[opencms-dev] Alternate UIs?

[James Higginbotham]

Hi!
 
I have recently downloaded and installed 5.0 beta to see if it would be
a solution for my CMS needs. It seems really powerful, but I'm concerned
about a few things:
 
1. Lack of x-platform UI - I've read the archives and all the notes
about a potential applet solution if a component can be found, so I get
this issue. However, it seems that a client API or specification is
needed if anyone is going to attach a custom UI, esp the editor
 
2. UI is hard to use - consider the users I have - some people haven't
used anything more than MS word, so the editor you use (the activeX
control) is fine, but the rest of the user interface is hard to use..
The ideas are sound, but some of the dialogs behave inconsistently with
others (some disappear automatically, some have to be told to go away)
and things are hard to locate and understand.. Since the primary
interface is written in VB or C++ (some MS-enabled lang), then I would
expect to see a MS-like UI. I get the explorer view to the left, but
everything else is a little muttled - 1 drop down to get to some admin
tools, another admin icon on the toolbar for another tool section, no
tooltips or reasons why things are disabled in the tooltips (it took me
30 min to figure out I needed to create a project to edit a page). 
 
3. HTML-centric - I noticed that since the UI component you use
generates HTML, there is no way I can use the Netscape interface to
allow users on the Mac to edit. I can get around this by using a
centralized windows editing machine open to all, but it would be nice to
have a textbox that uses something similar to Wiki to write pages
without HTML knowledge. My main goal is to get users out of HTML, not
push them deep into it with nice template wrappers. How easy/hard would
this be using the existing UI otherwise?
 
If anyone knows if there is a better UI initiative for openCMS, I'd
appreciate it. Again, I think the server is really powerful, but a
server without a good client is useless and not a good solution for end
users. I'm sure you are all working hard, but just wanted to drop some
feedback in from some who is an experienced Java developer but needs a
CMS solution for basic business folks and would like to use an OSS
solution if at all possible.
 
Best Regards,
James
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