Slides for a report on the Web Tools discussion group at IWMW 1999

1. WebTools

2. What we covered
• Browsers:
– Browser Management
– Opera
– WebTV
• Content Management
– Zope
– vendor-neutral view from Lychee
– working example from City University
Business School

3. Browser Management
• Toyed with the NetScape Configuartion
Editor:
• Agreed that is was a “good thing”
• Issue:
– How do you get a (suitably) configured browser
onto the University’s desktop?
– It’s an IT asset management issue

4. Opera
• It looks different from other browsers
• Very lightweight - quick to download
• there’s no development kit
• there is a licence charge
• It is the “most CSS compliant” browser
– but Java support isn’t wonderful
• Good accessibility, e.g. increase the image by 800%
• Q: Does DISinHE recommend Opera as a
“solution”?

5. WebTV
• Checked out our home pages and found:
– OK if there’s plenty of white space
– If not, then lots of text and links gives a very
cluttered look
– Design for other browsers doesn’t translate well
for WebTV
• Issue: (Will/)is WebTV (be) sufficiently
important to us?

6. Zope
The last word in Content Management
• Zope is:
– middleware
– an architecture
– an authoring tool
– an object database
– can be entirely browser drivem
– standard embracing (e.g. XML)
– open source

7. Zope
• Issues:
– Zope is a software tool that is freely available
and can improve our ways of working
– Licencing isn’t an issue, but awareness is
• Recommendation:
– JISC-ASSIST and/or UCISA-SG be asked to
organise a 1 day workshop on Content
Management with Zope as the illustrator

8. Vendor-Neutral Content
Management viewpoint
• Listed 10 challenges for a Web Editor
• Gave “whose web is it?” as the conundrum
• Fundamental:
– Separate web content from design
• designers create graphics, templates and web objects
• content owners create and update their own pages
through Lychee interfaces
• the underlying concept is to train (non-)non-
technical people to publish.

9. Content Management #2
• Content Management systems:
– improves our use of web technology
– releases the WebMaster from mundane duties
• Lychee:
– under trial at Kings and Liverpool with the
prospect of a CHEST deal to follow.

10. City Business School
• Used Lotus Notes to hold content
• Demonstrated instant web pages and instant
new pages (a threaded discussion list)
• Demonstrated that current software tools
can be combined to provide Web Content
Management