If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably the IT manager for for family
and circle of friends. The trick to being the IT manager for this group is
to maximize their benefit, while minimizing your own pain. In such a role,
I needed something “simple and easy”, and one thing I checked out was Jeffrey
Palermo’s EZWeb.
Installation was a snap–download
a ZIP from GotDotNet, and extract the contents. Create an IIS
virtual directory, drop the extracted files into the virtual dir, and grant the
ASPNET (or Network Service if Win2K3) user Modify permissions on the directory
(documentation says Full Control, but I haven’t had any problems with
Modify). Once this is done, browse to your new virtual dir.
The first thing you’ll see is the welcome page below
Click the [sign in] link, and you’ll get the usual login box. Log in
with the admin credentials (admin/ezweb, in case you didn’t read the welcome
page)
Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see the menu has added some administrative
tasks.
Your site consists of only the Home page right now. To add a page,
click on the Manage Page link in the menu. You’ll be taken to the Page
Administration.
To create a new page, click the Add button in the “Children and Hyperlinks”
section. You’ll be prompted to enter the title of the new page, and if the
page should open in the same window (Target = Self), or a new window
(Target=Blank); if you’re not using frames, the other options won’t matter.
Click the Update button to save the new page. You’ll stay on the Page
Administration, but you’ll see your new page appear in the menu.
The page title will also appear in the browser’s title bar, as well as the
page title and breadcrumbs in the default skin.
If you click on the menu link to your new page, you’ll have management
options in your menu.
Clicking on the Edit Content link will open a rich text editor, where you can
enter the text to appear on the page. You can add and format text in
Design mode, or switch to HTML mode to enter HTML code. Switch modes by
using the tabs in the lower left corner. When you’re done, click Save in
the lower right corner.
To add an image to your content, you’ll need to upload the images to your
website. To add them one at a time, you an use the built in File Manager
tool. The File Manager is right above the Editor, and is minimized by
default.
Click on the Show link to expand the File Manager.
Click the Browse button to find the file you want to upload, then click the
Upload button. If you’re uploading a file (such as an Excel spreadsheet),
it will be listed in the Files column. Images, such as GIF or PNG, will be
listed in the Images column. Note that JPG files are not supported, so
you’ll need to use GIF or PNG files. After the upload, you’ll receive a
message that your file already exists on the server–I think that’s a bug right
now.
To insert the image, right-click on the image’s file name, and choose Copy
Shortcut. Then click the Image button in the text editor (looks like
mountains–
) to open the Image Editor. Paste the image path into Image
Source box, add some ALT text, set any other image parameters, and click OK.
You’ll be returned to the text editor, and your image will appear in the
editor window. As before, when you’re done editing, click Save.
In this application, images, files and content don’t disappear. For
each page, a new folder is created in the Images, Files and
FilePageConfigProvider directories. Images and files are stored
accordingly, in the proper folders.
Page content is stored in XML files in the proper folders under
FilePageConfigProvider.
If the day comes where you need a new system, you can either cut and paste
your content out of the XML (provided you don’t have a zillion pages), or a
competent developer can write a widget to read every file and upload the content
into your new system.
