DGD Consulting

Websites that contain content subject to frequent change will require some form of content management. Generally content management falls into three categories distinguished by the way pages get their content when they are loaded from the web server.

Offline Processing

In offline processing, the web pages are prebuilt and loaded as a static page – i.e. the content on the web server is fixed. A master copy of the current content is held offline in a database. When the data needs updating the master offline copy is updated and a new web page generated. At the appropriate time the new web page is copied up to the web server replacing the current page. Subsequent viewers of the page will see the new web page.

The simplest form of database is a folder containing the web pages, which can be edited by either Microsoft’s free editor Notepad or a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web editor such as FrontPage. The page can then be manually deployed using standard ftp download software such as FileZilla.

Commercial packages, such as Interwovens’ Teamsite, are available to do the same task, with additional security, rollback and workflow functions. However, these need considerable customisation and are expensive to buy and maintain.

An alternative is to build a bespoke system specifically for your website. This could just automate the more complex parts of your content management and deployment process, or be developed in stages as the complexity of your content increases.

On Line Processing

With online processing, the content is added to the web pages from a database each time the web page is displayed. The deployed web page is just a skeleton and is fleshed out with data every time it is requested. To change data, a change is made to the database and immediately subsequent page requests will start to use this new data. This model of data management is ideal for large catalogues and inventories. Each item is described with the same pre-determined page layout slotting in its own text and graphics in the appropriate places.

Commercial packages can be used or custom applications written using the application tool package that comes with the selected database.

Static Pages

A site consisting of static data only, may never require any page changes. However, even static data may suffer from its content becoming out of date – e.g. telephone number changes, name changes etc. A documented set of instructions for hand editing the pages is a useful fall-back.