At 02:39 21/12/2002, Eoin Campbell wrote:
My view is that Word will begin to displace so-called 'WYSIWYG'
TTW editors next year. Even without waiting for Word 11
(see [2] and [3] below), MS-CMS 2002 supports editing in Word XP
via an Authoring Connector ([1]), and saving as XML.
If you don't want to pay $42K for MS-CMS,
solutions like Metaverses' Word to XML converter ([4])
can offer the same function without buying a CMS.
For me, Word has some major advantages over TTW approaches:
- Allows offline editing. You can edit at leisure, and update
when you have a connection.
- No format restrictions. You can mix text, tables and images
any way you want without being limited by the interface.
- Document integration. Most web content starts life in a
Word document, so integrating Word makes sense. TTW interfaces
assume that the content starts out on the web only, which is
seldom the case.
- Built-in structure. Don't laugh, but Word has built-in support
for headings, lists, tables, paragraphs, etc.
- Ease of editing. It is much easier and faster to edit in Word, with
all its built-in shortcuts, than a TTW form, no matter how 'Word-like'
they claim to be.
I have used, developed and seen a number of Word-based
solutions, and barring some major improvements in Word 11,
they just don't work.
This is why Word shouldn't be used:
* No format restrictions. Users can do anything they like,
regardless of whether it can be published into the
required formats.
* Huge amounts of VBA coding is required to constrain
Word into something usable.
* No integration with the CMS. This is the big one. For
example, how do you link to another page within the
same site, using Word?
* Word is document-centric, not page-centric. This makes
it very hard to manage things like: the location of
the content in the site, classification, metadata,
and linking.
* Using Word encourages users to think that it's OK
to publish a 50-page document as a kilometre-long
web page...
I don't really care what tool is used for authoring,
as long as it's:
* Easy to use
* Constrained
* Targeted at the online medium
* Tightly integrated with the CMS
Regards,
James
-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
Knowledge Management Consultancy, SGML & XML
Content Management Requirements Toolkit
112 CMS requirements, ready to cut-and-paste
http://www.steptwo.com.au/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
http://cms-list.org/
a wish for peace in the new year.
