Newbie Alert! Please help w/ PHP website I'm maintaining

Need help maintaining a website that I did not build.

[feistycharley]

First and foremost, thank you for reading this message. This is the first support forum I've joined because of the compassionate way you treat newbies. :)

Alright, I have extensive HTML experience, but have not actually worked on a website in more than 4 years...so php is foreign to me. I'm working for a non-profit that has a beautiful but completely worthless website that requires a lot of work to be functional for the organization. The web designers are outrageously expensive, and they are incredibly difficult to deal with.

My main problem isn't understanding the php, but finding the pages. I used to keep my html files in one folder, my images in another, and what little scripting I did in a third folder. There are a million folders in public_html!

Because I've had difficulty setting up an internal testing server, I use their HORRIBLE admin panel to add pages and/or make changes to the site. However, when I edit the html, the panel converts it to wysiwyg and it generates all these errors. I wanted to find the page in the file manager to edit it directly, but the code doesn't register any of the changes I've made. Also, pages that I've created have the link of pages.php?page=32...and I can't find them in the public_html folder.

Any idea where they might be?

Sorry my message was so long! Thank you for taking the time to read it and thank you in advance for any support.

[d40sithui]

Your website seems like it is (or should be) run by a Content Management System. Maybe that's why you can't find the actual pages - because they are stored in the database with an id (page=32) associated with each one rather than physical static html pages.

[feistycharley]

That makes sense. Any idea how I can identify which one it is, and how to edit the database? I need to name new pages (instead of just linking to page=32).

And if I were to get a CMS, are open source CMS's ok, or should I reach into my very shallow pockets to buy one?

[d40sithui]

Well first make sure that it is a Content Management System. Ask your previous webmaster or your supervisor. Every CMS typically has a login for admins to add, edit, remove articles (pages) along with other website settings. If you're able to get the username/password to login the name of the CMS should be display somewhere on the admin page. There are several good open source CMS out there. I've personally only used 2 - Zikula(PostNuke) and Joomla. I think the two leading CMS right now are Joomla and Mambo because of their ease of use and functionality. Don't waste your money on a CMS as open source ones as I've mentioned are very nice. Some CMS will have a feature to have "friendly search engine URLs" which mean instead of having something like www.mysite.com/index.php?pageId=32 you'll have www.mysite.com/myPage.
If I were you, here's what I would do.
-find out the CMS that your website is on (if any)
-spend some time with it, and see if the functionality is sufficient for all your current and future website needs.
-consider other CMSs, how hard would it be to transfer the content to an empty CMS.
-would it be easier to manage it on a different CMS?
-how hard would it be to design/duplicate a template for the new CMS

[inveni0]

It sounds like you are currently using a CMS, which is why you're getting errors (it probably is a crappy CMS). The only real way to get out of this, and start building pages in the way in which you're accustomed, is to rebuild the site from scratch in HTML. I know, it sounds like a lot of work, but you'll be as happy doing it this way as you would be trying to get into your database and edit pages via something as unfriendly for such a thing as phpMyAdmin.

If you don't want to start from scratch, look on your CMS (where you enter the information for new pages). You should see a button that says "Code" or "Html" where you actually enter the page content. My guess is that you're entering code into a WYSIWYG editor instead of into its direct code entry counter part.

[feistycharley]

Thank you! I'm fairly sure that this will fix at least 50% of my problems with the site.

I will have to pry this information out of our web development company...they are absolutely unprofessional. Getting ftp access from them, instead of just a simple wysiwyg program hosted on their site, was like pulling teeth. I did see a folder that was titled "Joomla" before they "changed" my access by giving me "more" options...and suddenly a lot of these files disappeared. I can't even get the template.php page!

But thank you very much. If I went to them without knowing what I was talking about, then they'd certainly jerk me around. Have a wonderful day! :)

[feistycharley]

inveni0:

I've been doing the whole damn site using the html function. Whatever CMS they're using has been modified by them, using their own code (or so they say).

What that has led to is a really really crappy CMS experience with almost no functionality. I can't even re-order links whenever they're added through the CMS underneath a heading on the java-powered nav bar!

However much I'd love to redesign the site in html, they will not pay me for that. I've just gotta keep plugging along as is...besides, it's opened me up to a new world of coding that I haven't looked at in years. I'm excited about learning new ways to do things.

Thanks for all your help!