RE: new to MCMS questions

Wow - Joel your post is pretty comprehensive. I just want to add that
the MCMS.RAPID solution is 'plumbed' to provide a simple interface to
the free telerik RAD Editor control - telerik are launch partners for
the Rapid solution http://www.mcmsrapid.com/About/LaunchPartners.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joel Ward
Sent: 09 March 2005 21:48
To: Brice Dunwoodie; 'Jodi Moore'; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CMS] new to MCMS questions

> The content editing controls can be either the default Ektron editor 
> or the Telerik editor. I'm not sure if the Ektron editor presently 
> shipping with MCMS can be run in FireFox, but Ekton's editors do run 
> in FireFox on the Windows platform. The Telerik editor works in 
> FireFox and is 100% browser based. It works best in IE on Windows, 
> works rather well in FireFox on windows, and I *believe* has problems 
> in FF/Mozilla on Mac. So the short answer is that you do have viable 
> editor options.

The ActiveX placeholder control that ships with MCMS is Windows
IE-compatible only.  For any other browser or platform, the free Telerik
control should do the trick.  There's also a suite of controls that
Telerik is selling for a fee that enhance the capabilities of MCMS:
http://www.mcmscontrols.com/

If you can replace all of the standard MCMS dialogs with this and the
WAE mentioned below, MCMS should be cross-browser and cross-platform
compatible, depending on how well your developers write the HTML/CSS for
the ASPX templates.

An alternative to the WAE controls is to write some custom web controls
yourself that replace some of the non-compatible dialogs (like the Page
and Channel Properties windows).  Then the authoring becomes much more
compatible.

There are many examples out there in the newsgroup and on blog sites
like Stefan Gossner.  Links to some of the better resources can be found
here:
http://www.wardworks.com/joel/

>> 2. My next question relates to documentation... I see there are only 
>> a few books specific to MCMS and those I've found are targeted to the

>> developer/administrator, not the lay person. I am not a developer 
>> myself though I have a good deal of knowledge of general CMS concepts

>> as well as other tools on the market. But this tool is not the most 
>> straightforward application and the MS documentation is not very 
>> helpful from my experience thus far.

In the Packt book, there is a chapter or two that may be helpful for the
non-technical folks to learn about the MCMS interface.  But you're
right, there isn't much out there on how the actual authoring users
should utilize MCMS.  The only other place I can think of is in the
helpfile that is installed with MCMS (also available as a download from
www.microsoft.com/cmserver).

> MCMS is really a Web CMS toolkit. It is not that friendly as an 
> end-user product, requires a fair bit of customization, and works best

> (most
> usable)
> if the web author front end is massaged a bit for the client's needs.

Amen.

Though the MCMS.Rapid just came out, which may help things a bit:
http://www.mcmsrapid.com/

It's supposed to speed development of MCMS websites.

> Depending on the budget and project resources you may want to explore

> IT Hit's Web Author Enhancements (WAE 2.0) 
> <http://mcms.ithit.com/features/features.html>. It's not cheap, but 
> adds significant functionality and improves usability of the MCMS 
> web-based authoring tools.
>
> You may also want to check out this book:
> http://www.packtpub.com/book/mcms . It's the most recent and was 
> written by some very credible folk. In general though, we end up 
> producing some custom documentation for our clients.

As I can say from experience :-), that book is good for developers
getting started in MCMS.  The only other book out there, by
Addison-Wesley, is more of a reference.  We wrote the Packt book because
there wasn't anything else out there like it.

Joel 



_______________________________________________
cms mailing list
[email protected]
Subscription controls:
http://lists.cms-forum.org/mailman/listinfo/cms
Netiquette FAQ and related CMS lists - [cms-forum], [cms-pr],
[contentmanagers], [cmpros] http://www.cmsreview.com/NetiquetteFAQ.html
http://www.cms-lists.org

**********************************************************************
This e-mail message (including any attachments) is intended for the addressee(s) only, and may contain confidential information. The unauthorised use, disclosure or copying of this e-mail or any information contained within it is strictly prohibited and may be illegal. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the author and delete this e-mail immediately in its entirety. This footnote also confirms that this e-mail message has been swept by a virus checker for the presence of known computer viruses. This statement does not constitute an acceptance of liability on the part of Artemis Corporation or its employees in the event of technical or virus issues generated by this e-mail. It is the responsibility of the recipient to take adequate security measures. 
**********************************************************************