Member Avatar for jwpocid

Hi all,

I'm working on a project with a LOT of non-techies and I'm spending a lot of my day updating our website with their minor changes.

I've seen (somewhere) a routine/program/?? that would open, read, and display a text file on the person's webpage without intervention from a techie.

Any ideas how to do this or maybe point me to an application that will do this.

There's a LOT of info but I haven't been able to find that specifically.

Thanks all for whatever help you can be.

john

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 83 Views
  • 8 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by jwpocid

Dani AI

Generated

For : was pointing you in the right direction — server-side solutions are the most reliable — but there are a few practical alternatives that let non‑technical staff edit plain text without daily dev intervention.

One low‑effort server option is server‑side includes (SSI). SSI lets the webserver stitch a text file into a page with very little code or learning, but it requires the host to enable SSI and the files to be served with the right parsing rules (see the Apache SSI notes for details). For a client‑side approach, a tiny script can fetch a plain text file from the same site and inject it into the page; this avoids server scripting but needs the file to be served over HTTP (not file://) and respects same‑origin/CORS rules (see the Fetch API docs). If non‑techies need a friendly editor and permission control, a lightweight CMS or page editor (for example, a simple WordPress page workflow) is often the lowest‑friction long‑term solution.

Quick troubleshooting and cautions: confirm the file path and permissions, check the browser console for 404/CORS errors, ensure the server is parsing SSI if used, and never allow untrusted users to edit files that are then executed as code—sanitize inputs or restrict uploads. For links: Apache SSI docs (https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/ssi.html), Fetch API overview (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API), and WordPress pages guide (https://wordpress.org/support/article/pages/).

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Member Avatar for stymiee

You'll need to use a server-side language like PHP to do that. HTML is not dynamic and cannot "think" for itself. PHP offers the include() function to do this. It's easy to use and a great way to start learning PHP.

Member Avatar for jwpocid

You'll need to use a server-side language like PHP to do that. HTML is not dynamic and cannot "think" for itself. PHP offers the include() function to do this. It's easy to use and a great way to start learning PHP.

Thanks,

I was hoping to avoid that and keep it simple.

john

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.