[Mark Tungston]

I have a client that needs a process where she can update some of her own site after i design it.

Conrtibute looks good...any other options?

All she needs is some text and the changing of a schedule. I don't want to build any special programs for her to do this easy updating.

[SPiNdustrious]

I would make the decision based on your client's competence and comfort with technology/computers in general/the Internet.

Contribute is probably the best route for a nervous novice. Then again, it is probably the costliest solution.

A quick 'n' easy script running either locally or on the server could either modify or replace a <div> with a specific id attribute. While this might "cost" more than Contribute, you could reuse it with other clients...

The simplest solution might be an FTP client and a text editor. Thorough instructions and well-commented clean code ought to be novice-parseable .

Your could also make use of a couple of server-side includes to pop an easily edited text file into a waiting block-level element like P or DIV.

Unless your client has no clue at all, I would be inclined to let her edit the files directly.

My clients have done all kinds of crazy "expert" things armed only with instructions and my assurance that it'll all be ok. It works.

Peter

[Simon Mundy]

I gave Contribute a test drive the other day. After about an hours worth of tinkering, I'm cautiously optimistic.

I used VPC 5 with an iMac G3 600 so it wasn't a speed demon, but it did allow me to see that it looks like contribute is somehow based around a browser engine (Gecko?) because most of the widgets, panes and messages look like they're straight out of NS6's code. I mean this in a good way. It means it's probably generating good code.

I played only with the basic features - opening, linking, inserting images and tables. Stuff that a receptionist may do (I use this as an example because one of my clients is in this exact situation).

If the end user is moderately experienced with HTML or a WSYWIG editor, then contribute should be the ticket. It's straight-forward, it keeps code reasonably compliant (you can control how it writes style information, what tags not to touch, etc) and works. Mostly. I did get one nasty crash trying to edit a previously unfinished site wizard.

But apart from the rough edges, this may be a very handy tool.