I asked him to change some text in a pop up window from a .php page. He tells me that it's "difficult" to perform this task "because the page is dynamic."

This is a simple pop up window that contains a FAQ related to some information on the page.

I'd appreciate some insight.

Chances are that the text is stored within a database or a set of includes if it is from a more complex type of application. Your designer may not have enough knowledge or access privilages to make text edits within a database or other flat files. Also if the application is built to handle multiple languages (english, spanish, etc) the edits would require multiple edits in several places.

Originally Posted by mgraphic

Chances are that the text is stored within a database or a set of includes if it is from a more complex type of application. Your designer may not have enough knowledge or access privilages to make text edits within a database or other flat files. Also if the application is built to handle multiple languages (english, spanish, etc) the edits would require multiple edits in several places.

Well, he's the only one who has been building the site.

Are we talking about a specific popup window from a specific page that's part of a group of page (e.g. one specific product from a group of products), or are we talking about a general popup that affects a group of pages?

In either event, a dynamic popup is not that difficult to generate...unless your designer built your site based on a "CMS" (Content Mismanagement System) and he doesn't know how to edit the code within. A CMS is geared toward the designer who just wants to set something up quickly and allow customers to adjust their own content. The problem is that most of them, if not all of them, have a lot of issues that the average designer just isn't going to know about (SEO issues, code issues, flexibility issues, etc.) It sounds like the designer went this route.

Are we talking about a specific popup window from a specific page that's part of a group of page (e.g. one specific product from a group of products), or are we talking about a general popup that affects a group of pages?

Let's me see if I can explain this. Here goes:

The page that this pop-up is coming from contains a few categories that he has given us access to in order to add links to PDF files. That's all we can do on this page. The descriptions, photos etc. in each category we don't have access to. To illustrate:

We have categories called "Dogs", "Cats", "Horses", "Elephants" etc. In each category is a heading titled "Dogs" etc. Beneath that heading is some descriptive text about the category. We don't have control over this part of it. The ONLY thing we can do is add links to files. For example, I can go into the control panel and create a link in the "Dogs" category to a PDF about "spaying" let's say. That's it.

NOW...

In one of those categories is a link to a FAQ related to that category only. We don't have access to this link. It's a pop up window. Right now it contains text that we want to change. I sent him some text and said, "Please take paragraph 2 and replace it with this new text" He still hasn't done it. When I called to ask him he said that it was "difficult" because the page is dynamic.

Unfortunately, I don't have ANY knowledge of dynamic sites.

If he built it he should be able to change some of the text for you. As others have suggested he may be using a CMS in which case it may be more difficult to do but he should still be able to do it for you.

Originally Posted by leonglass

If he built it he should be able to change some of the text for you. As others have suggested he may be using a CMS in which case it may be more difficult to do but he should still be able to do it for you.

Just so I'm clear about this:

CMS is a type of software, correct?

Originally Posted by missingtime

CMS is a type of software, correct? Is there a way for this guy to give us the ability to make changes to the page without using some sort of software package?

Yes CMS="Content Management" - the general idea of a CMS is that it gives the site owner near complete control over *all* content, not just selected parts. You would be able to do things like...

Create and edit content sections/area with titles, descriptions, images
Create and edit categories with titles, descriptions, images
Create and content items/pages with titles, descriptions, images, links etc
Assign categories to sections, items to categories etc etc

You get the idea!

Unless you know how to use HTML/CSS and possibly some PHP then you would really need a good CMS.

I don't understand what he is saying.

I think you hired a designer to do design and coding which is rarely something one person is good at. If you like the design, then stick with them -- for the designs only. Hire a coder to do the actual programming work. There are open source editors out there (such as http://www.FCKEditor.net ) which allow you to edit HTML in a WYSIWYG environment. That's not the best way of doing it, however, as it will usually (no matter which editor you use) add in extra garbage, so for clean, concise code, learn some simple HTML and then have a stylesheet made for you.

Let me translate that into an example. I have a help system for my product which allows me to edit page text. All I have to do is code things like this:

<h1>My Help Title</h1>
<p>Paragraph 1's text</p>
<p>Paragraph 2's text</p>

The stylesheet takes care of formatting those things for me to match the template and it doesn't require a whole hell of a lot of intelligence to write pages which can be added w/o needing a fancy editor.

To sum up, I don't think your designer knows code issues, so get a coder for those issues. BTW: "Dynamic" just means that it changes based on some condition. The antithesis is "static" which stays the same all the time. A page which appears static may be dynamic if it is pulled from a database. Either way, editing isn't hard.

missingtime: I think it would be better if you told us which site you were talking about at this point. A lot of us in here will be able to spot the more common CMSes to figure out if that's what was implemented...and if we can do that, then we can confirm your suspicion.

The only reason I'm suggesting that is that, if it's time to look for a new designer, you can start doing so. (And no, please don't ask me...I'm booked solid and don't know PHP that well anyway.)

It sounds like you're on a CMS, though...if you can add links to files, PDFs, etc. through a control panel, then that suggests the presence of a web editor of some sort.

It depends on complex the script is.