Every web designer who's put many hours into carefully crafting a professional website dreads this question. For the designer, this means losing control over the integrity of your work. Without the proper knowledge, web site code can be made incorrectly leading to browser rendering problems, a broken layout that no longer functions, formatting can be made that is inconsistent with the overall site's look and feel and that cannot be maintained efficiently, and images not optimized properly can look bad and download slowly. Web design is a professional-level skill, and ultimately it takes professional-level knowledge to master the entire art of creating and maintaining things.
For the client, though, this is a valid request: "I've paid for this work and I want to be able to change it." Here are some notes on different ways to edit your site.
Most web design professionals use Adobe Dreamweaver (msrp $399) to create and maintain websites. Dreamweaver offers many features that make sure code is created correctly and can be maintained consistently across a large website. Correct, valid, efficient code is important as it enables web browsers to display/render it consistently and how it was intended, so it can be maintained easily, so it downloads quickly, so it is search-engine friendly, understandable to people with visual disabilities, printer friendly, etc. Using Dreamweaver isn't necessarily difficult, but you need to know what to tell the program to do for you.
Adobe Contribute (msrp $199) is a good solution to allow simple editing of Dreamweaver-created web sites. Contribute respects Dreamweaver's templates which control the overall layout of the site and make sure things stay consistent. Contribute's permissions determine whether users can stick within existing formatting or are allowed to create new styles, and resize, insert, and optimize images (though not as well as a professional could). Sites created with Dreamweaver are best maintained with Dreamweaver and/or Contribute.
There are many free or low-cost code editing programs out there, but none of them come close to Dreamweaver in terms of features or the ability to maintain an entire website using Dreamweaver template functionality.
Any text editing program can be used to edit the Hypertext Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheet code that makes up web pages. With some knowledge of how HTML and CSS work, and a correct and efficiently-created website, you may be able to edit your site yourself. In short, look at existing HTML tags in brackets, like <h1>..</h1> and <p>...</p>; reuse those existing heading and paragraph tags and respect the opening and closing tags and brackets. It could be that simple for basic editing of existing content. There are about 2 dozen HTML tags commonly used. Then CSS formatting goes above and beyond that with text styles and layout-controlling styles; CSS may be stored in a separate .css file and/or near the head/beginning of the page. Mastering CSS is what separates amateur and professional web designers, and that takes some time and practice.
In addition to editing code, you also need to transfer files to and from the web server. This requires File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software. Some programs, like Dreamweaver and Contribute, include this FTP functionality and offer extra features to make sure things stay updated and files are put in the right place on the server. Some lesser web editing programs may include FTP as well, or you may need a separate FTP program of which there are may free ones out there. You will need the FTP login information for your web server, which your host must provide to you.
Yet another way to work with websites is a Content Management System. This is a server-based application where you can build and maintain your website through a browser-based control panel interface. The downside of a CMS is that you are locked into that framework and have to work within it, and are more tied down to the web host/server you are using. Working in Dreamweaver is really the opposite; you create anything you want to yourself and are free to customize it. CMS' do offer a lot of functionality, though, like adding user management, login and updating functionality, things like blogs that can be updated through a control panel and commented on by other users. CMS' can be broken up into 3 types:
Graphics are another story, another skill set, another software program; there are also many things you'd need to know to correctly prepare, size, and optimize graphics for use in a website in the Gif, Jpeg, and Png8/24/32 formats. Adobe Photoshop (photo and general graphic work) and Fireworks (specifically for web graphics) are professional-level graphics editing programs, among Adobe's suite of specialized graphic programs like Illustrator (illustration/vector graphics), Indesign (print layout/design). There's also Adobe Flash, which is used in web sites for animation, audio, video, and custom interactivity. Only Flash can edit Flash; yet another software program, skill set, piece of the puzzle, and one best left up to professionals due to it's complexity and lack of open-source/free editing capabilities.
In short, web sites are just code that can be edited by anyone, and images. But there is an awful lot that the code can do and a lot of knowledge required to get the most out of it and to do it correctly. If you want your site to stay correct, functional, efficient, and maintainable, leave it to a professional.
Accepting new projects and available for training/consulting in February-March 2012
Motel Western Skies Steel and Sweden Creme Spark Gallery Denver, CO February 2 - February 26, 2012
