Hi GL Folks:

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Web hosting service/site that
enables a client to update their own content without having to deal with
HTML/programming?

I come from a build-everything-from-scratch background (thus I owned GoLive
for years) so I'm not familiar with many of the DIY sites/services out there
today. Basically, a client would like to have a basic site designed, and
then be able to manage the text/image content themselves.

(I did the whole Co-Author thing once, and swore I'd never do it again.)

Pre-templated sites and blog-based services are fine -- I'm not looking to
get a bunch of work out of this, just get the client into something simple
they can manage. I believe they already have hosting at Register.com but I
think they'd be open to moving to a new host.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design

Hi, Scott ..
I think you want a CMS ... Content Management System.
There are two that appeal to me: DotNetNuke and Drupal, because they
are basically frameworks that hold pre-made modules, yet let you
design things yourself as well.

I use DotNetNuke. It is a very mature and versatile CMS with a lot of
different modules that do various things, and comes with several basic
ones.
It lets the client upload images and format them, and has a "Word"
like text editor built in, or they can simply paste in content they
have edited themselves in their own Word apps. and it cleans up the
Word markup so you don't end up with curious characters in the text.

There are also a large number of pre-designed site themes called
"Skins" you can buy for not very much ($25 to $100 or so, if you don't
want to go through the learning curve of designing your own, and you
can pass that cost along to the customer.

There are a number of others that do various things. The ones I
personally tried had GUIs that obfuscated too much for my taste. Got
in my way too much : like Mambo and its offshoot Joomla.

A lot of people seem to really like WordPress, enough that I've
considered looking into it again.

And there are a lot of opinions to choose from, too. I can hear
them coming now.

:-)

Anyway, I think if you check out some of those you can find what you
want.

.... Doug



On Mar 10, 2010, at 6:20 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:

> Hi GL Folks:
>
> Does anyone have a recommendation for a Web hosting service/site that
> enables a client to update their own content without having to deal
> with
> HTML/programming?
>
> I come from a build-everything-from-scratch background (thus I owned
> GoLive
> for years) so I'm not familiar with many of the DIY sites/services
> out there
> today. Basically, a client would like to have a basic site
> designed, and
> then be able to manage the text/image content themselves.
>
> (I did the whole Co-Author thing once, and swore I'd never do it
> again.)
>
> Pre-templated sites and blog-based services are fine -- I'm not
> looking to
> get a bunch of work out of this, just get the client into something
> simple
> they can manage. I believe they already have hosting at
> Register.com but I
> think they'd be open to moving to a new host.
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
>
> Regards,
>
> Scott Rossi
> Creative Director
> Tactile Media, UX Design

On 10-Mar-10, at 10:09 PM, Doug Fairchild wrote:

> Hi, Scott ..
> I think you want a CMS ... Content Management System.

What Doug said.... and I'd like to add some emphasis to checking out
WordPress. It IS a blog system at heart, but can be used as a paging
system without too much problem. And it's easy ;)

--
John Snippe

Recently, John Snippe wrote:

> What Doug said.... and I'd like to add some emphasis to checking out
> WordPress. It IS a blog system at heart, but can be used as a paging
> system without too much problem. And it's easy ;)

Thanks for the responses. I like easy. :-) But my limited experience with
WP and other CMS has been for blogging only. Does WP provide some kind of
editing system to set up navigation, etc, or do you have to go into the
HTML/CSS and modify the code by hand?

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design

> What Doug said.... and I'd like to add some emphasis to checking out
> WordPress. It IS a blog system at heart, but can be used as a paging
> system without too much problem. And it's easy ;)

Ditto. I recently did a site for an author entirely built on Wordpress
<http://animalfactorybook.com/>.

The trickiest part was just learning about Wordpress because I had never
really used it before. It's got its own nomenclature with widgets, plugins,
tags, etc. So at first all the choices were a little overwhelming.

Right now I'm working on a wiki built in Wordpress so I'm starting to get
the hang of it.

Lynne

> Thanks for the responses. I like easy. :-) But my limited experience with
> WP and other CMS has been for blogging only. Does WP provide some kind of
> editing system to set up navigation, etc, or do you have to go into the
> HTML/CSS and modify the code by hand?

Yeah, you can set up navigation with the Pages feature. But you can also add
your own coding if you want.

I'm working on a WP site that has three different navigation sets:
1. Pages
2. Categories
3. My code embedded in php template

IMO, the most important skill for Wordpress: CSS.

Lynne

Hi Scott:

I have built a system like this and am doing all sites this way now. It
not only includes client maintenance, but also a system for clients to
affect SEO elements like meta descriptions, etc.

If they can fill out a form, they can change content and images on their
sites.

I have partnered with a few other web folks who are managing the client.
Web person manage design expectations. I set up the site, and teach the
web person all she/he needs to know to keep client up to date and happy,
including mail lists, galleries, blogs. Painless for all, including me. :-)

Contact me off list and I'll give you a tour of the system.


Scott Rossi wrote:
> Hi GL Folks:
>
> Does anyone have a recommendation for a Web hosting service/site that
> enables a client to update their own content without having to deal with
> HTML/programming?
>
> I come from a build-everything-from-scratch background (thus I owned GoLive
> for years) so I'm not familiar with many of the DIY sites/services out there
> today. Basically, a client would like to have a basic site designed, and
> then be able to manage the text/image content themselves.
>
> (I did the whole Co-Author thing once, and swore I'd never do it again.)
>
> Pre-templated sites and blog-based services are fine -- I'm not looking to
> get a bunch of work out of this, just get the client into something simple
> they can manage. I believe they already have hosting at Register.com but I
> think they'd be open to moving to a new host.
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
>
> Regards,
>
> Scott Rossi
> Creative Director
> Tactile Media, UX Design
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>


--
Patrice Olivier-Wilson
888-385-7217
http://biz-comm.com

Scott Rossi wrote:
> Does anyone have a recommendation for a Web hosting service/site that
> enables a client to update their own content without having to deal with
> HTML/programming?

Howdy Scott - good to see you here. :)

I have a client using Joomla, and while I was initially resistant to it
(based only on previous experience with other CMSes) I've come to really
like it. A lot. In fact, I was just writing another client to
recommend we use it on his site too when you post came in.

It's a bit more work to set up than WordPress, but as a tool dedicated
to the job it's much more flexible, and the experience for your client
no more daunting; arguably less so in some respects since you won't be
dealing with workarounds from using a CMS designed for blogging as
opposed to one designed from the ground up for full-fledged sites.

As with any tool, it's not perfect. But I think over the long run
you'll be very happy with Joomla's flexibility, well worth investing a
little time up front to get to know its admin side.

--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Developer of WebMerge: Publish any database on any Web site
__________________________________________________________
Ambassador@[Protected] http://www.FourthWorld.com

If you also considered Drupal, why did you choose Joomla? I'm trying to learn more about both, currently exploring Drupal.

Thanks,
Warren

On Mar 11, 2010, at 4:50 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

>
> I have a client using Joomla, and while I was initially resistant to it (based only on previous experience with other CMSes) I've come to really like it. A lot. In fact, I was just writing another client to recommend we use it on his site too when you post came in.

Op 11-mrt-10, om 03:20 heeft Scott Rossi het volgende geschreven:

> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Don't forget to take security into consideration. The bigger the
system, the more updates, the more time you need for service ...
Drupal is used by the White House.
Lots of CMS's get hacked every day. It takes some precautions to
avoid that.
WordPress was initially made for blogging, but is perfectly capable
to run a "normal" site. At least it is much less complicated than
systems like Joomla, ... . Also for the users IMO.

Pieter

On 11-Mar-10, at 7:50 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> It's a bit more work to set up than WordPress, but as a tool
> dedicated to the job it's much more flexible, and the experience for
> your client no more daunting; arguably less so in some respects
> since you won't be dealing with workarounds from using a CMS
> designed for blogging as opposed to one designed from the ground up
> for full-fledged sites.
>
> As with any tool, it's not perfect. But I think over the long run
> you'll be very happy with Joomla's flexibility, well worth investing
> a little time up front to get to know its admin side.

I think you are being a bit less than candid here, Richard. Drupal/
Joomla, as full-fledged CMS systems, are indeed much more configurable
and have a great deal more flex than, say, Wordpress. But to suggest
that it will only be "a bit more work" and will only require "a little
time" to get to grips with is, to say the least, misleading. These
are comparatively (to WP) BIG apps... it will take a newbie weeks, if
not months, to get a decent handle on them compared to a day or two on
WordPress.

Are they better? Well... they are capable of doing a great deal
more. Not sure that is "better" if the needs are relatively nominal.
One doesn't (generally) use a backhoe to plant a few petunias, if you
get my meaning ;-)

--
John Snippe