I just read the Feb/09 edition of Outsider, in particular about the soon to be released Web Designer. One suggestion/request is the ability for more than one person to edit the website. Here's my scenario: I set up a web site and eventually transfer responsibility for updates and maintenance to the clients. However, when they need run into a problem or need some major revisions, I take over again from my remote location. Currently, there is no (affordable) web building software that allows this.
There are wiki pages and software like Drupal or Joomla, but my clients find these too hard to learn. The clients are entrepreneurs and not IT people and have limited patience.
I've successfully used a product called WebExpress and can teach someone how to use it in 20-30 minutes, over the phone. It's still the program I use and get clients to buy. Xara Web Designer looks promising especially the drag and drop.
I have tried solutions using synching services to synch the source files between two PCs, but this failed miserably. I've tried zipping the source files together and sending them to the client, but they don't know what to do with the files or where to put them. I've tried posting the source files to a folder on the web server, but the clients don't know what to do with them.
Here's my vision for a solution.
- The software stores the source files on the website
- The software checks and synchs the source files between the PC and the website.
- As edits are done, the HTML gets generated and posted to the website. At the same time, the source files on the web server get updated.
- As for managing the files so two people aren't editing at the same time, it's very simple and low tech: a phone call or email saying "I'm editing the website, I'll let you know when I'm done".
Anyways, I'm still shopping around for a straightforward solution so several people can maintain a website, one that is easy to learn. I hope the Xara developers consider this need and lack of competition.
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