Re: intranet software

[Susan Vineyard <vineyard -at- CHEROKEE -dot- NSUOK -dot- EDU>]

All the information I've received since I asked the questions about
software to use to create/manage an Intranet has been very useful.  I
think at this point, I've discovered that only three tools might meet my
needs:    * NetObjects Fusion    * Frontpage    * Adobe Pagemill

I would sure appreciate any more information or stories or advice about
any of
them.  Thanks a lot!!  (I've answered Mary's questions below.)

Mary McWilliams Johnson wrote:

> Rather than relying on a WYSIWYG editor, it's best to learn HTML
thoroughly so that you can make good formatting decisions for yourself.
You know, of course, that Dreamweaver comes bundled with Homesite (on
the PC side) and BBEdit (on the Mac side). You're only supposed to rough
out the page in Dreamweaver, then do more precise editing in the other
program.

<Actually, I do some of this, but I have to admit that I'm used to being
able to pretty much put a page together in Word and "save to html."
Unfortunately, I need something that creates much cleaner code now. >

 I'm puzzled as to why you want to use non-relational links. I suppose
you mean that you "hard-code" all links--put in the full file path.
Maybe if you can explain that, I can offer a suggestion.   Whenever I'm
doing a site for intranet or Internet, I use only relational
links--unless I'm referencing someone else's Web site. The pages on my
hard drive are a mirror image of the pages on the Web site, and there's
no problem at all (unless, of course, I decide to move something); but,
then, that would create a problem for non-relational links as well. The
only reason I can think of for your getting a broken link icon is that
you're trying to reference sites on the Internet when you're not
actually connected to the Internet.

<for some reason, I'm required to use what you are calling "hard links"
for all my links in this website. I haven't been here long enough to
start arguing the point, since it's a pretty strongly-held opinion.  One
of my problems with Dreamweaver is that when I insert a hard link to my
graphics file, the graphics is shown as a broken link in Dreamweaver,
but looks just fine in Netscape--just an inconvenience, I know, but it's
an irritating one.>

> I think you will be happier when you accept the fact that you're not
in Desktop-Publishing Land any more. Standard HTML codes are simply not
capable of defining specific fonts and font sizes, leading, kerning,
etc.  You are correct, though, that you should be able to specify fonts
that you're certain all your viewers have on their computers.=20

<For one thing, my bosses want to see what they have approved looking
just like that on other computers.  For another, our programers and
other staff will be publishing out of Word Perfect, and if I have to
edit their pages, Dreamweaver turns their text into dynamic text, and if
they go back in, they don't have the control they'd like to have.>

> But it seems to me that since you're determined to retain the exact
appearance of the documents, you need to get Acrobat and convert them to
pdf files. PDF retains ALL the fonts, leading, kerning, etc., plus any
graphics in the document. Acrobat also compresses the original files to
a fraction of their original file size, which makes them quite easy to
download off a Web site. The only drawback is that it isn't practical to
"embed" a PDF doc on a Web page. You can only put a link to it so that
the viewer can click on the link and quickly download the page right in
the browser.

<One department does this, but my boss wants everything to be
"editable." I'm not sure what you're wanting in the way of a "visual
site management tool." However, I've heard that HomePage and PageMill's
companion product SiteMill offer site management tools.=20

<One point I need to make is that we have a non-Microsoft (Netscape)
webserver.  Some site management tools don't work in that environment.>


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