NYCPHP Meetup

[Brent Baisley]

Perhaps you are looking for something like this:
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/index.html

Or perhaps something more like Contribute from Macromedia.


On Mar 2, 2004, at 9:14 PM, Marc Antony Vose wrote:

> Hi there:
>
> I've designed a bajillion database-driven Web projects in the past, 
> but I've got a client requesting something that is entirely reasonable 
> (conceptually), but a logistical nightmare.
>
> Generally, I try not to store any HTML in a database, no matter what. 
> Further, in this situation, the content editor needs a setup where 
> they do zero coding, and can have the following features:
>
> -- basic formatting, including bold, italic, underline...basically, a 
> few styles that would be pre-defined and available to them
>
> -- inline articles (not much of a problem, really, i already just 
> auto-flow images into articles at regularly spaced intervals, and the 
> client is happy with that approach
>
> -- in-article footnotes that automatically link to (in this case) a 
> popup window containing footnotes
>
> -- in-article sidebar links that spawn a popup with some special 
> information (like a QuickTime video, or Flash movie, or file 
> download).
>
> It sounds like their text will be originating from Microsoft Word, 
> which is of course the bane of my existence, since I am a Unix guy.
>
> So, my question is...how best to handle this problem?  The solution 
> needs to be as quick and cheap as possible.  I see several 
> alternatives:
>
> (1) XML
> Is it feasible to get any kind of XML output from Microsoft Word that 
> could be parsed by a script and auto-imported?
>
> (2) Visual Basic
> Is it possible to write a VB script that would step through his Word 
> documents and create an XML document, or something, that my script 
> would parse, noting things like bolded text, footnotes, and other 
> stuff along the way?
>
> (3) ???
> Can anyone share their strategy for this sort of thing?
>
> Right now, believe it or not, I am leaning toward diving into 
> REALbasic and coding my own cross-platform Windows/OS X XML document 
> editor to sell to clients who make these kinds of requests, for them 
> to prepare their Web-based documents in, rather than dealing with all 
> the vagaries of going from Word to ASCII or Unicode-compatible textual 
> content dynamically.
>
> But maybe that is just an irrational reaction to the mounting tension 
> in my head...
>
>
> -- 
> Marc Antony Vose
> http://www.suzerain.com/
>
> I'm looking for something in an *after dinner* burrito.
> -- Homer Simpson
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at lists.nyphp.org
> http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
-- 
Brent Baisley
Systems Architect
Landover Associates, Inc.
Search & Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments
p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577