Snow watch

[bladedanny]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if any one can help me.
What I'm wanting is something to put onto the schools home page to warn if the school is closed/open in the event of snow. It also needs to be updated as easily as possible by the head, who has no website editing knowledge.

I've thought of using Twitter and embeding a Twitter badge on the site. The problem I have with this is hiding it when nothing is diplayed. I need it to kind of take over the main content when needed to.
So far I have managed to strip the html badge down and with css make all borders etc invisible so it just displays the text. But when nothing is entered even though nothing displays it leaves a nasty looking blank spot on the page.

I hope this makes sense and if it doesnt please ask for more detail.

Hope some one has some ideas,

Dan

[steve_nfi]

Can't you just insert an RSS feed from your local TV or Radio website?

[bladedanny]

Can't you just insert an RSS feed from your local TV or Radio website?

Pass, I don't know, this is something I will look at, but if its possible I would like to cut out the need to rely on 3rd parties.

Thanks,

Dan

[mossj]

What is your website based on HTML? PHP? CMS?

The solution the head found at my old school was to phone me at 6 in the morning to put it on...

[laserblazer]

We use this.

sipgate.co.uk - free phone service over your broadband link - voice over ip provider

It gives a local number that they call for recorded info. There is an answerphone facility but we don't use that.

[somabc]

I've thought of using Twitter and embeding a Twitter badge on the site.

Noooooooooooo! What if twitter is not working!?

but if its possible I would like to cut out the need to rely on 3rd parties

The Irony... I think you could update the page by SMS/MMS/email

[bladedanny]

What is your website based on HTML? PHP? CMS?

The solution the head found at my old school was to phone me at 6 in the morning to put it on...

It's HTML

[bladedanny]

Noooooooooooo! What if twitter is not working!?



The Irony... I think you could update the page by SMS/MMS/email

I Thought someone might point this out as soon as I posted it.

What I meant to say was I'd like to cut out 3rd parties having to post the information. To acheive what I want I will almoast certainly need to use a 3rd party like twitter or something.

Basicly the head needs to be able to log on (to something) and type in 'school closed' and press ok.

Cheers,

Dan

[somabc]

I Thought someone might point this out as soon as I posted it.

What I meant to say was I'd like to cut out 3rd parties having to post the information. To acheive what I want I will almoast certainly need to use a 3rd party like twitter or something.

Basicly the head needs to be able to log on (to something) and type in 'school closed' and press ok.

Cheers,

Dan

Well done on getting the head to agree to update this by himself btw!

[bladedanny]

Well done on getting the head to agree to update this by himself btw!

It wasn't that difficult, she is quite good at getting things done. She already updates the newsletter and note home weekly using ftp.

[SteveBentley]

In that case, assuming your webserver allows PHP, rename your index page to be index.php

Have a text file in a directory somewhere on ther server which the head can write to, and can put messages about snow etc into, perhaps teach her the very basics of the header tags. You could leave a note about how to do it commented out in the file.

Then on your page, use

 <?php
include("path/to/that/file.txt");
?>  

and the contents of the file the head updates will be automatically included wherever you put that. When there is no announcement just leave the included file blank.

[Chunky]

Here's a simple idea.
Why not have 2 files, and make a batch file to rename / overwrite when necessary?

Copy your current page, add "School open" and save as Open.htm
Change it to School closed" and save as Closed.htm

Batch file open.bat
copy open.htm index.htm

Same thing for closed.

Then just give permission for access to the head to run the batches.

Chunks

[rad]

if that doesnt work, what about using photobucket.

Add onto Photobucket a picture of say a blank white box. In Photobucket you have the option of changing the picture and addign text onto it so you can edit the "picture" and retain the image coding.

At least that way you can save the hassle of logging into the school site if the webusage goes sky high and have another option available to you.

If that makes no sense then i'll rephrase the above.

[jmair]

In that case, assuming your webserver allows PHP, rename your index page to be index.php

Have a text file in a directory somewhere on ther server which the head can write to, and can put messages about snow etc into, perhaps teach her the very basics of the header tags. You could leave a note about how to do it commented out in the file.

Then on your page, use

 <?php
include("path/to/that/file.txt");
?>  

and the contents of the file the head updates will be automatically included wherever you put that. When there is no announcement just leave the included file blank.

I agree with this. If your webserver allows php, I would add two things to your site.
1: a hidden backdoor page http://www.exampledomain.org/enews.php that would allow you to submit text to the first line of the file.txt file.
2: the php include from the file.txt, pehaps in bold red on your websites homepage.

This is quite simple and I'm sure any of us could assist you if you need help with it.