Updating site information online?

[john4938]

I am a basic site designer! I am re-designing my company's site ( http://www.clarkfreight.com/development/index.html ) and need / want to allow some of the people in the office to change and update information on the site as they need. The link above is to an incomplete upload of the site I am working on now; this one is all in Flash. Just follow the available truck link to see what I am concerned about at this point. It is very simple information that I will need updated for ex:

53 ft dry van Houston, TX available 5-35-03 @ 0800 call ralp @ xxx-xxx-xxxx

The design is a 48 State layout in which each state is a button. I want each state, once selected to show the truck/trailers that are available. This information changes constantly so the need for the people to update it is definatley there. I do not have the buttons (states) linked to anything yet doc/pdf/html/flash etc...

What would I need to allow the people in my office to update this information online? Does it need to be databse driven or is this something that can be created in Dreamweaver?...(if you can't tell I use Macromedia software)

Any help would be great....

Thanks,

John Steelman

[smoseley]

A database would work, but you could also use XML / XSL-T in combination, which is also known as XHTML.

Basically, youw ould create an XML document with your information like so:

<trucks>
    <truck>
        <description>53 ft dry van</description>
        <location>Houston, TX</location>
        <availability>5-35-03 @ 0800</availability>
        <contact>
            <name>Ralph</name>
            <phone>xxx-xxx-xxxx</phone>
            <email></email>
            <fax></fax>
        </contact>
    </truck>
    <truck>
        <description>44 ft dry van</description>
        <location>Miami, FL</location>
        <availability>5-35-03 @ 0800</availability>
        <contact>
            <name>Steve</name>
            <phone>xxx-xxx-xxxx</phone>
            <email></email>
            <fax></fax>
        </contact>
    </truck>
</trucks>

Then, create an XSL document that transforms the XML document into HTML. It's pretty easy to do. Search online for a tutorial:

[searchweb]XSLT XML XHTML[/searchweb]

Once you've got the transform document in place, you can have someone simply copy and paste "truck" listings into your document, changing the pertinent information. Upload the new XML file to your site and voila! your page will change