Best program for beginner to use?

Client wants to update/edit own site

[ddesign]

Someone contacted me for training on editing their own web site.

I use Dreamweaver MX, but I doubt the customer would want to buy that just to add images, make photo galleries and update/change content.

I know that there is FrontPage, but I'm not too crazy about it...

What programs (including FP if that is what you think) would be best for them to buy?

What about browser-based WYSIWYG editing? This would be great for beginner web users who know little about web development and those who do not want to download software or buy expensive programs.

Thanks for your help! I hope to get some replies soon :-)

[PatrickDeese]

Some hosting companies including basic web-based editing tools and even photo gallery scripts.

Don't know if any would be appropriate.

I wonder if installing some sort of blogging software as a type of rudimentary CMS would work. Blogger is easy to use - even on your own domain, and I think you can use Google's Picasa with it - so it might do everything you want it to do - with an easy learning curve.

[ddesign]

Thank you for your reply :-)

This particular hosting company doesn't provide anything like that.

I suppose I will just share the most popular options. I spoke with her a little bit today, and she doesn't want to use FrontPage. The only other programs I am familiar with are professional design programs like Dreamweaver & Adobe.

[larryhatch]

You might not want to hear this, but I recommend writing the markup in straight HTML.
While there is a learning curve, you have control over everything, and clean code hopefully.
From there, you can move on to CSS etc. once you feel confident.
You could start with a clean simple page somebody else wrote and use that for an example,
then change and add things until you have the page you really want.
I would never use one of those professional site builder programs.
Everything I read tells me they create bloatware and worse, and often won't validate. - Larry

[SoulAssassin]

I agree with Larry. It's the hardest way to start but eventually the best.

If you know what all your code does then you have total control over your site and will run into less problems in the long run.

Plus Dreamweaver and Frontpage put in lots of unnecessary rubbish :(

[topr8]

i'm with PatrickDeese what the person needs is a simple cms (content management system)

lots of blogging sowtware is free and can easily be adapted, a very simple cms can even be written by anyone with knowledge of server side scripting in a day.

editing a website is not the same as designing it, i assume you mean they want to add/change text, write new content, change an image, upload a new image ... all of this can be done with zero html knowledge using a straightforward cms.

you would need to be able to run either asp or php and ideally have a database (but not essential) ... if the current host doesn't allow this, then change the host.

[SoulAssassin]

Apologies, i misread the question.

If you want a quick and easy solution to this problem then i would recommmend Brinkster.

They offer a basic CMS service as part of their hosting packages, and as it is an American company it is also very cheap to buy from the UK at the moment because of the exchange rate 8)

[belladonna]

Several of my clients use Macromedia Contribute ( [macromedia.com...] ) to update their sites. The current version even lets you edit images. It's $150, but it's still cheaper than having me do several hours of updates every month.

If we were doing the site from scratch, a CMS would probably be a better option. But this is an easy way to work with an existing site.

[ddesign]

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions!

belladonna, THANK YOU! This is exactly what I needed. MANY MANY THANKS.

[doortodoororganics]

i agree with topr8 and larry...a good content management system. you can get them for as little as $5/month.

[Robert Charlton]

Macromedia Contribute

I've not had hands on experience with it, but I've seen it demonstrated for a few hours and it looks absolutely amazing. I'm sure there must be downsides... they usually don't emphasize those in seminars... but definitely worth checking out.