Important note: This is a critical review and not a salesletter or an ad!

Format

Cgi Perl-script (delivered as an ASCII-file) plus instruction files (delivered as html-file and included in the administration panel)

Review

What this script does

Article Manager is - as the name also says - a cgi-script that makes it possible for you to write, upload and administrate and manage articles on a web site. Some people call this kind of script for a content management script. Among the experts there is some discussion what the term 'content management cgi-script' covers. But for our purpose, I think it's okay to call it a content management script.

Article Manager makes it possible for you to use html-templates for your article sections on your web site. This means that you can forget everything about the view of your article sections on your web site. 

You can just concentrate on writing your articles. Article Manager does the rest for you. It uploads your articles, places them on a list showing the latest articles, places links to the article from the front-page of your article section on your web site. It also automatically sets the overview over the articles (on the front page) up so that everything looks nice and clean. However, you have total control over the look of your pages, as you can use html templates for all these pages. This makes the script rather flexible.

Ease of set-up

Interactivetools.com has made it very easy for the user to set up this script. The documentation is very easy to understand and follow.

One thing I really like about the documentation, is that it's aimed at both the first time cgi-script installer and the more experienced cgi-script installer.

For instance, if you don't know what such terms as "FTP", "web root" and "cgi-bin directory" means, you can click on links in the installation documentation, which will tell you exactly what it is.

Another thing I really like about the installation process, is that you don't need to change the Perl code (in the script files) itself.

However, despite the general clarity of the documentation, I found a little problem. In the installation manual, the user is asked to make an image directory in the web root. So far, that's okay. The problem comes when (in the admin panel) you're later asked to enter the URL (not the full path) to the image directory (seemingly the directory you've made in the web root). The crux of the matter is the definition of the term "web root". At first I took it to mean the directory where I've placed my index html-page. But in the documentation "web root" refers to the directory typically one level below the directory with your index html page. And you can't display (on your web site) images placed in that directory. If you've made a directory in your web root, which is a directory "below" the directory containing the files shown to the public (on your web site), you can't point to that image directory through a URL.

The problem can easily be solved, though. You just have to set up the image directory in another directory, which can be found through a URL. I did just that, and the problem was solved.

The misunderstanding was probably my own mistake, because I wasn't aware of what's meant in the documentation by "web root". But this confusion should probably have been removed, so that you couldn't misunderstand the directions. However, it's only a minor criticism, as it's very easy to correct.

At one point in the set up process, you're required to indicate the paths to two directories, used by the script. But even if you don't have a clue what paths is, you can click on a button (on the same page), and the script will automatically try to detect the paths for you. This can be a great help for you, if you don't know how to find the paths.

Finally, Interactivetools.com has confined most of the pages in the documentation manuals to just one screen view. This makes it much easier to follow the instructions, instead of you having to read, scroll and search through pages and pages of information in order to find the instructions you need. 

Features

Article Manager has a lot of features. And everything can be managed directly through the administration panel. 

Here are some of the features you'll get:

• Everything is controlled directly from the administration panel.
• You can just concentrate on writing the articles, the script sets everything up, according to the guidelines you've chosen.
• New categories can be set up by clicking on the Category editor button plus the Create New button.
• New articles can be created directly through the administration panel.
• New articles can either be set up to be 1) pending (awaiting approval), 2) visible (displayed on web site), or 3) hidden (not displayed).
• When creating new articles, you can choose whether they're going to be displayed as 1) a full article, 2) a summary only.
• You can either write a new article 1) directly in the administration panel, 2) pick it from an Internet URL, or 3) upload it from your hard disk.
• When creating a new article, you can easily add a summary of that article in the Summary field. This summary is then automatically displayed on the page listing your articles.
• Several places in the administration panel, there are help pop-up boxes which explain a certain function.
• The content your enter in the Content field, is automatically formatted so that it has a standard look.
• New articles can be previewed (without being published) by a click on a button.
• On the (official) article page (where your visitors can read your articles) the visitor can email your articles to a friend.
• On the (official) article page (where your visitors can read your articles) the visitor can print our your articles in a printer friendly version.
• On the (official) article page (where your visitors can read your articles) the visitor can search through all your articles, using Article Manager's built-in search function.
• The program also has an advanced search function, through which you can narrow down your searches.
• The administration panel has it's own search function that makes it easy for the administrator(s) to find the articles that he (or they) want to see.
• Through the administration panel you can create users and restrict their access to some categories.
• If you need help, you can easily get that via a link at the top of the administration panel.
• Etc., etc.

It would have been nice, if you had a so called WYSIWYG-editor in the admin panel. That way you could also edit html-code directly in the admin panel - even if you didn't have a clue about how to edit pure html-code (which web pages are made in).

However, I still think the interface is excellent. It's very easy to use and you don't get confused by a log of superfluous buttons and links. All in all I think that the control panel is one of the best control panels I've seen. 

Ease of using

Article Manager has an extensive user manual that shows it's user exactly how to use the program, step-by-step. But despite the extensiveness of the user manual, it's still very easy to understand.

But even if you haven't read the user manual yet, you should be able to use the administration panel. It's easy to navigate, and most functions are self-evident and explain themselves.

The only part of the administration I think can be a little bit more difficult, is the Setup Options section. However, when trying to get access to this section, you are pre-warned that you're now going to the more advanced section. And if you have any questions, the online user manual will explain most function to you.

If you just want to publish articles on a daily or weekly basis, I think Articles Manager makes things really easy for you. Just go to the Create Article section, write your article and press the save button. That's it! Not too difficult, don't you agree?!

How well the script works

One really good feature in the script, is the ability to assign different levels of access to the administration part of Article Manager. Thus, you can assign writer access, trusted writer access or editor access to any number of people you want.

This means that you have a reasonable amount of control over which degree you'll allow others to edit your web site. Thus, you can allow them to add articles and information to your web site, but not to edit the categories or anything else in the set-up of your admin panel. Or you can give a person wider rights, if you want that. It's all up to you to decide which kind of access (if any) you'll assign to others.

In my opinion this is a really important feature, which will be useful for a busy web editor who wants to outsource some of the writing work to others.

One very commendable feature is that you're able to publish your articles as html-pages (or shtml-pages). Some article- and news-management scripts publish your articles "on the fly" (as cgi-files). But the problem with that is that it loads the server. But Article Manager gives you the option to decide precisely what kind of format you want your articles to be published as. Again, this is a very commendable feature of this script.

There are a few limitations of the script.

First, you can upload a max 10 images, no html editing 

Another limitation of Article Manager, is that it can have a maximum of ten images associated with each article. Usually you probably won't associate more images than that with each article. But sometimes you may want to do that. In that case, the limitation of a maximum of ten images associated with each article can be a somewhat annoying limitation.

Second, as already mentioned, you can't edit the html of your articles directly through the administration panel. Of course you can do that in your web editor. But it would have been nice if you could do it directly through administration panel as well.

This isn't a really serious criticism in any way. Such a feature would just have made the script even better. There are other article- and news-management scripts that has this feature, which can come in very handy when you're writing articles and want to change the view of the article quickly. So, you can just a suggestion for making the script even stronger. 

I really like the default template for the article display page. It looks nice and gives a good overview over the articles and news.

BTW, the graphic look of the administration panel is really nice. Of course the look of the administration panel doesn't necessarily tell you anything about how well the script works. But provided a script works, I certainly prefer to work in a administration panel that looks nice, just like the admin panel in Article Manager.

One part of Article Manager which I really like, is it's Manual and Reference Guide. This guide contains both an installation guide, a user guide (for all moderators using Article Manager) and an administration guide. In particular I like the way this guide is written. It's written in a language that's easy to understand. It doesn't contain a lot of technical non-sense. Besides - and that's very important in my opinion - it's short and to the point. This means that by following these manuals, you should have a very good chance of being up and running in less than an hour - unless you run into some trouble that's not covered in the manuals.

Overall assessment

In my opinion Article Manager is a really good script. It's obviously a professional program, made by professionals who know what they're doing. This is also indicated by the relatively high price (US $299 at the time of this writing) - though the price of course isn't always a guarantee for a good product. However, the script works really fine, and there is no doubt that it can make the process of administrating a large web site much easier.

As I mentioned above, there are a few limitations of the program, which I wish would be removed. The script would be even better if it had these missing features. However, it's not a serious criticism.

All in all, I think this is an excellent and really fine script, which can be very, very useful if you're administrating a web site with many articles.

Price (at the time of this writing)

US $299

Buying information

 
Website 

http://www.interactivetools.com 

Email

General Inquiries info@interactivetools.com  
Sales Inquiries sales@interactivetools.com  
Software Support support@interactivetools.com  

Snail mail

Interactivetools.com, inc.
#850 - 609 West Hastings St.
Vancouver, BC CANADA
V6B 4W4

Phone and fax

Phone (604) 689-3347 

Fax (604) 689-3342 

Toll Free 1-800-752-0455 

(Hours Monday - Friday, 9AM - 5PM, Pacific Standard Time).