cmurray.org

Writer is a really fabulous web-based implementation of DarkRoom, the distraction-free writing and editing tool used by journalists and writers of all stripes. The idea is that your entire screen is reduced to nothing more than green typewriter text on a black background (although the color scheme can be modified to your liking). This provides you a writing environment clear of things like IM and email messages, the things that keep you from focusing on the writing.

I really like it and can’t believe it works this well in a browser. It even posts directly to my blog; in fact, this submission was posted from Writer (although it does publish it in Draft mode, which requires you to later add a title). You can write in a normal sized window, or for maximum effect, go full screen using F11. If you log into the site, you also are able to save and later modify your documents (which also makes them available from different computers).

Makes me wish I had more ideas to write about today.

http://writer.bighugelabs.com/

Having spent years now working with content management systems like Documentum and open-source tools like Joomla, I’m finally getting around to some Microsoft applications. I’ve written here before about Ektron, which is a fabulous tool built on the .NET 2.0 framework, but now I’m moving on to some of Microsoft’s own offerings.

Lately I have been getting my head deep into MS SharePoint 2007. I have to admit that I am really struggling with this one. Modifying templates and master pages not only seems needlessly difficult, it seems often not to work. I have created sites based on wikis, and then built subsites within them for document management and forums. But these subsites appear not to recognize their parents’ attributes, requiring lots of manual tweaking to pull them together. Equally, the provided templates are inflexible and do not allow for adding the content I would like to add. For example, if I create a wiki site and want to add some ‘web parts’ (components of functionality) I cannot because the template design does not allow it. Equally, I am not allowed to drop the wiki onto some other templates. To make changes like this I need the MS SharePoint Designer, which only runs in WinOffice 2007, which I do not have. These are first impressions and I quickly acknowledge that I am sure I am missing some obvious things.

The funny thing about SharePoint is that it is remarkably like Joomla. They both are module-based, allowing you to build pages by adding components to them. They both also provide similar functionality in that with either you can easily deploy blogs, forums, wikis, image and document libraries, and a whole slew of other popular features. Joomla, to be frank, also can be difficult to configure and redesign.

SharePoint indeed has some great features and offers a lot of promise. But unlike Ektron, which offers much of the same functionality and more, SharePoint seems frustratingly hard to modify and develop. My money is still on Ektron to build the best of breed.

My worst fear is that Microsoft buys Ektron and spoils the whole party. More to come as I proceed.