I've been asked to design a website for a client who would like to be able to update certain aspects of the text on the website. I've delved into CMS's a little bit here and there but don't really have a good grasp on getting them functioning fully yet. Can someone shed some other alternatives so that the client can make simple updates to the website over time? I'd really appreciate any input on this matter. Thanks in advance!

I always suggest Wordpress when a client wants control over the text. WP has a small learning curve for creating custom designs, but once you get it, you'll want to do all your sites this way. It saves you from all those one or two word updates for clients AND allows you to charge more because the site is now a form of a cms.

If you're only updating text, why not just edit it in a simple html editor -- One that is already part of your ftp program, or better in the backend of your script? You can usually do everything you need like that.

WP is indeed one of the best option you can have here. You can set a user and it's limitations on that. Check it out.

The CMS option is going to be best for the client and I'll add another recommendation for WordPress.

Otherwise the client is going to need to edit your files directly. What I've done for clients in the past is to find out what they'll likely want to change and then comment your code so it's easy for them to find the code they need to edit. I'll also leave instructions for how to edit the content.

Then when the site is ready I'll walk them through making a change over the phone. I'll send them links to a free code editor and FTP program and take them through the process, reminding them early and often to make a copy of any file they edit. Make sure you also keep a backup of the site and then the worst case scenario is you get paid to upload their site again.

Haven't tried this yet, but I was wondering if one would be able to have their client write in a .doc file where the content should go in case the client wanted to change the wording around, they would only have to open the .doc and upload it. They would only need to know how to work word and a ftp manager.

For instance:

PHP Code:

<div class="content">
<?php
$content = file_get_contents('content.doc');
echo $content;
?>
</div>

Cool. Thanks for the replies. I will definitely look into using Word Press.

Originally Posted by NewBreed

Haven't tried this yet, but I was wondering if one would be able to have their client write in a .doc file where the content should go in case the client wanted to change the wording around, they would only have to open the .doc and upload it. They would only need to know how to work word and a ftp manager.

...

I'm afraid thing are far more complex than that. You may refer to a post called Extracting text from Word Documents via PHP and COM

What you really need to do is use COM to tell Word itself to handle parsing the file. You can create a new COM object with

$file = new COM("word.application");

which basically opens up a copy of Word on the server and gives you access to it from PHP.

But you need a Windows-based server in order to do this.

I installed wordpress on my web server, and now I'm wondering if I can simply just pull the posts on the blog into my HTML/CSS design that I have designed and setup already, so that the text thats pulled from the blog will just acquire the CSS styles. I'm too sure what the procedure would be to attain this. Thanks for any help!

Take a look at this for theming:
http://css-tricks.com/video-screenca...ress-part-one/
and for more info:
http://sixrevisions.com/wordpress/30...deo-tutorials/

now I'm wondering if I can simply just pull the posts on the blog into my HTML/CSS design

Kind of. You integrate your html/css stuff into a WP theme. Within the wordpress loop you then have access to the blog posts to put into your design.
http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop

I can recommend Joomla CMS. You can use the editor account for the client and not to worry about breaking the whole site down. Editor accounts have limited access, can add and edit articles. Wordpress is alsoo good but it depends on the complexity of the project. Me personally prefer Joomla. The site in my signature is made with this CMS.

so I made the design before I knew I would be using wordpress. Basically the client just wants to have a small area of text that says Weekly Events and then they can just add in an event with some information next to it. Do you still think Wordpress is the best option for this even though it's very simple?

I actually think it might be overkill for creating a custom theme, etc. You can also install WP on a lower level so that you keep a regular site and the blog area is separate. With this method you would have to have a link on the home page that said "news" (or whatever) and then that led to the blog. Your regular site stays exactly the same.

For the WP part of it, you can just find a template that resembles your site and change some background colors, etc.to match nicely. I have done this before on clients with limited budgets. Full WP custom themes are a lot of work because there are so many files.

You could still "pull" recent blog posts through its RSS feed if you wanted to display on your home page. I will try to find the link for how to do that.

@kirilbug - I was only saying he had to break the whole site down to implement into a wordpress theme, not to simply allow a user to make posts. I don't see how you could create a completely custom theme for joomla without breaking down your code at some point, but I don't know all that much about joomla. Is it easy to create a custom theme in joomla?

yea i think i like the idea of pulling an rss feed into the homepage and then just have css stylize it. The client isn't too picky they just want to be able to make weekly event/news updates. Really appreciate the help.

I use joomla its more powerful than wordpress in my opinion

for a simple updatable website Word Press and Movable Type, has my vote. Advanced websites I would say Drupal or Joomla.

I am a die-hard Joomla fan since about 2006.