NZOF Test

The NZOF website looks quite good but it is increasingly out of date. Once upon a time updates had to go through a webmaster and I don't think we have one now, but its not all that hard to learn how to update it. The GM and NZOF officers could share the password and update it themselves. To test this theory, I downloaded the news page, added a couple of items, and then uploaded them onto my own website. The surrounding titles and graphics etc aren't there but they would be if I was updating the real NZOF website.

I wonder why we haven't been doing this all these years? As soon as an officer thinks something should be on the website, it could be there in half an hour's work. (Be realistic - as soon as you see it on the web you realise some things could be expressed better, you edit it again, and...)

This mechanism requires a bit of familiarity with html which can be learnt, a text editor that comes with Windows, and a "ftp" program for uploading of which there are plenty of free ones. There's probably fancy software that can roll all this together but this Model T method is working for me.

This page has no layout because I drummed it up from scratch. Normally you would copy a page that someone has already written with some formatting, and just change the content. Or, you can upload Word or pdf files and then you can do the formatting using tools that you know.

Or link to other websites where someone else has done the work. Go back to the news page and link to the City Safari for example. Someone clever set this up for me, now I just change the words.

Installed Michael Wood 21 Apr 11

Alternatively

NZOF could use a Content Management System ("CMS") such as Wordpress, Joomla, or Drupal to make their webiste sure easy to keep up to date.

With a CMS, then anoy oen with a login that has edit right can just eadit any existing page or create new pages to add content. No special skills are required - it is as easy ans entering content into a word document.

the system can also easily be configured to support the attachement of photos or other files to a story/page and to even embed them into the text. One again no special knowledge is required to do this.

Pages can be prepared in advance and automatically become visible to visitors on a certain date, or perhaps that can be made to automatically disappear once a specified date has passed. Different content can be provided to people who have a login account on the site.. The possibilites go on and on.

The great thing to note is that most of these systems are FREE although they take some skill to set up and administer (which is not that same task as adding and maintining content), so why is NZOF not doing this???

James Scott - 2 April 2012