Seems like you don't really need a "full" CMS, just an easy, manageable way to have multiple authors editing pages.
For what you want I recommend Macromedia's new product, Contribute. http://www.macromedia.com/software/contribute/ The price is $99 per author. Here's how it stacks up with your requirements. > 1 Edit web pages online directly without going through the > FTP-EDIT-FTP process This is precisely what Contribute was designed for. To the person editing the page, it's just open from server -> edit -> save directly to server. They don't need to know HTML. > 2 Add new links, new pages The web developer creates "templates", which can be plain HTML or DreamWeaver-style HTML templates which can specify which _parts_ of the page are editable. > 3 Do simple formatting ex.tables..complex formatting > (images etc.) > not required) The DreamWeaver editing engine is built into Contribute, so you can do fairly complex editing. Tables and images are no problem. > 4 Authentication..whether that individual/role can > edit that section > (marketing cannot change software etc.) You can control which pages a person has access to, whether they can create new pages, and with DreamWeaver templates, even which part of each page they can edit. > 5 Preferable (not necessary) to have version control > with audit logs Simple versioning with roll-back is available from Contribute. I don't know what kind of logging there is. > 6 Preferable (not necessary)..to be able to change office docs > (excel, word) directly Content editors can drag and drop Office docs right into the web pages. However, with Contribute you can only save HTML, not the Office formats. > 7 As easy to use as if working on a local file Check. In fact, Macromedia is trying to make it as mind-numbingly simple as possible for users/content editors. The web developer creates a "connection key" which is a file containing server connection information and user information (for the access control). The user just has to double click on the key to start Contribute and begin browsing the pages they can edit. So it seems that this relatively inexpensive product stacks up rather nicely against your requirements. -- Mark Thomas |_| Internet Systems Architect -+- User Technology Associates, Inc. | [EMAIL PROTECTED] /-\ P.S. I found it interesting that Macromedia has a Contribute development center with articles such as how to co-brand Contribute... it looks like it is designed to be integrated into CMS products. -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.
