What is best way?

[angiem]

I have a customer that wants a directory on their website for the users but wants the users to be able to add/edit their own content. It has to be easy for the users to use.

Do I need a content management system or not?

What do people recommend?



Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[BabyJeffy]

You could create a directory and allow the client to upload content to it using FTP. This will let you put username/passwords for the client users, is minimal effort for you and offers them ultimate flexibility as to how/what they want to put there.

That's what I would suggest to a client that came to me with such a request.

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[angiem]

Not sure if I've explained myself properly. The client wants it's customers/user to upload and edit up to 3 standard pages to the clients web site from whereever the user is. The users have very basic computer skills.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[Rhys666]

It depends what you mean by content; Images, Documents, Data?

Rhys

"Vampireware /n/,a project, capable of sucking the lifeblood out of anyone unfortunate enough to be assigned to it, which never actually sees the light of day, but nonetheless refuses to die."

"I see dead pixels!

 

[angiem]

By content, the user would be able to add/edit data and possibly one image on their pages only.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[Rhys666]

What about quantities and types of data?

Is it a statically defined amount and types of data, or is it more flexible than that? (I.E., 5 data fields made up of a date, 3 text strings making up and introduction, detail and conclusion, and a number)

How many users are we talking about?

NB: Sorry about all the questions, I'm really just trying to prompt your thinking

Rhys

"Vampireware /n/,a project, capable of sucking the lifeblood out of anyone unfortunate enough to be assigned to it, which never actually sees the light of day, but nonetheless refuses to die."

"I see dead pixels!

 

[angiem]

We're talking about one page with contact details, one page with 2 or 3 text box a possible image and a hyperlink, and third page with more text on.

There could be upto 100/150 users who would have access to their own pages only.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[BabyJeffy]

You would use a content management system to do this. There are several ways you could go about this...
- develop something in-house from scratch,
- buy something and make it fit,
- use something free and make it fit,
- get a contractor in to do the whole thing for you.

Since I'm a contractor, I would suggest the 4th option but realistically you should consider the third option... which inevitably ends up including the first option as well.

Some questions for you:
- what server environment are you using for this deployment (Windows/Linux, IIS/Apache, PHP/JSP/ASP)
- what database do you have available (SQL/mySQL/Oracle/Access...)

With that information in-hand, I'm sure we can come up with some good suggestions.

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[Foamcow]

I would say that you perhaps don't need a CMS as such.

If the site is a directory then I am guessing you will want all these customer pages to look the same, just with different info on them right?

If that is the case, then a simple form that the customer can fill in with their details will suffice.
The data from the form is inserted into a database.
The client pages are populated with data from the database.

In addition you will need to add some kind of user management to allow clients to log in and change their details, which again, would simply amend the info in the database.

So for this exercise you will (may) need...
[ul]
[li]A database table containing usernames, passwords and other admin data[/li]
[li]A database table containing the contact info etc[/li]
[li]A form to allow the client to add/edit their details with a script that writes/updates the info in the database table[/li]
[li]A page to display the data with a script that pulls the relevant info from the database based on a database query.[/li]
[/ul]

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[BabyJeffy]

Ummm... Foamcow... you have just described a content management system

Morning!
Jeff

 

[Foamcow]

Well, perhaps in the most basic sense.

To me, a CMS would be something a bit more adventurous. Something like Mambo or the frightening to look at Typo3.

A true CMS should let you define different types of content, basically let you decide what type of data is on the site, how it's laid out and finally allow input of that data.

What I described above is just a form that puts something into a database. So CMS in the sense that it lets you add content to the site, but not a CMS in as much as you can't control how that data is presented etc.



Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[angiem]

The server would be linux, database MySQL. Did have a look at Contribute3 but that is not web-based although it is nice and easy and the users would be ok with that.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[Rhys666]

Personally, from what you've said, I'd go with Foamcow and BabyJeffy and say yes, you should probably look at a small content management system.

It will entail more work up front but I believe the longer term benefits far outweigh the front loaded cost in terms of time and resources.

Rhys
"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be"
DOUGLAS AD

 

[Foamcow]

Contribute3 is perhaps a solution if you want to purchase, install and train your client base

Since you are looking at 100/150 users who, I assume, are not all in the place and bearing in mind the nature of the types of pages they will be creating I don't think Contribute is the answer in this case.

If you want the WYSIWYG editing facilities that Contribute gives you then there are a few solutions out there that add the editing facilities to a "standard" HTML textarea element.
Example:

http://www.fckeditor.net/

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[angiem]

Thanks for that, I also liked the publish pages in Contribute for the users do you know of anything that matches that.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[Foamcow]

Hmm.. If I were to use something like fckeditor then I would be building the CMS (cough, OK Jeff I concede ) myself.

A simple method is to add a field to the database table for "published" or something like that. have it set to "no" by default and allow users to see their pages regardless of the value stored in "published". When an ordinary punter visits the site, they can only see pages that are published, i.e. the "published" field is marked "yes".

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[angiem]

Is there anything else like Contribute3 that would fit?

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca

 

[Foamcow]

You might try

http://www.interspire.com/webedit/

I've nver used it, but I was recently chatting with one of it's developers and it sounds pretty similar to Contribute (and has in fact been around longer).

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
I wonder what possesses people to make those animated gifs. Do you just get up in the morning and think, "You know what web design r

 

[angiem]

I'll look into

http://www.interspire.com/webedit/

it certainly looks what I need. Thanks to everyone for your help.

Angie

http://www.millardconsulting.ca