Our computer club has enthusiastic members willing to work hard on our website but don't know HTML. I thought HTML editor would be good for them like this.

I make the original site, very simple HTML, and they would update the pages. For example, on a simple calendar table they would change January to February and type in the speaker and topic.

I opened a calendar page and expected them to be able to change it in the preview mode. Is that possible? I couldn't do it.

Don't say RTFM. I did that for 20 minutes.

No, you can't edit in preview mode.

If those club members are willing to work hard, as you say, make the page in code mode and show them what they can edit and what they have to leave untouched until they know what it means and what it is there for. Explain the basics to them. After all, html is no rocket science, so your club members will probably be able to learn it fairly fast.

Thanks -- Thought I was missing something.

You can't edit anything if you have the Preview tab selected. Did you actually mean that, or did you have the Visual Editor tab selected?

If you can't see the Visual Editor tab, then select Tools>Preferences from the menu.

On the Preference's "General" tab, in the area for "Initial Document Mode", deselect "Hide Visual Editor tab".

Note that switching between the visual and text editing modes will change and possibly ruin your code.

HTML Editor is great for beginners IF html coding is what you are beginning at. If you don't have any reason to learn HTML and just want a website that works, try Visual Site Designer.

While you can't EDIT in the Preview tab, I believe (not on my computer with the Editor on it) that you can have BOTH the Code Editor tab and Preview tab opened in a tile format and view the changes as they are made without switching back and forth.

Personal opinion, if a beginner WANTS to learn how to "code" a page, then YES HTML Editor is great for them. If they don't want to know the inner workings of a website, maybe the VSD would be the better choice. Either way, CC Suite of software would be good for them.

Thanks to everyone. I just want something for a few volunteers from a computer club to use to update their web site -- I am making a new one for them. They would just change the calendar, add presentations in pdf or ppt format given them by speakers at monthly meetings and so forth. Those pages were specifically constructed to be as simple as possible. I am willing to donate a lot of time constructing the site but I am not going to maintain it. Appreciate your comments.

I use and love some of the more "sophisticated" Coffee Cup stuff like Flash Website Search but not the HTML editor. I have the latest Dreamweaver and Front Page but really prefer to write from scratch with php (getting too old to keep up I guess).

In any case, your comments were valuable and appreciated.

Hiya Forrest,

I would think if you told them to change it code wise, showed them the sections of the code to change, put really explanitory comments next to each area they need to change so they know exactly where they need to go, that they should be able to handle that. Especially if there's more than 1 of them that they can discuss it between. I would say at least one of them will get a good handle on it and be able to help the others understand and see it better so it should be good. I say the HTML Editor would be best because in the end it is really the easiest way to go for something like this.

Sounds to me that the main things will be, upload the new files, change the link locations. Put a nice big comment around the text box that they would edit to describe any of their new content and tell them to keep it simple and 1 paragraph or 2 (showing them of course to put them between the paragraph or div tags etc.). That should be it if that's all they are doing is updating Calendars and pdf or ppt files.

I think this would be a lot easier than trying to teach them something like VSD where they will need to use insertion tools for some things and they may not know what tool for what job type thing.

Just my 10 cents, but I would think it's doable

Good idea Jo Ann. I realized that in the Preview mode, they can highlight text they want to change, switch to the Edit mode and say "Find". This will go right to what they need to change. I will setup the techie stuff like ftp settings and they should be good to go. Maybe after a few times at this they will absorb some HTML by osmosis.

Hopefully, I can report back in January that this went well.

- And just in case: Show them the Undo button!