[nick616]

Creating a simple website for my friend in a band. He'll need to update it maybe once a week w/ dates, showtimes, etc. HOWEVER, he is not technically inclined. I want to make it so he can just type what he needs into a text document (like Word/Notepad (or the Mac equivalent)) on his laptop (a Mac), save it, and have that update his page. I'd rather not have him wade through HTML.

I'm a graphic designer and somewhat technically inclined, but woefully ignorant about this stuff. What program / format would be both good for this purpose and simple enough if I'm only looking to learn this element? Are there any free tutorials online about it? I know Flash and Actionscript, but maybe there is a better tool out there for this...

Also, I'd like for there to be a way he could update photos by himself. Maybe he could have a folder on his laptop with say 3 pictures that he names pic1, pic2, pic3, where if he saves a new photo to one of those names, the new photo fills that slot. Or some better way?

FYI: I use a PC.

My sincere thanks for any help or insight...

[Yek]

XML files ? , i dont quite understand your needs ?
Oh and welcome to TF

[nick616]

Put another way: My friend is a brilliant drummer, but being able to e-mail and surf the web is as technical as he gets. I would like to create for him a simple three-page website that he could update as simply as possible.

I'm unfamiliar with PHP, XML and back-end workings (insert your own joke here), but willing to learn enough to do this.

What is the best way for me to create the page so he can change the text (but not necessarily the formatting, etc)?

A bonus would be if he could somehow change the songs in a predefined list on a player.

[nick616]

Big Picture: I don't want to give him a fish, nor teach him how to fish. Basically I want to give him a fish-catching machine.

That is, the site would be more work in the beginning, but predefined slots within the site would change as the text documents "Performances", "Bio", and "Contact" change. Like either it reads them from his laptop, or he updates it by some process no more complicated than sending an e-mail. He doesn't have to deal with FTP stuff or sorting through HTML, etc., (or even with WYSIWYG editors if possible)

Where should I turn to learn about this? (Thanks!)

[Yek]

Well anything to do with this is going to have to use FTP , or you could create an upload script for him (thats another thread entirely) , anyway could you just ask one simple question at a time , we dont like in a sense "doing it for you" unless you've got some $$ , in which case plently of guys will come running. Thats why people have looked at this and gone ahhh , "i think ill hit back..."
Im not saying we dont want to help but , just get friendly with google and well go from there, (for html) maby include a iframe (google it) , this of corse being transparent and set the frame to another html file containing the data (with css linked in it to save a mess and not confuse your friend - also you can edit this to change the look feel etc) , well there's plenty to be going on with there for now , feel free to ask about any iframe problems or anything like that once you've looked it up on google
Cheers , good luck , Tkey

[NathanLedet]

a lot of band web sites are created in Flash now. You could dedicate a section to Shows and stuff, and there are a LOT of tutorials on linking to an external XML file. XML is easy and it would take a little know how on his end, but you could teach him...

http://www.Pixel2Life.com is a site i frequently visit for Flash help.

[Yek]

Try this.. call the page "Updates.html"

<p align="center">Site Updates:</p>
<p align="center">
<iframe name="I1" src="editablefile.html" width="WIDTH HERE" height="HEIGHT HERE" scrolling="no" border="0" frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Call this page "editablefile.html"

<center>
<!-- Enter everything you want to see on the page below -->

Add your updates here please!!!

<!-- Don't change anything below this line -->

Hope this helps