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Martin Anderson asked about creating an automated "... 'web system' that
enables internal technical article authors (or SME's) to post mid-length (a
few pages) articles on technical topics" that would allow cross platform
editing and revision.
What you're asking will definitely require some level of programming skill.
If you are at all familiar with Visual Basic, I suggest looking into ASP.
Active Server Pages could be the answer to automating the type of system
you're being asked to create. ASP allows the dynamic creation and editing
web pages, and provides the ability to store them in a database.
I see a system working like this:
1. Your SMEs would use their browsers to navigate to an "SME" page.
2. The SMEs would type (or paste) their material into a text area on this
page.
3. Then they would click a button to submit the form to the database.
4. Forms submitted by SMEs would be automatically tagged "unedited."
5. The editor would navigate to the "Editor" page.
6. The "Editor" page would create a list of documents which needed revision
from the database.
7. The editor would select a page to edit.
8. The page would be loaded from the database and displayed in their
browser as an editable text box.
9. The editor would make corrections as needed.
10. The editor would click a button to submit the edited article to the
database.
11. The edited article would be automatically tagged "edited."
12. Other users on the intranet (not the original SME or editor) would
access a "Reader" page.
13. A list of edited articles would be drawn from the database.
14. Articles accessed this way would be displayed as standard HTML, and
would be uneditable.
If your company has an Internet guru, creating a system like this would be
fairly simple for him/her. If not, you might look outside the company for
someone who needs to create ASP pages for a class, or just needs work
experience. Often these folks can be convinced to work at a surprising
discount. Something like my suggestion above would be the work about a week,
at most.
If I had the time, I'd suggest doing it myself! <g>
