Hiya, all…
I am creating a website for my church and need to find some some cheap functional publishing software. I ***could * ** write the code myself, but… damn. Mainly I am lazy and do not want to be bothered with troubleshooting my sloppy coding, but I would also like to be able show my Pastor or someone else at the church how to do updates and what-not…
So… criteria would be cost, functionality, ease of use/shallow learning curve (for non-geeks at the church)
all advice, hints, tips, etc. are welcome.
Thanks!
Macromedia Contribute is supossed to solve your problem. I think the price is ok (99$ per copy). I’m shure there are a lot of freeware software to edit HTML but you’ll have to try them first, also you can use OpenOffice.org text editor to save as HTML file. If you can use Flash try to make text windows that use external .txt files, that’s what I’d do. Or keep a frame-based design so they’ll just have to edit the most simple frame, and even MS Word can do that.
CityDesk might be good in this situation.
It is not cheap (to me anyway) at $299, but if you are working with a small site that has 50 files or less, it is free.
What kind of updates would other people be making to the site? Mainly text changes or will they need to be able to overhaul a page or create a new one if necessary? Also, how complex is the site going to be (how many pages, do you think you’ll create templates, will you be adding a database, etc.)?
the plan right now is for a very simple, straightforward design… maybe 15 pages… updates done by anyone other than me would probably be limited to text (depending on how hands-on my pastor wants to be)… I know MS FrontPage has built-in templates, but I really dont like their interface. I am gonna go check out CityDesk if I can get it free… maybe I can keep it small!
You could just use Composer, which comes free with Mozilla. No, it doesn’t have templates, but IIRC it has simple WYSIWYG functions.