Web design help

[glyn]

I was wondering how easy it would be turn this page
http://www.cardiffsnooker.org.uk/news.html

into something that would allow Facebook integration and so on i.e you could share a new story through Facebook or Twitter.

I assume somehow I'd need to turn each news item into a seperate entity that would feed the different systems, and have a seperate lead in line to the main news item.

Is this something that can be easily done, or is it something I'm going to have spend a bit of time (which I don't have) learning how to do it?

 

[thebluefox]

One fairly simple way to do it could be to use wordpress for the news section of your site.

 

[glyn]

One fairly simple way to do it could be to use wordpress for the news section of your site.

Good idea. I've never used it before, I'm having a look now.

Any tips would be appreciated. I presume I dump all the files I've just downloaded from wordpress.org on to my web hosting server and work from there.

 

[thebluefox]

Yeah pretty much, I'd put them all in a sub directory called news, then there'll be an install dir that you can use to set WP up through your browser. Good thing with Wordpress is its fantastically documented.

 

[glyn]

Unfortunately my web hosting account is too basic, it seems I can't use wordpress on it.

So any other ideas welcome!

 

[glyn]

Now looking at Blogengine, which apparently doesn't need an SQL database. Any experiences of that?

 

[Joe_Fox]

No

 

[Macky]

Unfortunately my web hosting account is too basic, it seems I can't use wordpress on it.

So any other ideas welcome!

Do you mean that you aren't allowed a database with your current host? Does somebody currently have to manually update a file each time there's a change?

 

[glyn]

Do you mean that you aren't allowed a database with your current host? Does somebody currently have to manually update a file each time there's a change?

Yes, the site is very old school.

I'm not allowed a database on the current package. Have also found out that Blogengine won't work as the web hosting server is Linux not Windows, which Blogengine needs.

 

[Macky]

Yes, the site is very old school.

I'm not allowed a database on the current package.

Good grief. Seriously Glyn, the very first thing that you need to do is find a new host, there's no excuse for that.
It's the equivalent of owning a luxury mansion, then building a fire in the middle of the sitting room floor to cook your food and heat the house.

As thebluefox has said, Wordpress will be your best friend and if you find a host that uses 'Fantastico', you won't even need to manually install WP, it'll handle it automatically.

You also need to tell the person currently doing the updates to uninstall FrontPage from their computer and to never, ever, ever think about using it again. It's the 21st century FFS.

 

[glyn]

You also need to tell the person currently doing the updates to uninstall FrontPage from their computer and to never, ever, ever think about using it again. It's the 21st century FFS.

That's me I'm afraid. I know I could use something better and do so much more with another package but I neither have the time or motivation (given such a specific interest group for the site) to upgrade. It does the job that I need it to do.

And as far as upgrading the web host, well the Heart package I have is a decent price and the league doesn't exactly need to invest any more.

I've added some facebook like buttons which will probably do the job I started the thread for, but it would have been nice to have done it through a proper blog

 

[glyn]

Saying that, if there is a better free web editor out there that people recommend I would be more than happy to change.

 

[Macky]

as far as upgrading the web host, well the Heart package I have is a decent price and the league doesn't exactly need to invest any more.

If they are charging you anything more than **** all, you're being ripped off.
There are free hosts out there that would provide everything you need.

Saying that, if there is a better free web editor out there that people recommend I would be more than happy to change.

Kompozer
Aptana
MS VWD

Aptana would be my personal choice, but Kompozer would be nearer to FrontPage if that's what you're used to.

 

[glyn]

If they are charging you anything more than **** all, you're being ripped off.
There are free hosts out there that would provide everything you need.

When I looked into this a couple of years ago before I moved to Heart, then most of the free hosts came with baggage (i.e adverts) which I wanted to avoid

 

[Matt_B]

When I looked into this a couple of years ago before I moved to Heart, then most of the free hosts came with baggage (i.e adverts) which I wanted to avoid

Which Heart package are you on? I used them for years with no problems and didn't know they did a non-db version?

Check out Freevirtualservers.co.uk, they are based in Leicester and do a package that costs a tenner or so to setup and then is free from then on, and will do everything you need.