Well I disagree the existing solutions are fine. Most editors and many systems are stuck in this page centric mentality where a page is a combination of a template and content. Sure these systems abstracted content away from presentation, so that the content could be managed, but the business users seem pretty unhappy with the whole lot.
IMHO, business users want complete control over their web sites; not just control over the content. They don't want to run to developers every time something structurally needs changing or because they want new functionality integrated. I think the above requires abstracting a lot more than content. It requires taking portals to the next logical step. A page must become a virtual thing that is nothing more than a composition of portlets. These editors will need to follow suit and be able to offer GUI editing capabilities for mere markup fragments in contextually specified ways. You can read more about my thoughts here (http://www.montarasoftware.com/Exec/cid/f0222e06-f8e1-1156-81f3-cc4db19 48dfe). Matt Liotta President & CEO Montara Software, Inc. http://www.montarasoftware.com/ 888-408-0900 x901 > -----Original Message----- > From: Bob Doyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 1:05 PM > To: Matt Liotta > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Cross-platform WYSIWYG editors > > Matt, > > You are partly right. Windows shops will probably not install Mozilla. > But they already have a fine solution with the IE MS DHTML control. > Ektron's over 800 CMS customers (from Vignette down) are managing fine > when they are on Windows. > > We are talking here about the 10% of users on Mac and Linux. And they > now have three choices - Java applets, Macromedia Flash, and Mozilla. > > The best Java solution has long been RealObjects edit-onR Pro > <http://www.realobjects.de/> . (The one-site, unlimited users license is > $6000.) There is an open-source Java WYSIWYG widget at Hexidec > <http://www.hexidec.com/ekit.php>, but it's not yet ready for prime > time. Open-source Java developers out there should pitch in to help them. > > Ektron has just released a Flash-based editor, eWebWP > <http://www.ektron.com/ewebwp.cfm>. It has a $99 license for unlimited > users. A CMS system would need one license for each of its clients. > > The newest option is the Mozilla XUL application. You may not care for > Mozilla, but a lot of open-source people do, and it is their last great > hope for Macs and Linux systems. > > Even more important, Netscape in due course will roll it into the latest > Netscape, which will be acceptable to many of your Windows shops. > > We at skyBuilders <http://www.skybuilders.com>have drafted the first > full-featured HTML WYSIWYG editor for Mozilla. It's not perfect, but > it's open source, and we charge no license fees. This is not our main > business. We just needed it (like almost everyone on this list) to > strengthen our small enterprise information system, called timeLines > <http://www.skybuilders.com/thesky>. > > We don't call timeLines a CMS because we don't yet have templates and > content elements to separate presentation from content, but we do have > some neat web publishing tools integrated with many other tools. (We > wrote the first-to-market desktop publishing system, MacPublisher, in > 1984.) We hope to add an XML WYSIWYG editor (either bitflux or Xopus) > when we add templates and content elements into our data model. > > So we put up the open-source code for what we call *skyWriter for > Mozilla*, and a second *skyWriter for IE* (a pretty full-featured > version of the MS DEC editing compnent). You can demo both of these > online, and you can download the code for both WYSIWYG editors today. Go > to http://wysiwyg.skybuilders.com and check it out. > > Those of you building your own CMS should find it a piece of cake to > integrate these tools into your UI front ends. And you will make that > extra 10% of CMS users very happy. If others improve the open-source > code, we can meet objections like round tripping your good HTML without > losing anything. > > > Matt Liotta wrote: > > >I still don't really see a good solution. A Mozilla-based editor > >requires Mozilla to be installed on the client's OS, which is a no go at > >many organizations. And all the Flash editors are based on the same text > >control that supports a limited amount of HTML and tends to strip out > >the HTML it doesn't support. > > > >Matt Liotta > >President & CEO > >Montara Software, Inc. > >http://www.montarasoftware.com/ > >888-408-0900 x901 > > > > > > > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: Bob Doyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > >>Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 11:49 AM > >>To: Matt Liotta > >>Subject: Cross-platform WYSIWYG editors > >> > >>Matt, > >> > >>There are two new OS-independent cross-platform editing solutions, > >>announced in just the past month. > >> > >>One is Flash-based ($99 license from Ektron) and the other is > >>Mozilla-based (free open source). > >> > >>The whole problem is reviewed, with demonstrations, at > >>http://wysiwyg.skybuilders.com > >> > >>If you have criticisms or comments, please send them to me and post > >> > >> > >them > > > > > >>to the cms-list. > >> > >>Thanks. > >> > >>-- > >>Bob Doyle > >>http://www.skyBuilders.com > >>77 Huron Avenue > >>Cambridge, MA 02138 > >>617-876-5678 > >> > >> > > > -- > Bob Doyle > http://www.skyBuilders.com > 77 Huron Avenue > Cambridge, MA 02138 > 617-876-5678 -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.
