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flemingmike · July 9, 2010

hello all,

im going a website for a friend, and im having a hard time deciding how to let them control "Important Updates". Im not being paid for it, so i dont want to be responsible for everytime they need their daily announcements.

The page is currently at http://durhamit.ca/dance/index.php and there is a Blue Box on the right hand side that they want to display their info.

what is the best way for me to let them update this content without getting them into my code?

Wolphie · July 9, 2010

The easiest way would be to create a web-based form for them to use where they can enter some text and it gets inserted into a database or a text file. Then you could pull the text from either the database or text file and display it on your web page.

Adam · July 9, 2010

Install a WYSIWYG editor too so you don't have to format them anything.

JasonLewis · July 9, 2010

You'd also need to make the section where the form is secured by an administrator login form. So only they can post updates, and not everyone else.

Install a WYSIWYG editor too so you don't have to format them anything.

If you're going to do that, I recommend TinyMCE.

Wolphie · July 9, 2010

Personally, for such a small thing I would just use a text file to store the data.

Check out:

Adam · July 9, 2010

"For such a small thing" .. What happens if they end up with a few hundred postings? It's also harder to remove and update previous posts.

JasonLewis · July 9, 2010

"For such a small thing" .. What happens if they end up with a few hundred postings? It's also harder to remove and update previous posts.

Agreed. A database, apart from being more secure, is a lot neater and easier to manage. If you have access to a database, then use it. If you don't, then well, stick with flat file.

Wolphie · July 9, 2010

"For such a small thing" .. What happens if they end up with a few hundred postings? It's also harder to remove and update previous posts.

Granted, I can agree if that is the case. However, from my understanding and the OP's description it seemed more like a twitter post. I.e. only a single post appears at a time, thus making it easy to update and remove. For this a database is just over-complicating matters.

That is just an assumption, though.

Adam · July 9, 2010

Fair point, I just remembered "daily announcements". Guess it depends if flemingmike wants to keep a history.

flemingmike · July 9, 2010

Basically, they have access to the ftp site, so they can open a text document, or any type of document that they can then edit how many posts are shown at a time. if i were to use a text file, is it easy to format the text with using:

<?php
// <= PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', true);
// > PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH);
?>

Wolphie · July 9, 2010

I think an XML file would be more ideal since you can easily use PHP's XML parser to parse different parts of the document.

Adam · July 9, 2010

Incidentally..

<?php
// <= PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', true);
// > PHP 5
$file = file_get_contents('./people.txt', FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH);
?>

Do exactly the same thing. FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH == true.

flemingmike · July 9, 2010

im very familiar with parsing xml, but have never produced an xml. is this an easy task for me to setup for them to do?

Adam · July 9, 2010

I don't think XML is the right way to go here.

Guess it depends if flemingmike wants to keep a history.

If you want to keep a history of the posts, use a database. If you just want to keep the current announcement stored, store the HTML within a text file and read that from the web page.

If they update the text file by FTP that kind of defeats the point of it, as they'll be coming back to you asking you to format the HTML everyday. Provide a simple admin interface for them to login and create a new post. If you're storing it in a file, purge it and write the content they entered in the WYSIWYG. Obviously if it's a database insert the new record and just display the latest post on the site.

flemingmike · July 9, 2010

ok, so im using

$updates = file_get_contents('updates.txt', true);

what would i use to show the results?

flemingmike · July 9, 2010

here is my code, i cant figure out how to get the text document into the frame because i broke out of php. anybody able to help?

<?php

include("style.php");


?>


<body bgcolor="#C0C0C0">


<div align="center">
<table border="0" width="825" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
	<tr>
		<td>
		<div align="center">
			<table border="0" width="95%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
				<tr>
					<td width="557">
					<p align="center"> 


					<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
						<tr>
							<td>
							<div align="center">
								<table border="0" width="403" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
									<tr>
										<td>
										<font color="#FFFFFF" size="5">Welcome to the 
										<i>NEW</i></font></td>
									</tr>
									<tr>
										<td>
										<p align="center">
										<font color="#FFFFFF"> 
										<font class="glowtitle" style="font-size: 28pt">Taylor Dance Centre</font></font></td>
									</tr>
									<tr>
										<td>
										<p align="right">
										<font color="#FFFFFF" size="5">official website.</font></td>
									</tr>
								</table>
							</div>
							<p align="center">
							<font color="#FFFFFF" size="4">Our dedicated, nationally acclaimed teaching staff will 
					strive<br>
					to assist students in achieving their goals.<br>
					At TDC we'll help you to...<br><br>
							</font>
					<div align="center">
						<table border="0" width="90%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
							<tr>
								<td colspan="2">
								<p align="center">
								<img border="2" src="images/soar.png" width="207" height="280"><font color="#FFFFFF" size="4"><br>to new heights!</font></td>
							</tr>
							<tr>
								<td>
								<p align="center">
								<img border="2" src="images/stretch.png" width="186" height="280"><font color="#FFFFFF" size="4"><br>all possibilities!</font></td>
								<td>
								<p align="center">
								<img border="2" src="images/friends.png" width="269" height="178"><font color="#FFFFFF" size="4"><br>that last a lifetime!</font></td>
							</tr>
						</table>
					</div>
							</td>
						</tr>
					</table>
					</div>
					</td>
					<td valign="top" width="225">
					<div align="right">
						<p align="center"> </div>
					<div align="right">
						<p align="center">

 </div>
					<div align="center" class="myBoxbb">
						<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
							<tr>
								<td>
								<p align="center">Updates Here</td>
							</tr>
						</table>

						</div>
					</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
		</div>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>
<p align="center"> </div>

Adam · July 11, 2010

Sorry I've been AFC all week-end.

What do you mean "broke out of PHP"?

JasonLewis · July 12, 2010

If by "broke out" you mean you closed the PHP tag, just open it again and echo the contents where you want to display the updates.

<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
                        <tr>
                           <td>
                           <p align="center"><?php echo $updates_variable; ?></td>
                        </tr>
                     </table>

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