<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Message</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2719.2200" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Hi!</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>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:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>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</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>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). </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>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?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best
Regards,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=306434717-25102002><FONT face=Arial
size=2>James</FONT></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>