[IlDuce]

I am going to be making some websites using iWeb and RapidWeaver for some folks. They may want to make periodic changes to text on the webpages and I don't want to have to be involved each time they need to do that. Once I've published the sites for them, are there programs for the mac and pc (hopefully free or at least cheap) that will allow them to make changes to the sites on their own? If so, do I need to make special preparations in designing the sites so they can do this? (eg., html blocks in the pages) Thanks for your help.

[Philbert]

Besides remote access to the site, all they should really need to make text changes is a simple text editor. (already on any computer) Unless they have HTML knowledge, you might want to show them what can be changed and more importantly, what shouldn't be changed. Make sure to keep your own backup in case they hose the site.
To do more than text, they should probably have the same app you used to create the site.

[IlDuce]

Thanks Philbert. Do you know if there is a way to highlight the text as opposed to the code in an .htm file so they can easily spot the text that they want to change. Can I designate this in iWeb which I doubt or in another program? For example on the web page the text 'Be the life of the party' appears. When the htm file is open I would like them to be able to easily find that text and change it to 'Cat food tastes good'. If I could highlight the text in the htm file so they could find it easily that would probably be all I need.

[DarthMac]

Text editors such as TextWrangler, BBEdit or Smultron have syntax colouring. The default colour is normally black for any text that appears on the web page while the mark up is red/green/blue.

[imagess]

Would it be possible to set the page(s) up for server side includes or with php so that specific text could be called in from a text file? That way they would only need to edit the text file and wouldn't ever touch the code.
inez

[DarthMac]

It's possible using a web content management system but I don't know how much control you'd have as regards users just seeing the text that appears on the web page.
I'm usually editing HTML as well as the text on the page so it's not something I've needed to look into.

[wdonegan]

If a low or no cost solution is the only alternative, why not just make the editable text blatantly obvious by commenting around it?
<!-- Start editable region -------------------->

editable text here

<!-- End editable region ---------------------->

[IlDuce]

That sounds efficient. The main problem is that these people know nothing about web site creation and even less about publishing. I'm afraid that explaining the text edit thing to them will be confusing and then throwing in FTP access and uploading a file to a specific folder.... Well, I don't want to even think about it. I was hoping for something that I could set up for them so they could start a program, select a site, make the quick changes in preselected text fields, and click publish. Thanks for all you input this has been interesting reading.

[IlDuce]

That sounds efficient. The main problem is that these people know nothing about web site creation and even less about publishing. I'm afraid that explaining the text edit thing to them will be confusing and then throwing in FTP access and uploading a file to a specific folder.... Well, I don't want to even think about it. I was hoping for something that I could set up for them so they could start a program, select a site, make the quick changes in preselected text fields, and click publish. Thanks for all your input this has been interesting reading.

[MacKayaker]

There are solutions that work a bit like you are wanting, but not for this kind of context.
Bottom line - if they want to perform edits on their own site, they will have to do some learning. If they don't want to do that, then it will cost them to hire someone with the skills to do what is needed.

[wdonegan]

One other thought: Install a simple, single-table database behind your page that allows your users to enter their narrative. On the page itself, include a database call that retrieves the latest record and displays it. If your users don't want to work directly with the database, you might develop an html form page that they can use to enter any narrative and then submit (write) to the database.

[charlieartist]

May also be worth your while to investigate the Dreaweaver/Contribute route. In this, you create the site in Dreamweaver, using templates with editable regions. The client can use Contribute to make edits to these regions. You can specify what can be edited, and what cannot.