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General Discussion

Posted by Jack Kasbeer
Jack Kasbeer
1,076 Points

Common practices

I recently developed a website for a small company, and I had no intention of managing the site for them once I was finished. So I wrote some JavaScript that essentially allows them to add or change content by simply adding text files to a particular folder.

So my question is, is this a regular practice? Is it frowned upon to use JavaScript as a way to add content to a page? Does it increase or slow down loading speeds? What would the alternative be to using functions to read files and add content to a page? Is it better to have the content in the HTML files? Or is this something that should be handled from the back-end?

Thanks in advance!

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

I think the common practise is to use a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress.

Jack Kasbeer
Jack Kasbeer
1,076 Points

Okay, but I'm notoriously not a fan of Wordpress. So what then?

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

How come? I am learning that at the moment. I think its just an extension of a static site if you code the theme yourself. But if not then its built in PHP so you could if you had the skills create your own CMS. Maybe AJAX but i dont really know.

Jack Kasbeer
Jack Kasbeer
1,076 Points

Okay. It may be that I'm being ignorant and stubborn and don't actually know as much about Wordpress as I think I do. I thought it was mainly for template-ing websites.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

If you want users who don't understand how websites are put together and what HTML you can edit and what you can't that's what a CMS is for.

You probably want something like perch available at https://grabaperch.com/

Adam Sackfield
Adam Sackfield
Courses Plus Student 19,663 Points

Well you would create a static version first then add the editable content in WordPress just easier for the client to manage really