[thelist] Content Publishing Systems Squash News Design

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Mon May 20 10:35:00 CDT 2002


> From: "Jay Blanchard" <jay.blanchard at niicommunications.com>
[...]
> http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/
> article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1484602
[...]
> "The typical content management system offers "layout tools, not
> design tools." He says that template page creation offered by content
> management systems will seldom suffice from the designer's
> perspective; they can't offer anywhere near the page-design
> capabilities of software tools like DreamWeaver (for Web pages) or
> Quark Xpress (for print)."
>
> Why does a CMS offer layout tools? Shouldn't, as I have argued before,
> a CMS deal with content that can then be delivered via many publishing
> mediums? Layout tools, as stated here, would narrow the prospects of
> that unless those tools took many mediums into account. Those tools
> are "publishing management" not content management. If the author is
> trying to elicit sympathy for designers who use tools that "can't
> offer anywhere near the page-design capabilities of software tools
> like DreamWeaver"....I mean, come on!

i completely agree with what you are saying, but i had a different
perspective when i read that -- it *did* annoy me a bit, but i think
the logic behind it is this:

- the article states that developers often refuse to implement more
than one template or design, and that designers are told to create
very generic templates, with little room for true design play...

- these designers have no other way to do it if the developers won't
do it, as opposed to their previous experience using DW, where
they could create all they wanted, and let developers integrate it
afterward...

framing it from the context of the designer, i see their point, even if
their understanding of the tool is flawed... they feel boxed in, and
long for the old days of being able to DW out of that box...


--
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Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself
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