Re: Updating pages (What tools should non-developers use?)

Every one, including me is bashing Front Page without giving any good
alternatives.

Here are some questions I have about the customer updates:
1 - Are we updating the content of the page or the design/layout of the
page?
2 - If you are only updating content the client need not touch the page at
all.
3 - Does the customer know that changes need to be made to the server to
enable Front Page???
4 - Are they aware that Front Page by default makes changes to pages without
asking, sometimes that cause real problems.
Trust me I have seen a developer pull his hair out trying to resolve a
problem Front Page created.
5 - Did your original agreement call for the customer to have this ability?
6 - Have you considered using server side scripts to pull content from text
files or data sources to build the page?  Does the server have this
capability?  Would this make the customer happy?

If the answer to question 1 is content only, then ponder question 5 and
negotiate getting paid to develop a solution similar to question 6.

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Allred" <allred(at)its.state.ms.us>
To: "Lisa" <webmaster(at)truckinlife.com>
Cc: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>; <owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>;
<stephberg(at)videotron.ca>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: Updating pages (What tools should non-developers use?)


Lisa,

I recommend taking what professors say, particularly in this field, with a
grain of salt.

It's more true than ever that "Those who can, do... those who can't,
teach."

Another thought regarding FP, and other so-called, popular programs.
"Popular" does not necessarily equate to anything particularly good or
effective or even useful. "Popular" does not help one avoid problems. It
doesn't improve one's knowledge or skills. "Popular" simply means that a
company had the moxie to put the right marketing/advertising program
together at the right time and place a product before the right group of
people at a time when they felt they needed what it appears to offer.

In the case of FP, if it were the same program, but without the Microsoft
moniker, it would probably not sell even a tenth of the titles it sells. As
a matter of fact, as horrible as it was a few years ago, it probably would
have died and disappeared, altogether.

You should feel free to use any tool you want. That's what they are, after
all---tools. But please think twice before you justify your decisions based
on anything professors say. You're better off doing your own research and
coming to your own conclusions. That's what a true professor ought to be
trying to teach you, anyway.

If professors are recommending students use FP, then I suggest they have
given up on trying to impart any knowledge, or to inspire their students.
It would appear that they've accepted the fact that they're merely turning
out hacks. If they've already achieved tenure, it's doubtful they even
care.

Regards,
--John




                    "Lisa"
                    <nstar92@bellatlan        To:
<hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>, St�phane Bergeron
                    tic.net>                  <stephberg(at)videotron.ca>
                    Sent by:                  cc:
                    owner-hwg-techniqu        Subject:     Re: Updating
pages (What tools should
                    es(at)hwg.org                non-developers use?)


                    12/10/2000 03:45
                    PM
                    Please respond to
                    "Lisa"






I have been using FP 2000. It is an awesome program, most plugins work with
it, and it is less expensive than the $300-$400 u will spend on the more
"juiced-up" programs. It is very straightforward and has no "hidden"
agendas. Yes, it will add to your HTML, but all you need to do is edit it
out.
I apply my applets and script with out a problem. I also tried the First
page, and it does have WYSIWYG, but it is another with too many useless
tools, and no drive to it.
Also, FP is soon to come out with WYSIWYG Perl and CGI Visual editing. It
will be the only one to have this capability. SO if you are into any visual
Perl Programs, it is for you.
Lisa
Many look down on those of us using this program, however the HTML
Professors at the University tell ALL the new students to give it a go.
Lisa
----- Original Message -----
From: "St�phane Bergeron" <stephberg(at)videotron.ca>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2000 1:27 PM
Subject: RE: Updating pages (What tools should non-developers use?)


At 01:45 PM 08/12/00 -0600, you wrote:
>The only WYSIWYG tool I would recommend is Dreamweaver. I've not seen any
>others that had any type of AI or 'memory' to adequately make changes:
>         ie.) the infamous <BIG><BIG><SMALL>oops</SMALL></<BIG></BIG>
>tags....
>Dreamweaver contains it's own ftp and site management capabilities. Has
some
>pretty awesome plug-ins, and supports just about any type of SSI. Also has
>good tutorial and help areas. And, updates are a snap, especially if you
>design a site with a template. But, it's expensive: you pay for getting a
>decent AI.

Right.  You mostly pay for getting a program that writes good code and in
that respect Dreamweaver is in a league all its own in WYSIWYG tools.  Its
site management capabilities are very strong too and version 4 has a more
polished UI than ever.  IMO it's not for absolute novices unless they get
thorough training and the site is made almost entirely with
templates.  Dreamweaver is a professional tool, not a toy like FrontPage
and GoLive so to use it to its fullest it's good to have good knowledge of
HTML and of the limitations of the Web as a medium..

>For non-WYSIWYG HTML editors, I'd have to put a very very strong vote for
>1stPage 2000 (from evrsoft). This is as good as homepage and it's FREE. It
>has excellent help and reference support, and some really nice free
scripts
>included. The user has to want to learn some HTML, but it also will insert
>the basic tags, tables, and forms... all the repetitive stuff. The user
>needs to know what to do with them.

Yes, any code based editor is for people who know what they are doing and
is probably inappropriate for the purposes of the original poster.  As far
as 1stPage 2000 goes, I find it a very pale copy of HomeSite that lacks
most of its key and most useful features and I wouldn't recommend it over
HomeSite for any purposes.  HomeSite is one of the least expensive HTML
editors out there and has features that other packages can only dream
of.  Maybe Evrsoft will get the job done right in their next version but
for the time being it's a very bad HomeSite rip off IMO.  I'm surprised
Allaire hasn't sued them yet actually.

>If they can afford it, CorelDraw 10 is a very nice image editing suite.
>Adobe Photoshop is extremely nice but also extremely expensive and with
>version 10, Corel has definitely narrowed the gap. Both programs have a
>substantial learning curve for any meaningful use of the tool.

I think that both programs are overkill in this situation and although
Photoshop is a great app, I find that Macromedia Fireworks is much better
suited to Web work and is a lot easier to use than either the
Photoshop/ImageReady combo or CorelDraw which is a behemoth to install for
optimizing or creating simple graphics.  Since I got Fireworks 3 (and now
4) I almost never touch Photoshop or Illustrator.  Considering that getting
the Dreamweaver 4 Fireworks 4 Studio package will still cost less than
Photoshop alone I think it would be a killer combination.  Fireworks is a
much more well rounded graphics creation and optimization package than
ImageReady and being a vector based tool with bitmap editing capabilities
it is a lot more flexible than PS/IR.

Now about the original's poster's questions, here's my 2 cents:

 >>1. WYSIWYG Editor with templates
Will this produce ugly "invalid" HTML code?
Will this interfere with server-side scripting?
What about publishing? (FTP?)<<

Not if you use Dreamweaver or Dreamweaver UltraDev.  DW has what Macromedia
calls RoundTrip HTML and RoundTrip Server Markup which basically means it
will leave existing code alone.  Furthermore, with Dreamweaver templates,
the designer determines which part of the pages are editable and which are
not so it makes using it pretty much idiot proof.  With good training some
non-developers could get going quickly at a much lower cost than developing
a Web based content management system or buying a pre-made one which are
usually very expensive.  Publishing in Dreamweaver is easy using the Site
window and using the File Check In/Check Out system you can make sure that
two persons are not editing the same file at the same time.  As for
producing valid code, that's not a problem with Dreamweaver either.  You
will have to add the Doctype declarations manually but aside from that it
produces very solid code, far better than any other WYSIWYG editors and I
pretty much tried them all.  I'm a long time hand coder myself (HomeSite)
and I'm very particular about code.  If the Dreamweaver templates are valid
and the people making updates only add text and images the code will remain
valid without a problem.

 >>2. Browser (via Forms)
But what about text formating?
Wouldn't uploading images be inconvenient?<<

Text formatting would be more complicated to handle than with a dedicated
Web editor.  With most server side scripting languages though, it's
possible to read in text strings and replace carriage returns with the
proper HTML tags.  Any formatting beyond that would get more complex if the
people making the updates have no knowledge of HTML.  Server side scripting
languages can read text strings with HTML tags and put them in a page
properly but again that's not really for novices.  If you don't need
anything more involved than being able to recognize carriage returns and
blank lines it may be workable this way but you would probably need to have
basic formatting done with CSS so that you don't need to use font tags
within the text.  Font tags aren't needed anymore anyway since version 3
browsers are mostly dead now.  Like I said above though, a solution like
this could be pretty complex and costly to develop but might be the easiest
to manage for the users.  There are server side components that can handle
uploading images but the image optimizing and creation would need to be
done beforehand probably.

There are certainly server side scripts or components that can handle image
resizing and optimizing but I don't know how costly they are and again,
someone would have to program them into your content management system. A
little training in Fireworks or another image editing tool might be the
easiest thing to do and then users could upload images and edited HTML
files using Dreamweaver.  The solution you choose will depend on the budget
and how fast you need to get this working.  I believe that the
Dreamweaver/Fireworks combo might be your best bet.

HTH!

St�phane Bergeron

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