I'm not doing this as a part of my job. And I'm not even considering developing "my own CMS". If you look into my post, you will see that the task is limited. I don't like to reinvent wheels, but I don't want to use a lawn mower, where simple scissors would do.
If you know about anything that's already available, that won't require modifications to the existing site, and will work with a host that does not support Perl / PHP / other, I will be very grateful for some suggestions. I already mentioned Unify, but this solution requires PHP support, and, although I'd be willing to pay for the software out of my own pocket, I'm not paying the annual hosting cost, and I must consider that the site owner won't like any upgrades.
regards,
Luke Jefferson
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And I'm not even considering developing "my own CMS".
Well, maybe you should. At least, think of it as an aready existing wheel: what you want is a CMS. So think of it how a CMS would fix this.
What you should do is consider the "static" page as a template. What you fill into the template is variable content. It can be page blocks: a postprocessed (so you're sure it is valid HTML, for example) version of what the user created.
There are CMS-ish systems on CPAN where you can produce static HTML pages out of user content. You should check those out. For example: Blosxom:
Blosxom can operate as a CGI script or produce static HTML files.
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Blosxom is a great project - but it's not a solution suitable for my purpose. I do not want to make adding content easier for myself. I want to provide a simple tool for the users. With Blosxom, they would have to create a structured text file in a specified location, then run the generator, then run something that syncs the generated content and the website. Even using "Save As..." is not a simple task, not for everybody. Navigating the directory tree is not simple as well - for some users, "it's on my computer" equals "it's on the desktop".
This could all be simplified by writing a script that automates the process - it could be placed on the client's desktop, but still - the script would have to be written, Blosxom would have to be configured, and some problems would have to be resolved (even with basic instructions like "put the title in the first line of the text file, the author name in the second line..." - some validation would have to be provided, with two or more users - there will be problems with sync, and so on).
I love the idea behind Blosxom, and tools like vee, and if I had a personal site, or a weblog, this would be my choice for content management. But those are not tools for this task, not for my users. Adapting them for this purpose would be at least as much work as writing an "Add-a-News-Item app". Again - this is not a question of managing a whole website, it's just about adding text-only news items.
regards,
Luke Jefferson
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