Slightly old news now: but we replaced the railway website with a totally new one a few weeks ago. It has resulted in continual "tinkering" since then, but apart from a thorough spell check it is nearly up to date.
The previous website was a "flat file" website created the "standard" way with HTML pages. I'd used a "WYSIWYG" editor to create the pages, but no more automation than that. It works OK; but there are some problems:
- Every time you want to add a new page, you also need to add links to that page
- If you want to change the appearance, you need to change every file.
There are technology solutions to those, but I didn't have access to the first or the web design ability to do the second.
I came across a different way of creating websites around a year and a half ago: it is called a "Content Management System" (CMS). The CMS approach is different: you describe the website content (i.e. pages of text like this) and its appearance (colour, layout, graphics, menus etc) quite separate from each other. When you click on a link to a page, a computer program creates the HTML that is then sent to your browser; behind the scenes there is a complex program running, and the content is held in a database.
I've used a free Content Management System called "Joomla!". This is compatible with most hosting environments, and is user friendly to work with. It is well supported by its community; there is help available, there are books that explain how to work with it. Critically there are loads of add-on software modules - both paid for and free of charge. By using Joomla! I've been able to create a site with (almost) all the elements I needed.
One of the consequences of using Joomla! is that you don't need any tools installed on the PC other than a live web browser. All editing is done within the web browser environment. So if I want to add or edit a page, I can do so from any computer anywhere around the world as long as it has a live Internet connection.
What's the benefit? Well, look at my table of block sensors. I used to keep this on a spreadsheet. When I was in the railway room, I could read the spreadsheet but if I found an error all I could do was mark it up with a pencil. Although a copy of that spreadsheet was on the web page, I couldn't change that copy easily. Now, I can use the spreadsheet "live" in the railway room; if I find an error I can fix it there and then. No multiple sources of data, hence no question of "which is most up to date".
I took the opportunity to update a lot of the content when the site was recreated. The section on computer control was written from scratch for the first time; now it tells what I want to achieve, if not yet how it has all been done.