At 22:51 23/12/2003, Mark McEahern wrote:

Have you checked out the ExternalEditor product?

Thx Mark :-) I just gave it a try... and it's no go. Besides the fact that installing and configuring the two parts that make up ExEd (Product + external Python helper whose .INI file must be edited by hand) is way beyond the capability of a non-techie... 1. Using Namo WebEditor 4.x : Namo insists on adding <meta name="generator" content="Namo WebEditor v4.0"> in the header of all HTML files, so NOK when editing items from Zope, as this bit polutes objects 2. Mozilla Composer shows the text in ASCII mode, not HTML. I have no idea why. For those interested, I used this in the helper app's INI file: editor = "C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\mozilla.exe" -edit When clicking on the pencil icon, a dialog box shows up saying "This object is already locked by you in another session. Do you want to borrow this lock and continue?". When clicking Yes, Composer is launched to display raw ASCII, not rendered HTML, eg. <dtml-var standard_html_header> <h2><dtml-var title_or_id></h2> <p> This is the <dtml-var id> Document. </p> <dtml-var standard_html_footer> Is there any solution for Zope to be used as a WYSIWYG desktop CMS for a non-techie? Should I look at Plone (shudder)? :-) Thanks for the tip Fred.

At 06:41 24/12/2003 +0000, garry saddington wrote:

Boa Constructor has a zope editing feature with syntax highlighting and can add most zope objects in its own IDE.

Thx Garry for the tip :-) Gee, took me a good ten minutes to figure out that you musn't right-click on the the Zope item in the Transport node of the tree in Boa's Explorer, but rather right-click anywhere in the right-hand pane, and hit New to create a new connection, and edit username + password + hostname. Still, asking a non-techie to set up Zope + Python + wxPython + Boa is ... problematic. Anything more than running the Zope installer and a small WYSIWYG editor is likely too much to ask. How do non-techie users add contents? Structured text through Plone? A webDAV-capable WYSIWYG HTML editor like DreamWeaver? Other tools I should know about? Ideally, the solution is a single EXE with a true WYSIWY HTML editor capable of connecting to a Zope server through the XMLRPC protocol. Is anyone working of this? Thank you :-) Fred.

At 13:38 24/12/2003 +0000, Paul Browning wrote:

There are answers to all your questions. I just wrote most of them down .....

Someone just told me about this document, and I'm currently reading this PDF. Lucky me :-) Considering the fact that the web's original goal (and, by far, still its main use today) was as a document server, it's pretty amazing that in 2003, we still don't have user-friendly ways to add contents to a site. This friend of mine for which I'm checking out the options is currently writing all his articles in Word, saves them in HTML, and uploads those through FTP... obviously without the help of even a basic CMS. Honestly, I think a light, dedicated application communicating with the web server over an XMLRPC link is a better solution than TTW, notably because I could hit CTRL-S to back up the content I'm working on. Considering how unstable web browsers are, I'd hate to lost 20 pages of texts because the browser GPFed on me :-) Since I'm at it, if someone knows how to use Epoz once it's installed, I'm all ears... Can't figure it out with the sparce online doc. Thanks! Fred.

At 14:12 24/12/2003 +0100, Tino Wildenhain wrote:

Most of the time its not appropriate to have a wysiwyg-editor, since you cant be sure of the woug (what other users get)

Indeed, but through a good editing solution (either rich text TTW or dedicated app), you can control what formation options people have (eg. can only use H1/H2/H3, bold, size 1/2/3, etc.), and since they're only sending their bits of contents, layout is enforced through CSS. And finally, I was thinking of passing the contents through a script to regex out any oddity, to make sure we don't keep any personal formatting that would break the site's graphical homogeneity.

Wikies are a good example for this.

But users want Word, not structured text in ASCII :-)

Of what use is a wysiwyg solution if the targeted user has absolute no clue about (s)he is doing?

But then, they don't need to know more than what they already know, ie. how to type rich text in a Word or Outlook. It's our job as sys admins to provide them with tools that make it possible to everyone in a community (eg. company) to contribute to a web site, not just the technical savy that we are :-)

gasp... 20 pages of text. Show me more then 10 people which are willing to read 20 pages of text in one page.

Maybe an exageration but then, take a look at the average software spec or university article...

So its all a matter of analyzing the process and the real needs rather then the "I think I would like to have for some reason I dont know". :-)

But precisely, I got it all analyzed: Currently, my site is all static (save the front page whose list of articles is generated dynamically through a few lines of PHP), each article is written in Namo's excellent WebEditor (fast, generates clean HTML), which are then uploaded by FTP. My friend's site is even worse, as explained (no PHP, stand-alone articles written in Word.) I think Fogcreek had it right with CityDesk, but I'd rather use an open-source solution. Besides, I don't feel to confident trusting my whole site to a Jet database :-) Cheers Fred.