Content Management HELP!

I'm trying to design a website where HTML illiterate people will fill in the information (This part I have under control).

Where I run into trouble is with storing files (images and scripts):

What will happen is that later on, these computer illiterate people will want to add new sections to the site, or rename them etc... which would affect how I store these files on the server. I've always used a unique folder for each section of the site:

ie. if I was making a site about different sports, I'd have all the baseball files in sitename

so if they ever (for some reason) wanted to change the baseball section to be who knows what (this is kind of a bad example), I would have to change the name of that baseball folder to the new one, which would totally mess up any files linking to pages within that folder (same problem for images).

One solution is to store all the page data inside the database (where sections can be easily moved around), but this isn't practical for images (which have the same problem), and as well, I (not the computer illiterate people) might want to create custom php scripts for the site (which I really don't want to store in the database - ie. doesn't work well with Dreamweaver at all)

So I'm stuck with the same problem of "what folders do I put my scripts in?"
If I put them in the baseball folder and that section gets renamed or something, it screws stuff up.
I could put all scripts in one big folder, but that sucks just as bad...

Please help if you can!
Thanks,

James

Do you have any knowledge of Wiki's? Its the kind of thing that you are describing, but there are quite a few out there to test out. Lucky for you they are free too.

I suggest you look at http://www.wikipedia.org/ to see what can be done.

I know you might be thinking in different terms of this, but it is definitely a newbie friendly system.

Rob

Hello JamesRxxx555,

HTML illiterate people?!

Anyway, I would suggest that you don't hard code the folder information into your scripts to keep it dynamic.


So now you can rename the category name and the image folder would still be the same since the category id never changes.

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J de Silva
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Thanks guys for your posts.

JdS: I can see how that method would work...however, the main problem I can see with it, is that I use Macromedia Dreamweaver to write my PHP scripts.

For instance, if all the PHP files are named with unique numbers...ie. 1234567.php
then it makes them a pain to locate and load into Dreamweaver.

Likewise, if they are stored in the database, then obviously I can't load them in dreamweaver, without a copy & paste method...

The same problem might arise when I am editing my images...

Hope I haven't got you confused...
Am I missing anything in your explanation?

Out of curiosity, do you guys use Dreamweaver or what?

Thanks,

James

what makes it so necessary to have your php pages coded 12345.php? Wouldn't it be much more simple to make not only the folder names relevant to what your are doing, but also the images and file names i.e. /storage/content_management.php or /baseball/best_pitcher.php

I do think it is a bad idea to suddenly remove pages because that way you may lose a lot of search engine referrals because they find a 404 or someone linking to the page. Creating a page automatically saying where it has gone would be very effective for this reason.

JDS's script will be cool for changing folders, but leaving an imprint on the original page, I feel would justify it all.

I use Dreamweaver MX, but I don't use it to its full capacity although it may be worth you investigating something like PHPEdit , which integrates with Apache and MySQL very well.

Rob

You don't explain why "all the PHP files are named with unique numbers...ie. 1234567.php", so I am baffled

Actually, if you use the latest version of Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver MX, they now have support for you to work with 'server-side scripts' including PHP. You can even now connect to your db from within Dreamweaver! So that's like one problem less.

I really can't tell just by your few posts here how proficient you are with PHP and developing websites, but if you are, then you should know that you need to 'run a server' on your development machine so you can test out your scripts as you write them. So all of what you replied made no sense to me actually.

Writing a Content Management script, in any 'language', is NOT something that's easily done. But it get's even harder if you use the wrong 'tools' to write one.

If you tell me that you're just thinking about writing a CMS, I'd propose you try starting with a template script instead. Working with a template script will give you plenty of ideas on how to eventually write a CMS! After you figure out the workings of a template script, all you need to do is figure out the database stuff for your CMS and you're on your way. If you have no idea what I am talking about just say so and I'll be happy to explain.

Also, if you need a suggestion for an easy-to-learn-and-use template script, then just ask.

Of course another really quick way to get your own CMS up and running is to download one that is already available and modify/learn from it.

BTW, I use Quanta now for PHP scripts and just any ol' text editor for the template (html) stuff. Quanta is a php editor for Linux.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Okay here's what I'm trying to do:

Firstly, I've been using Dreamweaver MX - I have the whole Apache/PHP/MySQL setup going on and I DO utilize the whole Dreamweaver interfacing with Apache/PHP/MySQL... I've become quite used to the setup and I love it...

Basically I've been working on sites where I have a menu with each section from the menu having its own folder for images and PHP files.

What ends up happening, is the Client ends up wanting a change to sections and such, and it is an absolute pain to rename my folders (simply because I then have to painfully go through all my scripts and check for dead links to the old section).


We are now in the phase of redoing the one website, but this time I need to be smarter about it.

Here's where it gets interesting: On the side to this, we are looking at developing a system which creates websites. I'm sure you've heard of this before - Your customer can choose from a series of Templates for their new website, and basically the site gets made in a day.

The client then has the ability to update their content by themselves (when I say client I mean illiterate).

The neat thing will be that the client can change their template/layout of the whole site instantly through their login.

They can also add new pages, sections, etc...

Since they wouldn't be doing any PHP scripting, this would be quite simple (all pages would be stored in the database, and that I could handle).

However, we want to be able to do custom jobs (PHP scripts) for the client.

The question is, how do I store these custom scripts? I can't store them in the database (the PHP code within a tables)...
So how do I store these such that I can easily edit them with Dreamweaver yet without having them tied down to a filename (best_pitcher.php) and folder that might (and probably will, knowing the client) be changed?


I hope that makes some kind of sense.

Thanks again for your posts,

James

I've just had a mad idea, which is a totally different approach to what you may be thinking.
Would it be possible for you to create a script of some sort that could automatically edit the .htaccess file changing the mod_rewrite settings of the site. This would kill two birds with one stone of having pretty urls and a neat way of "moving" things without moving them. The client would type in the url path they would like for each section and bobs your mother's brother.

Alternatively, I think you need to be working "live" with a site with dreamweaver MX rather than on your hard disk (backup obviously), which I know is possible although I've never tried it.

One more thing, have you ever looked at mambo CMS?? ( www.mamboserver.com ) its worth checking out just to see where you are aiming for.

Rob