Can a lay-person add or change text within a Dreamweaver set-up website?

Ok, we are a small Club with one individual who kindly put together a website for the Club. Problem is, the content hasn't changed in 2 yrs which makes it worse than useless really. I have offered to help etc, but the person concerned is NOT having it - ';spent 6 months at college learning Dreamweaver'; '; it's not like changing a Word document';



I have to go to a meeting soon to discuss how to make the website better, and I think she is talking nonsense. However, I don't know enough.



Surely, if you have the access information, it is possible to change text within existing pages on the website, or upload images of schedules or documents or whatever?



Can someone who REALLY know about this stuff give me the information I need to go into the meeting and insist that it is possible for another individual (who hasn't trained for 6 months!), to make changes on the website so that it can be kept up-to-date, rather than with material 2 yrs out of date?



Keep it simple, but advice really appreciated so i can argue my corner on this.



Many thanks.Can a lay-person add or change text within a Dreamweaver set-up website?
Yes, a lay-person can do what you are asking. If it is only text then it is very very easy. Have the ';smart one'; notate the coding to identfy in plain English what the various section of code mean and it will readily be seen where it is you will want to edit to bring it up to date. You will need to know what some or all the tags (that contained within %26lt; %26gt;) mean and you can find that at a lot of web sites, the easiest to understand is probably http://www.w3schools.com/ At this site, click HTML in the left hand column. Looking at the various sections you can try by changing the code and see the results.



Oh, you can use Notepad to make the changes. Just make sure you save it correctly so it remains HTML. You must have the file type as txt but YOU MUST add the extension .html to the filename, ie, filename.htmlCan a lay-person add or change text within a Dreamweaver set-up website?
Well, I've used Dreamweaver, and I didn't need 6 months college training to do so. It's more like changing a power point document than a word document, but so long as the basic structure of the website is set up then it is just a matter of changing the text and moving the pictures around. It's quite easy once the initial setup has been completed.
Just because it was originally written in Dreamweaver you should be able to edit it in any other web editing programme. When I build sites I use a combination of Dreamweaver and FrontPage (I'm sure some people will read this and wonder why) because I find different elements of each easier. It may even be possible to edit the site in Word or Publisher although you wouldn't be able to add the dynamic content as you would with a proper web editing programme.

If it's any help, when I gave up the website for a local organisation it was taken on by an elderly gentleman (in his 80's) who had no experience of writing websites at all. He's been able to build a really good site and change the domain name. What he's done is really good.

Good Luck.
All the other answers are correct. After all everyone is a ';lay-person'; until they try!



LOL more like 6 days than six months!



http://www.josephsimons.co.uk
The best thing to do is educate yourself on how web pages are built (your Dreamweaver expert obviusly isn't because it IS just like changing a word document!). A good condensed guide is at http://www.freewebtutorial.co.uk for more help.

In a nutshell...to make a website you need to buy a domain name (www.whatever.com - couple of quid a year), then some web hosting (couple of quid a month), build some web pages (free) and upload them (free). You can build web pages using a free text editor such as Microsoft Notepad (start%26gt;all programs%26gt;accessories) or Word and would need to learn html %26amp; css. Alternatively you could buy some wysiwyg (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) software to build the pages (such as Dreamweaver).