The Expressroom Content Development Environment

Software developers know the benefits of a good integrated development environment (IDE). Expressroom extends this metaphor to content contributors, providing a cross-platform integrated development environment tailored to their needs. All of the Expressroom powerful out-of-the-box features are accessible from an easy-to-use Java user interface that requires very little training.

The Expressroom Explorer, a Java graphical user interface, is the core of the development environment and provides a central place for accessing all assets.

The Explorer is used to launch specialized Expressroom client tools focused on different tracks of content development:

• Content Controller, which uses forms to author simple XML documents
  
• Asset Notepad, for tagging complex XML documents.
  
• Design Controller, for creating high-level layout templates
  
• Logical Page Controller, for binding content and layout
  
• Site Controller, for managing the site map and publishing content
  
• Worklist Manager, for tracking assignments in the workflow system

• Configuration Manager, a tool for Expressroom system administration
  
• Template Builder, for visually defining system-wide workflows
  
• Document Description Editor, for defining content schemas

Expressroom accommodates all users
Each step in the development of a Web site is facilitated via the development environment, allowing all employees, regardless of technical skill, to contribute to the process of Web site creation and management. Users can describe every aspect of a publication in a graphical user interface, without detailed knowledge of the underlying technologies. From layout and design to content creation to initially setting up a site, Expressroom supplies a GUI-based tool to help.

By focusing Web contributors on individual tasks, e.g. content, presentation, information architecture, and code integration, Expressroom enables tasks to proceed in parallel as opposed to consecutively. This avoids bottlenecks in the process and greatly reduces the time-to-market. Individual stakeholders can proceed on their own work regardless of the progress of the other areas.

Designed-in interoperability with leading tools
Although the Expressroom development environment supplies its own tools for XML-oriented content authoring and editing, contributors can also use industry-leading products like Microsoft Word to create content for use in Expressroom.

Document Assistant, an optional extension for Expressroom, enables users of desktop authoring applications like the Microsoft Word and Excel, Adobe Photoshop and more to leverage not only their favorite environment for creating content, but also to leverage existing content, not specifically created for the Web. Content is submitted to Expressroom and converted to XML with the click of a button or simple drag-and-drop operation.

Expressroom also exposes an FTP interface to the Asset Manager, enabling almost any FTP-compliant workstation or application to contribute content. The FTP interface provides instant integration with industry leading XML and code editors for advanced XML and HTML authoring and other popular products.

Unlimited extensibility
Expressroom is extensible beyond the development studio and the supplied connectors. Each Web site is different. Often, different products must be integrated together, or additional coding is necessary to add specific business features. Expressroom’s Java API provides 100% coverage; every product feature is exposed to programmers, providing extensibility and interoperability in any direction.