Don't Make These Mistakes When Buying Content Management Software

Most organizations don’t need content management software. Unless you have a very busy website with lots and lots of content being published, the return on investment is not there. The majority of those who do require such software need a very simple, streamlined solution.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software

Making A Better CMS

This whole category of software desperately needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Here are my recommendations to the folks writing open source content management systems.

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

If It’s Not Easy to Use, It’s Not Used

Debates about Microsoft Word vs. Adobe Framemaker appear with regular frequency on the tech-writing mailing lists I am subscribed to. Everyone agrees Frame is an awesome publishing tool. Yet, everyone keeps cribbing about it. So, why does a bright bunch of people who are masters at figuring out stuff, otherwise known as tech-writers, only hesitatingly agree Frame is “kind of great”? I think it’s mostly because Frame is so difficult to use.

Info Developer (2008). Articles>Document Design>Software>Usability

The User Experience of Enterprise Software Matters

Over the past twenty years, the field of user experience has been fortunate. Software and hardware product organizations increasingly have adopted user-centered design methods such as contextual user research, usability testing, and iterative interaction design. In large part, this has occurred because the market has demanded it. More than ever, good interaction design and high usability are part of the price of entry to markets.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Software>Workplace

Plone vs. Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS)

CMS software selection with Plone and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) as finalists seems to have become a pretty common case. This is true especially for “intranet/extranet” projects in which the primary focus is on web publishing and collaboration features. I’ve been asked several times to work on comparing the two and I’d like to share some of this experience. Also note that this can’t be a “vendor neutral” comparison because of my involvement in Plone; but I’ll do my best to highlight differences and strenghths of the two solutions.

francesco (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Plone

Ten RoboHelp Tips You Won't Want to Miss

I've been using RoboHelp for nearly a decade now. I started off with an older Word-based version to create WinHelp, and now I work with the HTML version to create WebHelp for locally installed and server-based products. Here are a few RoboHelp tips that I've found useful in my day-to-day help authoring responsibilities.

HelpScribe (2009). Articles>Documentation>Software>Adobe RoboHelp

Building Blocks

Building Blocks are reusable chunks of a Word document. They can contain any thing a Word document can contain, including pictures, shapes, fields, and even other building blocks.

Boyer, Jodie. Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word

Taking Control of Your Table of Contents or Document Map

Table of contents and the Document Map are designed to work best with documents that use styles. Styles not only apply a look and feel to a document, but also provide semantic structure. For example, applying a Heading 2 style to some content that exists under a Heading 1 style implies hierarchy within a document.

Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word

Out in the Field (Code)

Field codes provide a way to customize your Word document manually. That sounds like hard work, but the field codes also give you an inside look at some of the ways that you can customize a page number or a table of contents. (Really—those are fields.)

Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word

Stories in Word

To Word, comments, the body of your document, footers, etc. are basically the same. And this is good because if a feature works in one story, there's a very good chance it works in all stories. This is why you can track changes in not only the body of your document (i.e., "main story"), but also in headers, footers, endnotes, text boxes, etc. Put simply, this common story architecture enables as much Word goodness in as many places in Word as possible.

Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word

Flexibility and Adaptability

There’s a lot of tool fetishism in the documentation world. We all succumb to it in one way or another — I used to think it was FrameMaker or DocBook, or nothing. Ah, the folly of youth. But that attitude severely limits you as a professional. For a consultant or freelancer, it’s only a few steps away from suicide.

DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Software

Writing Technical Documentation with Sphinx, Paver, and Cog

I've been working on the Python Module of the Week series since March of 2007. During the course of the project, my article style and tool chain have both evolved. I now have a fairly smooth production process in place, so the mechanics of producing a new post don't get in the way of the actual research and writing. Most of the tools are open source, so I thought I would describe the process I go through and how the tools work together.

Hellmann, Doug. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Articles>Documentation>Software>Technical Writing

Alternatives to Formatting XML Editors for Creating Structured Information

XML editors have traditionally been modeled after the first SGML editor written in 1985, a long time before creating, managing, and distributing structured information was well understood. Now, nearly 20 years later, there are more choices for users interested in creating structured information. Specifically, this presentation discusses alternatives that include Web-based distributed collaborative XML document creation, "tag-free" tools, non-formatting structured editors, and even using common office tools in creating your XML documents.

Daldt, Dale. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Software>Information Design>XML

How To Get More Out of Google Docs

Part of the appeal of Google's suite of web-based productivity applications is the integration between them -- Gmail can send events to Google Calendar, Calendar sends reminders and note to Gmail and so on. Lately Google has extended that integration to make working with Google Docs a little bit easier.

Wired (2009). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Collaboration

Guidelines for Good Sample Code

Sample code often provides the quickest, clearest way to learn how an SDK works. If you have software engineering experience, then you should already know many principles for writing good code. However, what you may not realize is that some of the good practices that you learned for writing good production code do not apply to writing good sample code. Some techniques, such as comments and clear variable names, apply to both production code and sample code. However, there are good reasons to use hard-coded values in sample code, which should be avoided in production code, and there are good reasons to avoid object-oriented designs when writing sample code.

Gruenbaum, Peter. Prestwood (2009). Articles>Software>SDK>Documentation

XML Authoring for Those Who Don't Like Markup

Advances in word processing technology now enable people to author simple documents in an interface they are familiar with. They no longer need to know a lot about markup, the schema in use, or be distracted by other concerns than writing what they want to write. This simpler interface, built upon a Microsoft "Smart Doc" solution provides support for authors who are focused on the content they are writing rather than the markup that describes it. At the same time, the author is producing valid XML that can be routed for review and approval, used for multi-channel delivery, or reused by other authors in the enterprise. Several scenarios of how such an authoring/management system could be used to solve business challenges are described.

Parsons, Jon. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

Top 3 Open Source Software You Can Use to Write and Design Technical Documents

Although I love using the proprietary software that I’ve mentioned in the first sentence, I enjoy using open source software as well since some of them are actually better than the paid software in some respects.

Akinci, Ugur. Technical Communication Center (2009). Articles>Software>Technical Writing>Open Source

Ten Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS

Choosing a content management system can be tricky. Without a clearly defined set of requirements, you will be seduced by fancy functionality that you will never use. What then should you look for in a CMS?

Boag, Paul. Smashing (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Content Strategy

Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone  

In this report, we take a look at four different open source Content Management Systems—WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone—and rate them on a variety of criteria, including system flexibility, features, ease of use and the availability of support. We chose these systems because they’re the most popular four in the nonprofit sector today, according to our analysis (see Appendix C for more details on our market analysis). We also dig a little deeper into what open source is all about, and how a CMS can help streamline processes. We even take a look at some vendor-provided systems, along with a few other open source ones, in case you don’t find what you’re looking for among the four original choices.

Murrain, Michelle, Laura Quinn and Maggie Starvish. Idealware (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Is Corruption an Issue?

You might think corruption is mainly an issue in places like sub-Saharan Africa or Myanmar, but unfortunately I’ve been exposed to several cases of this inside the online industry.

Boye, Janus. JBoye (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Assessment

Speaking UNIX, Part 1: Command the Power of the Command Line

Learn the basics of the UNIX shell and discover how you can use the command line to combine the finite set of UNIX utilities into innumerable data transforms.

Streicher, Martin. IBM (2006). Articles>Software>Operating Systems>UNIX

Comparison of Home Page Loadability Scores for Major WCM and ECM Vendors

YSlow assigns letter grades (A thru F) for a page in each of 13 categories of best-practice. I decided to run YSlow against the home pages of 35 well-known web content management and/or enterprise content management vendors, then calculate a Grade Point Average. The scores are posted below.

Thomas, Kas. Lulu (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Assessment

Three Reasons to Love the Twitter Hate

Twitteurs are in a hyperventilating snit over the ridicule being heaped on their plaything by, among others, the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. I’m a longtime Twitteur, semi-evangelical and pretty well engaged with it on a daily basis. By this point it is as integrated in my being as lymph. But I think the ridicule is a delightful, even important development.

Stoltz, Craig. 20hReally (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Software>Social Networking

How to Integrate FrameMaker 9 with a WebDAV-Based CMS

With FrameMaker 9 comes a new way to work with files on a CMS (Content Management Server) that supports HTTP/WebDAV protocol. WebDAV is a kind of extension over HTTP which allows user to write files on Web along with usual viewing. Multiple users can collaboratively edit and manage files hosted on the Web server. Since many of today’s CMS servers provide users with a WebDAV route to access and edit files, FrameMaker 9 can automate the collaborative tasks by providing direct ways to view and make changes to files on CMS systems.

Adobe (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Content Management System Pocket Guide - A Guide to Evaluating, Implementing and Deploying Content Management Systems  

Once you've built the business case for purchasing a CMS, this guide can serve as a 'field guide' for the evaluation, implementation and deployment process. It begins by analyzing the anatomy of a CMS project, going through the decide and buy, implement and integrate, manage and maintain and upgrade and enhance phases. As part of the first phase, this guide provides a very useful sample of a Request for Proposal (RFP) to help you evaluate content management vendors. The guide also underlines the importance of viewing content management as a process, not a product, and suggests working with a content management vendor who will become a core part of your Web site management team.

CrownPeak (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software