Hi,

I am about to begin work on a website to help out a member of the family - the site; Girl Guiding, is going to need regular updating with new information, events, news... and I am constricted to what I can do - the person who will maintain and update the site doesn't know PHP but will be disappointed if she doesn't get to write some HTML (or rather she will be disappointed if she cannot incorporate some use of Dreamweaver in her work as she has just read a book on how to use the software).

So my thoughts are something like this:
- I write a site template, a scripted home page (which ideally will display recently added articles, new forum posts (from phpBB) and other stuff) and possibly a few other scripted pages that won't be changed regularly in the same way as the other pages.
- I possibly create an admin section where admin users can upload HTML content
- She can then, for example, go and choose a section of the site; events, upload an html file with static content about an event (having used Dreamweaver or whatever) and write a short description about what is in the file, a summary of the event.
- The short description then goes into a DB as does the link to the HTML file and date added.
- A scripted events page sees that it is recent so adds the short description to the events home page and links to another php page which includes the uploaded file which is encased in the site template.

Sorry for the ramble but hope I have made it clear, by saying what I am thinking of doing, what I want (or at least something similar).

Has anyone got any better suggestions? Or know of a free CMS type thing that does pretty much that?

I have looked at things like Joomla but I think they are far to complicated and as far as I can see you can't upload HTML files, also I have already written the site template.

Thanks in advance,
Ed

IMHO, why reinvent the wheel? There are already a ton of CMSs out there, why bother building your own? With Joomla you can upload your own html files with your FTP client, and then include them in a Wrapper. Check the documentation. You could also use something like Drupal if Joomla isn't what you're looking for.

I'm just saying that with all the issues that come with building a CMS from scratch, you could take the time to learn a popular CMS.

Joomla allows the user to directly edit the HTML when posting a new article.

But anyways, making a CMS depends on whether you want a good site, or you want to learn. If you want to learn PHP, go ahead and work on a CMS, it'll be a great learning experience (it was for me ). If you just want a site that works, go with a premade CMS; it'll probably be more bug-free and secure than anything you could make (assuming this is going to be the first CMS you've ever made).