0
Welcome Guest! Login
0 items Join Now

Display text from DropBox file?

  • Display text from DropBox file?

    Posted 12 years 9 months ago
    • I'm looking for a way that a VERY non-technical user could update a particular page on their site without logging into it. Basically, I would like them to be able to edit a plaintext or maybe a Word document in their DropBox folder and have the site display it with no other interaction required. Teaching them HTML is not an option; this has to be dead simple. Anytime they change the doc, the site displays the new version on refresh.

      I'm looking for a solution that uses only HTML or an extension, no programming knowledge required.
    • Ben Simon's Avatar
    • Ben Simon
    • Elite Rocketeer
    • Posts: 4301
    • Thanks: 8
    • Full-time web developer

    Re: Display text from DropBox file?

    Posted 12 years 9 months ago
    • If the text is in a Joomla article, they can use the edit button on the front end, change the text and hit save. That is even easier that editing a separate file. BTW, most of the text editor in Joomla are WYSIWYG that don't require HTML knowledge.
      Mark Giambruno wrote:
      I'm looking for a solution that uses only HTML or an extension,...
      I thought you said you wanted something that doesn't require HTML knowledge :)
    • B e courteous to staff and members that volunteer their time helping you
      E ssential Tool - FireBug
      N ever assume I know what version you're talking about

      S earch the forum for a solution first
      I nclude a link to the problem
      M ark your resolved issues as [SOLVED]
      O nly PM moderators if they request it first
      N o...
  • Re: Display text from DropBox file?

    Posted 12 years 9 months ago
    • I already tried showing the user how to do it with the sorta-WYSIWYG editor, but it just didn't work out. We're talking about an elderly person who struggles to use a browser. I'm sure there must be something that will grab a non-HTML plaintext file and display it properly on a webpage.

      "I'm looking for a solution that uses only HTML" refers to the technical solution on the webmaster end, not the method that the user employs to create the content.
    • Ben Simon's Avatar
    • Ben Simon
    • Elite Rocketeer
    • Posts: 4301
    • Thanks: 8
    • Full-time web developer

    Re: Display text from DropBox file?

    Posted 12 years 9 months ago
    • I cannot think of an "out of the box" solution that fetches a text file remotely and displays it on a webpage. A blogging client is similar to that. You could use an ftp client that pushes the file to the sites automatically, create a php file that takes the content of the file and overrides an article in the sites database. HTML cannot dynamically change content within a page (unless your client were to edit the HTML directly) but PHP or any scripting language can.

      Here is how you would do it with PHP: www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp

      JavaScript is more complicated but I would start here: www.w3schools.com/js/js_howto.asp
    • B e courteous to staff and members that volunteer their time helping you
      E ssential Tool - FireBug
      N ever assume I know what version you're talking about

      S earch the forum for a solution first
      I nclude a link to the problem
      M ark your resolved issues as [SOLVED]
      O nly PM moderators if they request it first
      N o...

Time to create page: 0.069 seconds