Is this possible?

Spit

Spit

Spit

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Joined
8 Nov 2003
Posts
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Location
Yorkshire
I have a business website.
I have good knowledge of computers apart from web design.
I know all my passwords to get into the site.
I use a Mac.

Is there a program that you can use to edit my site in a simple and graphical way? I am getting sick of paying someone to do the most basic changes, like opening times, new offers etc. Its not the money but the waiting to get the work done really.

All I want to do is change text, nothing fancy.
 
Sounds like an ideal job for a CMS (content management system) such as worpress. Would let you alter the sites content from your sites control pannel in browser.
 
Unless the site is very very simple I doubt you will be able to do what you want. You could get the guy doing the changes to just build that functionality into it.

Creating a little login script along with some text input fields to set the values for the opening times etc shouldnt be too much work. Very hard to say much more without knowing how the site is built etc.
 
for easy editing and customization of site wordpress is the best option.. I will suggest you to go for wordpress option.
 
I'm guessing Spit doesn't want to move his site over to Wordpress or any other CMS?

Changing little things like the opening times _should_ be achievable you just need to know how the site is organised. I.e., is the content you want to change static (HTML/PHP/ASP page) or is it dynamic (stored in a database). My guess is that the opening times (as an example) are static so you would just need to find the correct file. If you have passwords for your hosting what you could do is set up a local version of your site (install xampp lite which will install apache, php and mysql for you) you can then download all your files and your database. Then you can change anything on your local site without worrying about ruining your actual site. As a little test you could search all files for the opening times and then change them to see if it works...

Matt
 
Spit, just try and do it and see if it's too hard or not, might take a little learning, but for small changes like a number or text... not much of an issue.

Just don't edit the live site. There "should" be a non-live replica somewhere.
 
If you want more control over your site and your not confortable in editing the raw pages yourself, then ideally you want to move it to a CMS system as others have said. A web development company should be able to give you a quote to convert it over. It's just a case of weighing up a one-off fee to get it converted or lots of little fees to have someone update it all the time.

However, A CMS won't give you full control over the site. Bigger design work like re-arranging the layout will still require extra work. A CMS is just used for, unsurprisingly, maintaining the content.
 
it would be easy to do a little bespoke development to make areas editable. No more than a days work (8hrs).
 
There are lots of CMS systems, personally I build sites using www.umbraco.org - it's completely free (no adverts) and it allows the developer to customise the CMS to be as simple or complex for the end user as is required, for instance pages can be built with custom fields, rather than using WYSIWYG TinyMCE editors..

Enough about CMS systems, the arguments can go on for as long as Mac vs PC, Intel vs AMD - only there are many more CMS systems than that!

Spit - your website seems to be in PHP, which is a server side language, which could suggest that it is database driven - or content managed, either way you tend to use PHP to do some kind of server side code, OR the web developer used it because it looks more complex, and really they are not "proper" PHP pages.

FTP to your site, download these PHP files, take a backup, then open the page you want to edit (about.php) in a word editor and look for the text that you wish to edit "Opening Times"

As long as you change only the text, and don't change anything to do with the chevrons (e.g. where it says <h3 id="subTimes">) then you should be fine, try uploading your change.

It might be that you can't see the data in the php file, as it might be stored in a database (I think this is unlikely but possible) - in this case you will have to speak to a developer who can take a look at it for you.

Hope this helps.
 
Hi,

If you are happy with your existing website then it is pointless redoing the website to incorporate a full CMS. I am another happy advocate of Cushy CMS for this particular situation. Depending on the amount of pages you need to edit you could be up and running in 10 minutes and update your content yourself from your browser. Job done.

As to PHP pages indicating a database driven website remember how useful the humble PHP include can be. The page would have a .php extension and not necassarily be database driven.
 
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