Tips on 3rd party text-editing?

[steelypan]

Hi

I'm designing a website for a client who wants to be able to edit text at short notice and update tables.
I've read postings about incorporating spredsheets, tables etc. Does anyone have experience of designing a site where the clients want to update text at the file-server. If the text is kept as text and not exported as a .png will that be OK?
Any previous experience on the this matter would be great.

Thanks in advance - this is a v helpful forum.

c

[sledger]

The short answer is 'No' - wrong software for this.

The much longer answer is, 'depends'.

You aren't the first to ask this question as you know and in some cases where minor editing via php includes is possible.
Other solutions are to embed a light-CMS into your pages (one of the TG members has written a simple CMS system, no doubt he'll chime in when he sees this thread)

But my view is, "Nah - forget it..." If your client really wants to be able to login to something to edit some text, data, tables and so on - then you really need a proper CMS system like WordPress, Joomla and so on. Xara Designer just isn't designed for this.

[Megg81]

Hi sledger... you mentioned that one of the TG members had written a simple CMS, can you tell me where this can be found or a little more about it please?

Im thinking of basic ways a client can update just a few lines of text (and I know this question has been asked many times before and all solutions would require a certain degree of computer savvy on behalf of the client) but the options seem to be:
*upload something as an image file to the server (meaning the client has to be comfortable converting text to images & risk publishing to wrong location)
*a blog (which can be embedded in a seperate page)
*feed (via facebook / twitter)

can something from wordpress / joomla be embedded as an iframe? Ive not used either program - but is there a solution which anyone is aware of which would allow say 3 - 5 lines of text to be edited - a short snippet which would generate in the position of a placeholder This Week We're Selling: [ placeholder ] where the client's text could appear beneath and be changed as and when they want to? Nothing fancy.

There are a lot of threads asking this, thought it could be good to try and tie them all together. It seems to be a point generating a lot of interest, so WD isnt the ideal solution if your client wants full CMS... but what are the available solutions for small updates here and there and workarounds?

[Miko]

Google docs is one way to do this http://support.google.com/docs/bin/a...n&answer=49008

[gwpriester]

Look for posts by X Tom. He's the member who has written the CMS application.

XT-CMS - A CMS that works with Xara - Xara + CMS Demo

[Ken Anderson]

I'll second that. You can embed a document, or a form created in Google Docs ... it builds a spreadsheet and collects the data at the server. You can also use Google Sites, and embed a page created with that toolset. You can designate who else will have edit access.

[Megg81]

Ok, I looked over Miko's link to google docs... but couldn't figure out the features so I'll spend some time looking over it later today.

I was going to ask about disabling features / links on a blog... I've read through all the posts I can find and a lot of people are saying that by clicking the links in an embedded blog you will end up back at the blog site its self and viewing pages which are not formatted like the rest of the site. is there some way to disable these links so you can't navigate away from the blog page?

[Drwyd]

Hi Megg

You can set the links in the embedded frame to open in the parent page.

e.g.

<a href="http://www.mysite.com" target="_parent">Home</a>

[skech]

So many certain answers.

I have found that the best way to see if something will work with webdesigner is to find the solution first and then see if it will work through a script or placeholder. I looked far and wide and hopefully you or someone on here will find this useful, it has been for me.

All you do is copy a very small script on to the page you want to be able to be changed and the client just has to go to the page in their browser, hit shift=f2, enter their password and add or change elements. I just create a page with the navbar, header, footer and leave a section blank so that they can add or change to text. The client can add or change images and of course text.

This is the script to embed into a placeholder on the page

<script language="javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" src="http://load.stiqr.com/sticker/api"></script>

upload the page, go to the page on a browser, shift+F2, set your password and that's it

The site is http://www.stiqr.com/

The best way to add text is create in word etc and then copy into the text box.

[Boy]

Sounds very promising. Thanks for the tip!