We have a asp.net mvc website which is using umbraco CMS system. Now,we want to convert the CMS system to plain HTML pages. We do not have the complete code of the website.
How can we remove CMS system and convert it into flat HTML files easily without writing the code from the scratch for this website.
Why would you want to move away from a CMS? A CMS is build to make things easier and you are moving going back to the dark ages of the internets where we build websites with notepad by typing HTML by hand.
Discaimer: I am an umbraco dev, and I love the product. So I might be biased
To answer your question, I use http://www.httrack.com/ to backup existing (old) websites before moving to a new platform & hosting.
To answer your question:
For every page, view source and copy the shown Html to a new Html file. Make sure you honour the folder structure too.
You could also use https://www.httrack.com/ that might give you what you need.
To try to persuade you not to:
However I would strongly recommend against doing this. Umbraco has great mechanisms in place that give almost comparable speed to a flat file website. It uses an Xml file that gets updated when database values are changed, and builds pages and content from this.
If you flatten your website to plain Html files all your Urls will invariably change and this is super bad for SEO. You will also have a 'mare of a time trying to update the site with new content or editing the same content found across all pages e.g. the main navigation and footer.
Related
I don't have any experience when it comes to coding any type of language, but I do want to try and understand the logic flow. For my website, I am using magento as the backend system and trying to create a blogging page on my site. I have third party developer working for me, but they gave me an estimate that doesn't seem right. In the backend, I can create he CMS page for blog, but I want to design the template or even buy a template off a free lancer. Only thing is that there seems to be two method to design the blog and that is either manually typing in the Xml coding for the page layout or select the xml file from within my server. I don't have admin access to my server because I left that for my developers to work on, but I do have the ftp access. I'm honestly not sure if the ftp is my actual server access or not. To make things short I have two question. First is that is it possible to simply copy and paste the xml coding into the page layout? The other question is if I were to download the xml document, would I simply upload it via ftp access and choose that template on magento backend?
Developing a Magento page involves significantly more work than dropping some XML into a Magento CMS page. You need to code the relevant HTML and CSS, put it into the correct files (.phtml template files for the HTML, .css stylesheets for the CSS), and then reference it correctly via the layout XML or through other means.
So, to answer your questions:
First is that is it possible to simply copy and paste the xml coding into the page layout?
Yes, you can copy and paste layout XML into a CMS page. However, XML layout configuration is only a small piece of building a page.
The other question is if I were to download the xml document, would I simply upload it via ftp access and choose that template on magento backend?
There's a lot more to it than uploading an XML document. As I said above, you have to think about the HTML and CSS files, ensuring they are integrated correctly within Magento's structure.
Good day, everyone!
I'm currently building 2 sites: one of them is my 'personal website' that will contain contact information, current and finished projects. (Like a presentation card, you know what I'm talking about!).
The other one it's a site regarding a tool that I'm currently developing: I want to make 3-4 section with classic things about a software: what it is, what it does, news about developments, a FAQ section and a download page.
Now, the problem is: I don't want to waste time with such 'silly' website. I want make it fast and update it easily.
I've got 2 ways in my mind:
1) Create a dynamic site (php) that will 'build' pages from a database that contains all things like finished projects, news feed and so on. I have to create the backend for content insertion, but once i've done it I can insert new content in few seconds.
2) Build a site based on static pages (classic html) filled MANUALLY with new content (like the weekly news feed); isn't much 'professional', it's much more fast to grow up but can be difficult to insert new content (Every time I want to make a news I have to write the title in an html tag, bold content with tag and so on) and move manually the old news to another page. Maybe exist external tool to help me doing that?
I always thought that static webpage aren't used even for site that 'allows' new content being updated often (once a week) but I found that isn't completely true: LOT of site that I like (medium popularity software sites) it's just a bunch of text on a static page.
I guess that isn't a smart thing waste time build a nice site for a poor developed software, isn't it?
Also, isn't kind of newbie build a site with such an old way?
What tool can I use for fast 'formatting' html news text?
Any suggestion for creating these website with fewest time spent?
When I develop websites, I use a basic template: a "toolbar" or "navbar" at the top of the page and an iframe tag that contains the content and pages browsed. You can learn how Joomla! and Wordpress platforms work and see the idea behind it: a group of files build an html file from data stored inside XML files (either in physical disk or in a database). Those files and classes build and render those pages until you get what you see in a static (sometimes dynamic with JavaScript/jQuery) page/file. Open-Source is a great thing - the human kind must use it wisely.
I will also recommend using JSON or some other database to get the needed code and append it to the body. I use XMLHttpRequest() to get code inside json, i then parse it get the html string and append it to the body of my website. It works well for me.
A local nonprofit needs a new website. It's a very basic website that simply presents information, nothing past basic HTML/CSS is needed to make the actual site.
The marketing manager would like to be able to edit text sections (upcoming events, jobs) regularly. How would I go about creating the site in HTML/CSS and then allowing them to edit just the text in those sections in an easy way? is that even possible, or would this require more advanced knowledge of actual programming/database languages?
Thanks
No, you can't edit the site with just HTML and CSS. Even if you have JavaScript, you'll need server side code (ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Node.js etc) to store the changed text, since HTML, CSS, and JS run on the client (excluding server side JavaScript based frameworks).
The easy solution is to just use simple HTML and tell him to directly edit the HTML. If he's just a little bit technical, an hour or two of explanation of how HTML works might be enough to get you going.
A CMS solution that is prebuilt and has simple menus for editing things might work nicely. There's plenty of various options to suit your needs.
Otherwise, you can either build a custom site. A custom site that reads text from simple text files might be all it takes (Markdown might be preferable to plain text.) Of course, you can scale it up if you want until you've basically built your own CMS.
You can't do that.
HTML pages are stored on a server (which is just a computer accessible by other computers via an internet connection), when you type in an address in your browser's address bar it sends a request to a server to fetch the corresponding HTML page. Then this page is displayed in your browser.
Now, say you managed to change a text in your browser somehow using HTML/CSS, but you still need to find a way to send these changes back to the server so that these updated pages are accessible by other remote browsers, and the only way of doing this is to use server side languages. They are not really that difficult, you can quickly learn that.
You might like to take a look at this sourceforge project.
This is a file-based system that uses conventional HTML for the webpages, but allows online editing with CKEditor. Requirements are Apache 2 and php 5.3 or later.
There is a testdrive available.
Login with guest.
I'm trying to create a theme for a CMS, but it's proving nearly impossible, as I have no understanding of PHP or ASP.NET. I can put a site together via CSS and HTML, but I want clients to be able to add and edit content themselves. I'm about ready to give up on designing one altogether and just use an existing theme.
I've had a go at trying to understand the inner workings of Wordpress, SilverStripe, Umbraco and Pixie, but the tutorials have left me confounded. Are there other CMSes I should be looking into for a more simplified theming process?
I'd really love to be able to just drop a chunk of code into the content area of a given HTML page, and make that region editable from a WYSIWYG front end that the client can log into. Is there such a thing?
Anything but DotNetNuke.
I'd recommend giving Wordpress another try.
I'm no web developer, just a an average Java/C# programmer who needed a web site and has some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. What I did was find a theme that was similar to what I wanted, then started tweaking it incrementally. My theme is pretty basic, but before long I got a pretty good grasp of "The Loop" and printing out category and page links and such.
How about Movable Type?
You can (and should) edit the templates via the web interface, they are divided into separate modules, so you can concentrate on one area of the site, styling is of course handled via CSS.
It took me a few hours without any prior experience with this CMS to completely port a Wordpress theme to MT - I found the documentation very helpful and didn't even have to look elsewhere.
An awesome thing about MT - it generates static pages based on the templates you defined. Meaning, very low load on the server, you don't need to query the database on every request, etc. You could probably do the same/similar by activating the cache plugin (or is it built in now?) in Wordpress, but here it's the default modus operandi so it's more stable and integrated with the CMS.
Drupal with the zen theme (or a "lighter" version of it: Starkish theme) seems like a popular choice (and well deserved, too). It gives you a good starting point, it has great documentation and many modules available.
PS: I've added this as an additional answer so that it can be voted upon separately from my other suggestion - I just could not stop myself from bringing up the Drupal + zen combo :)
I worked with Joomla, it is really easy to have a theme for it without knowing any programming language. When you install it using a simple installer, there will be a folder named templates. There are three simple themes each in its own folder. Just copy one of them,change XML data for that theme ( just to name it and have some details, no programming ) and change the contents of CSS and HTMLs. every where you see something unrelated to HTML like , copy them!! Names are descriptive. so you can guess what do they do. give it a try!
I'd really love to be able to just drop a chunk of code into the content area of a given HTML page, and make that region editable from a WYSIWYG front end that the client can log into. Is there such a thing?
The only system I've come across with this kind of functionality is Perch.
Just create your website using HTML/CSS as usual and chuck in a few small php tags where you want editable content. These areas are then added to an admin area for your clients to edit.
The only drawback is it costs £35 per site - I don't know if there's a free/open-source CMS with this functionality...
It's difficult to say which CMS will be the best one for you (maybe your question should be made into a community wiki question).
I have a little experience with mojoPortal, and found it to be easily customizable. There's a lot of documentation about how to skin your CMS and there a lots of complete skins that you can use as a starting point.
There is also a demo site, where you can see how the CMS works for an end-user.
Take a look at Joomla. That was the first CMS that I really used, and I still think its templating engine is better than most of the others out there.
Its template system essentially lets you build a standard web page, and then use some simple tags to define where the content and modules would go. You can override the output of most external components and modules without too much trouble, and the vast library of third-party extensions should help you add a ton of functionality to your site without much coding on your part. Joomla also has a fairly easy-to-use administrative backend, so your clients should like it too.
This page for themeing Wordpress helped me a lot:
Theme Development
UPDATE
Xichael,
If you know HTML and CSS pretty well, but you just don't want to spend time learning the Wordpress framework, then I think this is a good option for you (again, I can relate to your situation). Use Wordpress with the new Toolbox starter theme. It's super minimal.
Toolbox: An HTML5 WordPress Starter Theme
Here's an example of what it looks like. Just "View page source" and go to town on the CSS!
I've thought about writing my own very simple CMS just for handling pages, i.e. you have some sort of template, and then a <div> in the middle to drop in text from a WYSIWYG editor. You could even use XML as the data store to eliminate having to set up a database to store the page content.
It would sort of be re-inventing the wheel though, because there is so much polished CMS software out there already, but it wouldn't be that hard because it wouldn't have 99% of the features most systems have. However, what happens when your client wants to add something in the future that's already standard in an existing CMS or plugin?
If you are looking for a simple CMS tool, CMSimple is as basic as it gets. A small PHP based CMS system that does not even require a database or XML.
"CMSimple is the ideal tool for a single user to maintain a website."
Original version here: CMSimple.ORG
Original plus 2 enhanced versions here: Download CMSimple
117KB content manangement system
no database required; the entire site is stored in a single HTML file
built in WYSIWYG
no modules or widgets, no blog, no comments, etc., just basic pages
uses PHP (but no database)
Get themes here: dotcomwebdesign.com
I'm looking for a HTML editor that kinda supports templated editing or live snippets or something like that.
Background: I'm working on a website for a friend. As there are no specifications what the webspace/webserver can or can't do, I decided to make it a pure HTML/CSS page, or rather 10 of them. I wrote a template, copied it 10 times and edited the content. And guess what, the template has to be changed.
Therefore I'm looking for a (HTML-)editor that has some kind of live template system where I can edit the content in as it where plain text and then save the project into the 10 pure HTML/CSS files.
I thought about using PHP (the only script language I've some knowledge in), but writing the underlying template script would cost me enough time that I could change all files by hand. I'm not that familiar with AJAX to know if there's a way to load content from another file. If so, this would be an option if there already is a script. With Webdeveloper (firefox extension) I could save the generated source code as HTML/CSS.
Thanks in advance
Edit: any hints how to do this without an editor are welcome
Edit2: In my mind the tool looks like a plain old text editor like SciTe, but capable of editing multiple files simultaneously in the same text area, so it looks like editing one ordinary file, but actually it's a whole bunch of files.
Dreamweaver will do this for you, it's had HTML templating of the type your describe built in from very early versions (because from how you phrase the question I do not think you're thinking along the lines of a PHP templating engine such as Smarty, but some sort of HTML layout formating)
Although I regularly look around for Dreamweaver replacements, and I've certainly been impressed by Aptana, I still tend to use Dreamweaver in my development stack simply because whereas I can compensate for some of the more coding-orientated features it misses, I find the WYSIWYG nature of the editor invaluable.
I would have used a template engine.
I wrote a post about a dead simple script using the Dwoo template engine and mod_rewrite, where I am taking the uri and loading the forrect data and template based on that. You should be able to get it running in a few minutes.
Maybe I am way off on this, but why don't you look into an Open Source Content Management System (PHP/MYSQL)? There are MANY light systems that are not like Drupal, Joomla (if you do not want the big bulk of those CMS's).
There are even a few good ones for light web design that are flat file driven.
That would be my suggestion, at least if not for this project, look into it for future projects.
Here is an example of a great micro CMS that would seem to fit the bill for what you are doing:
http://www.mini-print.com/