What is a good Web Site Maintenance Software?

[donebb]

I kind of inherited the job of maintaining the web site for our church. We use Network Solutions and the software seems really clunky to me. I don't have anything really to compare it to, I have put together some small personal web sites using both Google Sites and Microsoft's Windows Live sites. Using Network Solutions is really the first commercial, that means paid, software.

I am always the office geek, I know how to do a lot of things on the computer, very good with all Office software and also photo and video editing. I am pretty sure I am using the software correctly, it just doesn't work that well. I mostly use an older desktop computer running XP but I also have tried it on a newer laptop running Windows 7 and I run into the same problems.

Like I mentioned Network Solutions, they use Image Cafe, seems clunky, lots of mouse clicks to get to where you can do something. Formatting isn't consistent and a lot of times after I have put together a text box, I will go back to change one thing and all the formatting changes when I save it. I have set default formats, Arial 12 for a regular text and when I save a text box, it will sometimes change it to Times New Roman 10 and take out the extra returns between paragraphs. Also, sometimes text will get "locked" as bold and there is no way it will un-bold. What I have done is copy everything, delete the text box, copy it to Word, edit it and then copy it back to a new text box. Like I said, clunky.

I have no idea what is involved if we change companies or if what I have is the best out there but I have a hard time believing that. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[jscher2000]

With most web hosts, you have two options for site authoring: (1) their site builder in the cloud, or (2) your choice of desktop software + an FTP client to upload files to your web space.

I have always used my own software, since I find online site builders to be a little inflexible. (One exception: I have a blog built using WordPress, which has online editing and a wide range of plugins to add features. It's more complicated than most site builders, but learning WordPress is a good skill to know if you are interested in the web business.)

And of course, you probably can change web hosts without too much work, but you don't need to if you are otherwise satisfied with Network Solutions (and don't mind its high prices).

If you are interested in web site editor software that runs on the desktop, there are many opinions in past threads here.