My client needs to be able to add stuff to his site....

Hello, I was contracted to make a website for a motorcycle salvage yard. It is a full HTML site, the only script is a simple email form one. Today, they informed me, that they would like to be able to add a "Bike of the Week" or something like that, with a small picture and description. They have NO HTML experience at all. It does not have to be on the main page or anything, it can be its own page (much easier) I just have to have a link to it from another page, so the url must stay the same. So far, the best idea I came up with was to use blog software, and just trim it down feature-wise, and make a custom style to match their site. That way they could add pics, and a description, and just title each one like 7/23/06-7/29/06: Bike of the Week, and then each week, the new entry would be at the top, and it would just push the old ones down, so people could still look through the old ones.

What do you think? Is this the best way to do this, or is there an easier method that I'm not thinking of?

 

If you're familiar with scripting (e.g. php, asp, etc), just write a small application that contain the following:

1) simple login
2) Add/del/modify database
3) upload images to server

That's it.

 

Well, I've been running a vBulletin forum, and been hacking it up a lot, so I've learned SOME php, but that's about it. I have never written any scripts myself. The script you are talking about does seem pretty simple though, so perhaps now is as good a time as ever to dig further into php! I have to admit, I've just been lazy, php is incredible from what I've seen, I just don't know if I'll be able to learn and write the script quick enough for my client...

 

Have a look @ pmwiki ( http://pmwiki.org )

 

I thought of Wiki's, but they need the option to upload pics easily as well...

 

I suggest you write your own kind of Content Management System, you should password protect it, the admin should be able to add a picture of the week along with some comments, the admin should be able to edit past entries, the admin should be able to delete past entries. It is very simple, and definitely easier (Wordpress is Object Oriented and uses Template engines, and those two are not beginner friendly), you should read the following tutorials:

http://www.totallyphp.co.uk/scripts/password_protect_a_page.htm
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql
http://hockinson.com/index.php?s=37
http://ve.php.net/features.file-upload
http://ve.php.net/nl2br

So you could create a simple form with a text input (for the name of the bike), a textarea (for the content of the message), an upload input (where the person selects the image), a submit button. When the user presses the submit button the file is uploaded into a directory and the information is stored in a database (the title, the message, and the location of the image).

When you wish to display all that information on the bikeoftheweek.php page on your client's site you simply connect to the database and retrieve the information (echo the text and the image: echo "<img src=".$row['imagelocation'].">"; )

 

Thanks for your replies. I've been reading through those, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to pull this off in time.. I'm getting kind of worried. I guess I'll keep reading and see if I can come up with anything. I'm surprised there isn't some script available for this.

 

Am I missing something - can't WordPress do everything you need? 5 minute install and its free.

 

You can see a variety of free (open source) CMSs here: http://www.opensourcecms.com -- note I'm not affiliated with this site but think its a great resource for anyone looking for new apps.

I would also say WebSiteBaker is an easy to use CMS --

 

Just use coppermine photo gallery from your cpanel.
Easy to add pictures, galleries, etc and a description.

 

Thank you all for your replies. I spent a good amount of time looking through all those CMS guides and that open source CMS site, and there is some GREAT stuff in there, thanks guys! I will be spending a good amount of time learning some new tricks, however I just don't have that much time to do this project.


I decided to go with WordPress, because I'm somewhat familiar with it. I am hacking the heck out of the templates to basically insert wordpress into part of their site, so it all looks the same. I'm also going to try to edit all the templates for the control panel, hide everything they could mess up (they really have NO idea what they are doing on computers). I might actually try to make a new Wordpress Admin panel for them, that only has the options to Write Posts and Manage Posts, and that's it.

As for Coppermine, I use that on my own site and love it! It is a great photo gallery, but I needed to really make this editable page look like their site, and so far, with Wordpress I'm nailing it!

Thank you all very much for your responses, in addition to helping me with this project, you have turned me on to a whole bunch of valuable resources for me to use in the future!