ISO Easy Tool/Software to Create Web Site
June 19, 2009 10:25 AM Subscribe
I need a tool (web-based or software) to create and easily update a web site that will be hosted in a subdirectory of a domain that I don't own (i.e. myemployer.ca/myname).
I created my web site on Weebly. Love the ease of use and all the drag and drop loveliness and it basically does everything I need, except one thing: I can't publish my site. I put my site on my employers domain (it's a professional not personal site) in a subdirectory. Weebly can't cope with anything other than my owning my own domain. I can download my site as a zip file, which would be fine except that none of the site internal links work as-is. They all point to the root directory rather than a subdirectory, which means I have to edit them, which is asking for trouble. A friend wrote a script to change them automatically, but the thing is this: I haven't updated the page in 3 years because it's too much of a pain. Update on weebly, download, run script, re-upload whole site, etc. Not worth it for small changes and even with big changes I can't be bothered.
I have three options:
1) Find a new development tool. This is the ideal choice if it exists)
2) Buy a domain name and continue using weebly. Not a great choice. It's the easiest but no one does this. None of my colleagues have their own domain so it would likely seem weird and full of myself. (They either have assistants do their pages, have crappy ugly pages that haven't been updated in 5 years, or have no pages at all).
3) Buy a domain name, use weebly and somehow mirror my domain at myemployer.ca/myname. This would be second best: All the ease of option 1, but still having my site on my employer space which is the more professional way to do this. But I have no idea if this is even possible.
THE QUESTION: I'm looking for 1) Advice on which option to choose. 2) What site development tool I could use for option 1. and 3) Whether or not option 3 is possible and how I would make that work.
REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW SITE DEVELOPMENT TOOL (Option2)
- Must be able to create site-internal links that will go to the subdirectory not straight to the domain's root directory. This is where weebly fails me.
-Should make it relatively easy to transfer all needed files into my web space by FTP.
- WYSIWYG point-and-click, drag-and-drop, and all the other marks of a weenie wannabe are all great for me.
- Should put together the structure of the site more or less automatically (e.g. add new pages to a menu bar, create site maps if necessary, etc.)
- I have no design sense other than saying "that looks nice" or "that looks amateurish. If I have to do my own design work, it will look amateurish, so bring on the templates.
- Free or cheap. ~$40/year would be acceptable.
- I don't currently include a blog page, embedded media, or any password protected areas, but I could imagine doing that at some point so bonus points if does this.
The site includes ~6 pages listed on the menu. The pages include e pictures, links to pdfs (also hosted as part of the site), external links, and a few pages of text. I've checked out blinkweb.com and sitekreator.com. Blinkweb can't do the subdirectory thing (like weebly) and sitekreator requries that they host the page and costs too much.
I created my web site on Weebly. Love the ease of use and all the drag and drop loveliness and it basically does everything I need, except one thing: I can't publish my site. I put my site on my employers domain (it's a professional not personal site) in a subdirectory. Weebly can't cope with anything other than my owning my own domain. I can download my site as a zip file, which would be fine except that none of the site internal links work as-is. They all point to the root directory rather than a subdirectory, which means I have to edit them, which is asking for trouble. A friend wrote a script to change them automatically, but the thing is this: I haven't updated the page in 3 years because it's too much of a pain. Update on weebly, download, run script, re-upload whole site, etc. Not worth it for small changes and even with big changes I can't be bothered.
I have three options:
1) Find a new development tool. This is the ideal choice if it exists)
2) Buy a domain name and continue using weebly. Not a great choice. It's the easiest but no one does this. None of my colleagues have their own domain so it would likely seem weird and full of myself. (They either have assistants do their pages, have crappy ugly pages that haven't been updated in 5 years, or have no pages at all).
3) Buy a domain name, use weebly and somehow mirror my domain at myemployer.ca/myname. This would be second best: All the ease of option 1, but still having my site on my employer space which is the more professional way to do this. But I have no idea if this is even possible.
THE QUESTION: I'm looking for 1) Advice on which option to choose. 2) What site development tool I could use for option 1. and 3) Whether or not option 3 is possible and how I would make that work.
REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW SITE DEVELOPMENT TOOL (Option2)
- Must be able to create site-internal links that will go to the subdirectory not straight to the domain's root directory. This is where weebly fails me.
-Should make it relatively easy to transfer all needed files into my web space by FTP.
- WYSIWYG point-and-click, drag-and-drop, and all the other marks of a weenie wannabe are all great for me.
- Should put together the structure of the site more or less automatically (e.g. add new pages to a menu bar, create site maps if necessary, etc.)
- I have no design sense other than saying "that looks nice" or "that looks amateurish. If I have to do my own design work, it will look amateurish, so bring on the templates.
- Free or cheap. ~$40/year would be acceptable.
- I don't currently include a blog page, embedded media, or any password protected areas, but I could imagine doing that at some point so bonus points if does this.
The site includes ~6 pages listed on the menu. The pages include e pictures, links to pdfs (also hosted as part of the site), external links, and a few pages of text. I've checked out blinkweb.com and sitekreator.com. Blinkweb can't do the subdirectory thing (like weebly) and sitekreator requries that they host the page and costs too much.
Option 3 is perfectly possible. In essence, you make a completely separate website and then ask the IT guy to make mycompany.com/myname point to myname.com. You'll have to buy hosting and a domain name, though, which will probably be more than $40/yr.
posted by katrielalex at 11:24 AM on June 19, 2009
posted by katrielalex at 11:24 AM on June 19, 2009
Response by poster: Just to be clear, Option 3 is not redirecting. Option 3 is somehow automatically mirroring (That is, taking all the files at myname.com and creating duplicates at myemployer.ca/myname). So visitors to the site see myemployer.ca throughout their browsing and never know I've done something as self-important as unprofessional as registering my own domain.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:53 AM on June 19, 2009
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:53 AM on June 19, 2009
could you use a subdomain of your company's domain? (http://you.yourcompany.com) and point that at the site?
posted by gregjones at 1:23 PM on June 19, 2009
posted by gregjones at 1:23 PM on June 19, 2009
Response by poster: No. Sorry, just not how the web space is set up: personalpages.myemployer.ca/myname . That's the option and they're not going to move tens of thousands of user accounts around to change it for me. And my department IT guy is probably a good 10 pay grades below a person who could set that up, regardless. He's more of a "can you come up and clean up my viruses" kind of guy. He gets upset if we plug in our own new office computers cause setting up new computers gives him something to do. He doesn't do programming or server-anything or anything of the sort.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:42 PM on June 19, 2009
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:42 PM on June 19, 2009
Response by poster: Wow, how does that work? Yes, either of those options looks good. I think the wrapping might work better just because it looks like mirroring might require also changing test (So within-site links point to /myname/file.html instead of /file.html. Unless I'm wrong.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:40 PM on June 19, 2009
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:40 PM on June 19, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:26 AM on June 19, 2009