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blazemore
January 20th, 2010, 03:09 PM
Hi all,

I run a small website for a client, and he often needs to put bulletins up on the home page, just simple things like "Sorry, we're closed tomorrow night"

At the moment, he emails me and I edit the page and put it up. Waste of everyone's time.
What's the easiest way to allow him to have a bulletin at the top of the page that he can change really easily (preferably by emailing a special address), bearing in mind this guy knows NOTHING about computers.

My initial ideas are Twitter (Message length too restricted)
and Cutenews (Too complicated / overkill)
A custom solution (I'd have to learn PHP)

airtonix
January 20th, 2010, 03:17 PM
nevermind.

Nerd King
January 20th, 2010, 03:17 PM
I've given clients a simple php-driven admin area for years, and even the clueless ones didn't manage to mess anything up too badly :)

blazemore
January 20th, 2010, 03:18 PM
I can't justify porting a site over to a new CMS

Xbehave
January 20th, 2010, 03:21 PM
Php/python/etc to parse a file (at runtime)
An existing CMS
A simple script that (at "compile" time to create a valid HTML file that is displayed (preferably in a frame to isolate errors))

NoaHall
January 20th, 2010, 03:22 PM
Make a small form for him, with a password to use, and then either read from a file and put it on the site where you want, or use a database.

whiskeylover
January 20th, 2010, 03:30 PM
blogger.com
Open a new blog, change its template to match your website's. Then have him add blog entries to it.
You can enable/disable archives, comments etc.

Blogger lets you email your post too. They give you a custom email address that you send an email to from the specified email address. It automatically gets posted on the blog.

ukripper
January 20th, 2010, 03:49 PM
http://tips.webdesign10.com/drupal/about-drupal-311.html

Techsnap
January 20th, 2010, 03:54 PM
The best thing you can do lock template elements and give him the corresonding page to edit where he can only edit the text. The CSS and everything else will be uneditable, sure it can still break but it's less likely too and then at least it's only one page.

If you want to be real prehistoric you could use iframes! :?

To those who have suggested changing the whole site:


I can't justify porting a site over to a new CMS

whiskeylover
January 20th, 2010, 04:03 PM
Just use blogger. You wont have to touch your existing website. All you would need to do would be to create a blog, and make it look like your website (including navigation links and all.) You can also use wordpress instead of blogger, by the way.

lovinglinux
January 20th, 2010, 07:16 PM
I thought about twitter too. There are several CMS platforms with twitter interaction. I'm currently using it on my site to post quick news about my application development. It is quicker than logging into the CMS and creating an article.

hessiess
January 20th, 2010, 07:36 PM
I know you have already said you don't want to use a CMS, but if you want to alow any sort of end user editiability, it is the only way. Additionally static HTML websites are an absolute nightmare to maintain at the best of times.

aysiu
January 20th, 2010, 07:38 PM
I've set up Wordpress blogs for folks (if you have your own server, it's a snap to upload the free Wordpress files for a MySQL database, and the software is self-updating).

It's really easy then for clients to create new entries, add in images, edit text, etc.

Onyros
January 20th, 2010, 08:30 PM
shtml and server-side includes?

That's the easiest way not to mess too much with an existing static site.

For the .inc file manipulation there are simple and lean PHP scripts out there for the taking.

Frak
January 20th, 2010, 08:57 PM
Learn PHP and make it dynamic. Trust me, it's worth it. All you need is a CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) system.

blazemore
January 22nd, 2010, 11:44 AM
I'm using Cutenews, very VERY cut down.
I need to buy a license to remove the "Powered by cutenews" though, it looks silly underneath 1 line of text.

NoaHall
January 22nd, 2010, 11:49 AM
I'm using Cutenews, very VERY cut down.
I need to buy a license to remove the "Powered by cutenews" though, it looks silly underneath 1 line of text.

You know, it'd be worth it to learn php instead. You don't have to spend money now, and then you can get more jobs in the future.

blazemore
January 22nd, 2010, 11:53 AM
Well, I'm starting a module called Web Programming & Scripting in... 3 days.
But my University teaches Python and django I think.