Website
are ment to be good, I have used Mambo a little in the past, but some
will be better then others and customiseing them can be a pane.
The other option for more static things would be an includes type
system and to just use a decent WYSIWYG editor, such as KompoZer (the
unofficial bug fix for NVU.

Thanks Chad, I'll check them all out ASAP.
Regards,
Vince

 

[Vince Morgan]

Hmmm.. I don't want to be offensive, but I have heard such stories in
the past quite many times. It's the typical story of an 'organically'
grown structure of a website.
The needs of a website change, and nobody wants to spend some money,
because someone 'handy' and half-knowledgable is at hands to 'fix' or to
adapt the site to the grown needs.

However, as a professional myself, this is not a fruitful way and leads
to a lot frutstration. Guranteed. As you just seem to witness. The fact,
that you state that 'web technologies are not my thing' should give you
a warning. If it's not your 'thing' then why are you trying to do it? In
many terms this is unwise, and you will provoke probably more harm than
doing good for the company in question. IMHO: ask them to spend some
money on it, hire a pro and let him do it.
It's all a question of priority: if they think of themselves as
professionals in their business, then they should also work with
professionals. If this is not the case, and they don't consider the site
as important for them, then you are on the perfect right track

cheers
bernhard

No offence taken Bernhard.
I'll relate a short story if I may. Well, I guess I'm going to anyway
The director of this company has a son who is a C/C++ programmer. He is
responsible for coding, and hiring for a relatively large firm that writes
secure transactional software for financial institutions.
Some time back the director told me that his son had told him that he had
recently interviewed over a half dozen candidates for a position as a C
coder. One of these candidates had been coding in C for ten years, and all
of them had impressive qualifications.
He presented them with a block of code consisting of four interelated
functions and asked them to spot the errors. These were very basic errors
that any C programmer should spot immediately.
None, and I do mean not one, found any whatsoever..
I do not consider myself a C programmer, I write mainly C++ and thought I
had probably forgotten most of what I had learned of C long ago. However, I
spotted the errors immediately, and to his (son's) embarrasment also noticed
that he had used an incorrect type for a string length parameter that wasn't
meant to be one of the errors. I still don't consider myself a professional
C programmer by a long shot.

The company paid good money for the site in question and to be perfectly
honest it was a piece of &*$@# by any standards.
So, I think you may be able to understand why this company has very little
faith in "profesional" web developers
My previous experience with html was in the days when a child could learn
all there was to know in the time it takes to peel an orange, and prior to a
certain very large software develloper trying to continualy re-invent the
web wheel for their own commercial purposes. I lost interest rapidly when
that began to happen. And I am to this day quite disgusted with what they
have "achieved" in this regard, and the pain and grief it has caused to real
profesionals like yourself. This is the primary reason I consider it "not
my thing".

As I mentioned previously, I was asked to have a look at an apparently small
problem with some php code on this companies web site. It wasn't difficult
to fix, but having now looked through some of the script I couldn't help
noticing how porely written it was. I then began to look into the html, and
was appalled.
Having related the above I'm sure that you can understand why this company
has very little faith today in web devellopers.
I do realize that there are some extremely articulate and profesional web
devellopers out there, as there are also excellent C programmers, however,
as my dad once said, "there are a lot of fish in the ocean, but sometimes
there's a lot of water between them".

Your are right Bernhard, no doubt about it. And I've had my share of grief
already with this. But I was offered the job of fixing it, and foolishly
perhaps,I accepted the challenge. I'm afraid I am now in this now to the
end, and as much as I agree with your sentiments and judgement, I need to
learn the solutions whether I like it or not.

Thank you again,
Regards,
Vince

 

[Simply Confusing!]

Vince, you may want to check out some Open Source content management
solutions. I use a lot of open-source server-side stuff like PHPBB and
PHPLIST, also OpenOffice's suite of apps.

OS is slowly "coming of age".

Not sure where CMS is at right now, wrt open source, but it may be worth
checking out.

Here's one: http://opensourcecms.com/
Another: http://plone.org/
And good ol' Joomla: http://www.joomla.org/


OR: go to GetAFreelancer.com or any other contact-bid placement center and
hire a coder in India to write you a CMS system from scratch. Competition
is big, prices small.