[kwlug-disc] Website management tools

[locklin.jason at gmail.com]

On Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:03:12 -0400
Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:


> One approach is to use your CMS as a static HTML generator, and the outside
> world would not have any access to the dynamic site. This means that some
> things will not work, such as commenting on content, or rating it, ...etc.
> But it also has an advantage that the site is static and hence very fast.

You can add dynamic content like comments to static websites with
external services like Disqus, Discourse, Hypothes.is, etc.
The external services take care of the spam and security issues related
to dynamic content -provided, of course, that you are picky with who you
choose. They combine well with static-site generators to produce stable
websites that you don't have to monitor anywhere near as closely as CMS
systems. 

Some of the static generators are producing really attractive sites and
becoming easy to use/script. The nice thing is they are usually
git-backed, so you can easily backup/restore a full history if something
happens, and you have full view and edit-access to your website when
working offline. Combined with a WYSIWYG markdown editor and some
automatic scripts for re-building the site and uploading it from her
Ubuntu computer, you could, potentially, set up something relatively
easy to use.

They are a learning curve, though. I've been procrastinating, myself,
in building one with some of the newer tools. See Staticgen.com for a
starting point.

Also, with Let's Encrypt, adding SSL to her site should be relatively
easy no matter how you host it.