User updates of site?

[Nick 568]

Hello, I am currently the webmaster for my team, however, there seems to be a lack of communication between me and a few members, especially the sponsorship group.
What I'd like to do is have the site set-up with a log-on to where users whom I give a user-name/password to can go in and edit the text on certain pages, and maybe even add images and links to some pages.

So my question is, is this something that's possible to do? If so, how?

I realize I could probably just install blog software on the server, but for obvious reasons, that's not the most desirable. I could also just have the html files to select pages on a network location at school, but then I know some members are not going to be comfortable going through and editing the html manually in notepad...

Any help is greatly appreciated, this year was my team's first "real" website, and my first experience making a website, so I'm still somewhat new at this.
Thanks in advance!!

[Tom Bottiglieri]

MediaWiki

[Nick 568]

Hey thanks, I'll be sure to give that a spin!

[GRaduns340]

There are also a number of good content management systems that do what you want. For this purpose, I wouldn't be afraid to go that route:

Joomla
PHP Nuke
Drupal

I am probably going to build a custom CMS designed specifically for FIRST teams this summer. It might take longer than that, but expect something along those lines within the next couple years, just because I have several higher priority projects to clear up first.

[esquared]

Our website is running a student-developed CMS that allows user updates through a simple admin portal. This relieves much of the burden of the webmaster to add/remove/fix content, and allows them to work on the fun stuff such as new features

[Ryan Albright]

I use Joomla for the website I am building and I love it. It would be good for what you are wanting to do. You can have everyone register and give certain people different levels. That will let them and be able to edit content

900 post woot

[Nick 568]

Hey thanks so much guys, I'll be sure to give some of those a try when I re-do the site entirely in the summer. You all really, really helped me out, because doing everything on the site is killing me, mostly it's the communication break-down between certain members of the team, and I know this would be a great way to get the pertinent info, that I myself don't know, on the site.

[ThomasP]

ASP.NET and SQL Server 2005!

My job has converted me to Microsoft... it is nice software though...

[GRaduns340]

Microsoft is more widely used for corporate sites. It has a better package. PHP can be made to do more (at least from my experience), but ASP has more from the start.

[fimmel]

Originally Posted by GRaduns340

Microsoft is more widely used for corporate sites. It has a better package. PHP can be made to do more (at least from my experience), but ASP has more from the start.

if your just starting out in scripting languages id go with php. there IMO are more "out of the box" products for php/mysql (forums, calendars, CMSs, etc)

hopefully ill get to working w/ asp this summer so i can get the experience.
/forest

edit: also if you want a really flexible and easily integratable CMS i suggest e107.....im planing on using it for the 2008 green team site. enjoy!

[GRaduns340]

I agree with that. My point was that from a purely language standpoint ASP can be a little bit more powerful. However, as fimmel said, PHP has far more support and more packaged products at this point.

[Gigaman2003]

ruby on rails is far better than asp, cfm or php cause its so robust. php should not be used on a development site unless the developer has a good enough knowledge of common exploits like poison null byte to secure his site. it may be easy to get something to work with, but its also ridiculosly easy for someone else to get it to do something else.

the only problem is that most people have trouble just learning php!

[jmcr8on]

Our team website.....a huge change over previous years is at: http://www.gpgearheads.org/

The web programmer created a CMS and provided an overview of how it all works...with code snippets.
http://www.gpgearheads.org/78

[Gigaman2003]

Originally Posted by jmcr8on

Our team website.....a huge change over previous years is at: http://www.gpgearheads.org/

The web programmer created a CMS and provided an overview of how it all works...with code snippets.
http://www.gpgearheads.org/78

nice piece of kit, i think most teams are beginning to realize how useful a cms is, especially when you're on the road/at a hotel and need to update the site at 12pm without a code editor.