new user impressions and suggestions

[adx]

I've been searching for a useful CMS or non-technical "site builder" for a few years, and found this a couple of days ago. I think it's brilliant - by far the best 'actually simple' CMS I have seen.

The only problems I have (these are fairly nonspecific):

1. Heavily CSS reliant, doesn't degrade nicely in older browsers (even Netscape 4), so doesn't save nicely (for later editing, clipping - something a non tech savvy user expects they can just do, they have no idea about CSS or styles).

2. I would like the ability to record some private notes along with each page for history / version management etc.

3. One thing that struck me about the example installed site (apart from that it was actually useful) was the lack of images - making the system appear like it isn't suited to images (which is definitely not the case). I think it would be worth adding a few more images to the install just to send the right message and also to make the instructions easier in places.

But that's all, otherwise very hard to fault.

[iNSiPiD]

Hi adx,

Glad you found the installation and use so far to be as advertised. Despite its title, however, CMS Made Simple is actually designed to be simple for web developers to get sites up quickly. So, as a non-techhie, you've done very well indeed.

1. Heavily CSS reliant, doesn't degrade nicely in older browsers (even Netscape 4), so doesn't save nicely (for later editing, clipping - something a non tech savvy user expects they can just do, they have no idea about CSS or styles).

OK. This is actually not the case. Many thousands of web standards evangelists across the globe are CSS dependent. This is just the way of the future. You can, however, build your site anyway you like. Create a new template with nno CSS associations and then use the WYSIWYG editor to create as many tables and inline styles as you like. Just don't tell those standardistas where I live, OK?

2. I would like the ability to record some private notes along with each page for history / version management etc.

You can do this very easily indeed by modifying your template. Simply add a new content block to your template. You can use the following as an example. Place this 'code' just after the {content} tag in your current template.

Code: Select all

<div id="comments" style="display:none">
{content block="secretSquirrel"}
</div>

Note the tragic and archaic use of inline styling on that DIV. You could always use an existing CSS class if you were inclined to use stylesheets. After all, they are designed to cut down load time and save oodles on your development time.

Now when you go to edit your pages there'll be a new content block under your existing one which is called secretSquirrel. You can type anything you want in here and it won't display on the site.

3. One thing that struck me about the example installed site (apart from that it was actually useful) was the lack of images - making the system appear like it isn't suited to images (which is definitely not the case). I think it would be worth adding a few more images to the install just to send the right message and also to make the instructions easier in places.

Images for image's sake? There's no limitation, just common sense I suppose. Feel free to add as many as you like and be sure to include some animated GIFs. If you're not going with XHTML/CSS markup then you're safe to use anything that Netscape Gold can handle.

[adx]

Hi, thanks for that super speedy reply! I've been busy trying to address my linux newbieness by setting up a staging server on a tiny thin client machine - without much luck (wore out 3 CDROM drives). But it installed on my new laptop a breeze.

I am sort of a techhie though, just not linux. I have been running things under "sokkit" on Windows, having discovered that if you unzip php apps like cmsmadesimple and oscommerce into the correct folder (and ignore all the permissions and stuff like that), it just works. Not something I'd expect.

My use for cmsmadesimple is more to be able to offer (for free) to people I know something like those "web builders" that are advertised with hosting packages - which allow completely non-tech savvy people to edit their own websites, upload photos, select a theme, etc. Mambo etc are close, but too much effort for me to set up, and usually far too complicated for the users. The other alternative is to set them up with something like Nvu so they can edit their (static) site, but this can end up even more complicated - with the end result that people who could / should get a basic useful website up are prevented by technical complexities. Anyway, rant off.

1. Heavily CSS reliant, doesn't degrade nicely in older browsers (even Netscape 4), so doesn't save nicely (for later editing, clipping - something a non tech savvy user expects they can just do, they have no idea about CSS or styles).

OK. This is actually not the case. Many thousands of web standards evangelists across the globe are CSS dependent. This is just the way of the future. You can, however, build your site anyway you like. Create a new template with nno CSS associations and then use the WYSIWYG editor to create as many tables and inline styles as you like. Just don't tell those standardistas where I live, OK?

I see what you mean, my issue is with CSS itself. If it is what I think it is then I can see the reasons for it, but it seems to fight against its own function, by saying "I want this page to look exactly like this, no hang on I don't". Back in the 90s there was html "markup" and for better or worse a web page sort of ended up looking like the designer intended, and sort of degraded gracefully in older browsers. Now there's another layer of complexity getting used to do exactly the same thing, while the higher purpose of CSS is lost to most people, and in fact lost on itself when it makes a page completely unreadable in an older browser. Maybe that's the sort of thing they're evangelising about, fortuantely not my concern except for the odd DIY web design (or philosophical rant).

I tried putting some of the flasher stylesheets into the document template so at least they would save from a browser, but that didn't work at all (almost certainly something I did wrong). cmsmadesimple has a lot of very cool themes but most of them seem to require the latest browsers to work reliably, which may not be cmsmadesimple's fault at all, but it reflects on it badly especially on its intention to be "simple". Ranting again!

2. private notes
I'm guessing your example will still send that content to the browser (can't remember if i tried it now). I was meaning completely private and secure, eg
"21/04/07 Some wally was complaining about my use of CSS so I updated the main body of this page to..."
or worse. My thought was to add a database field that never makes it to the actual published site. It would be a more useful tool for me if there was some way to do rudimentary version control / notes like this. With my newly discovered appreciation of php I might do some hackin myself.

3. images in the install package
Yeah, pretty much images for images sake - not too many, just something to demonstrate that cmsmadesimple can actually hande images within its content, and also to show some examples, eg rather than explain the differences between the various menu types, to actually show them - as you say a few animated GIFs. In all reality I'm not going to have time to do it, but do good intentions count?!

[Vin]

I see what you mean, my issue is with CSS itself. If it is what I think it is then I can see the reasons for it, but it seems to fight against its own function, by saying "I want this page to look exactly like this, no hang on I don't". Back in the 90s there was html "markup" and for better or worse a web page sort of ended up looking like the designer intended, and sort of degraded gracefully in older browsers. Now there's another layer of complexity getting used to do exactly the same thing, while the higher purpose of CSS is lost to most people, and in fact lost on itself when it makes a page completely unreadable in an older browser. Maybe that's the sort of thing they're evangelising about, fortuantely not my concern except for the odd DIY web design (or philosophical rant).

CSS is a great idea, and it's a pity it wasn't introduced earlier.
With CSS, your HTML files are smaller (the difference is especially in comparison with the 'pure' HTML with fonts, color, align etc) -> faster output.
Advantages:

• You don't have to use table 'train' layout -> faster page rendering (content rendering)(modern browsers try to render the tables simultaneously, whereas old IE waits for the entire table).
• Flexibility - you can use alternative stylesheets, your users may choose; the modification of layout is slightly better.
• The content is independent (more or less) on stylesheets -> SEO layout with the content first (if the menu is growing damned large), accessibility (for handicapped people).

Disadvantages:

• Browser support, DIFFERENCES. Especially Explorer. But the worst is the box model. Why is the schizma here? Why are the old browsers more incompatible now? There are 'nested blocks' workarounds, fortunately, and other tricks.
• Some layouts are harder achieved with CSS. Fluid or elastic three column layout becomes an expert's task - fortunately, there exist free sane solutions - http://webhost.bridgew.edu/etribou/layouts/skidoo/.
• A new thing to learn for older webdesigners. I'm young and fortunately I came to the CSS-P (css positioned) layout first. My brother bought me a book of webdesign - a fine one, but still with tables as a better alternative of frames. Tables for just about everything - you get lost. The author himself confesses the tables aren't the most perfect and  without successor. (I found he released a new book on HTML and CSS-P). So I find CSS easier than tables - more flexible and if experienced enough, secure against cross-browser inconsistences.
• DIV/CSS. The wrong approach to CSS positioning - everything done with DIVs - code hardly readeble, worse than tables. Why on Earth to have divs for everything? There is SEO- and webdesigner-friendly semantic markup - unordered lists, headings, definition lists - so you're not overbloated with ids and classes (if using a proper hierarchy in your CSS file). Better orientation in HTML - plus for a designer. This is not a disadvantage in fact, just a misconception of the css positioning.

Cleaner HTML - better editing for the editors who know HTML, and the possibility of quick modifying of the page look give benefits mainly for smaller sites. For sites with CMS, the value of CSS is decreasing - but still, there are some arguments for it.

2. private notes
I'm guessing your example will still send that content to the browser (can't remember if i tried it now). I was meaning completely private and secure, eg
"21/04/07 Some wally was complaining about my use of CSS so I updated the main body of this page to..."
or worse. My thought was to add a database field that never makes it to the actual published site. It would be a more useful tool for me if there was some way to do rudimentary version control / notes like this. With my newly discovered appreciation of php I might do some hackin myself.

Searched the forge - look at this (but not sure) - http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/relatives.

3. images in the install package
Yeah, pretty much images for images sake - not too many, just something to demonstrate that cmsmadesimple can actually hande images within its content, and also to show some examples, eg rather than explain the differences between the various menu types, to actually show them - as you say a few animated GIFs. In all reality I'm not going to have time to do it, but do good intentions count?!

Do you mean to have a default theme with more pictures?

[iNSiPiD]

1. There is no escaping CSS but you cvan escape old browsers. Upgrade. They're free and there's no excuse.

2. At present there is no system in place of admin side notes that can accompany pages or module entries. This is actually a damn good idea and may well be part of v2.0, along with a content approval and versioning system.

3. OK, I confess, I was joking about the animated GIFs. The default install, however, could possibly make better use of themes, sections and 3rd party modules for the purpose of displaying rotating banner ads. But, again, the point is that it should be simple for people to get their head around ebfore getting too complicated. I mean, it doesn't get much simpler than an tag.

[Vin]

1. There is no escaping CSS but you cvan escape old browsers. Upgrade. They're free and there's no excuse.

Are the lower versions of IE (IE5/6) still supported by MS or do people have to switch to alternative browsers? Firefox doesn't work smoothly on older machines, AFAIK...

[adx]

1. CSS
I seem to have stepped into a minefield, I can't help jumping back on the soapbox and expanding on my "CSS bashing" (even though I think CSS is a good idea on the whole and is not really the cause of the problems).

Backwards compatibility is my main gripe, that skidoo site addresses it better than I can...
"Don't just rely on CSS to make an object bold, or to underline a piece of text. Use HTML elements to do some of this for you. It allows these older browsers to still render at least some of the meaning you want to convey with such effects."

As the web grows, it grows smaller as well as bigger. It finds itself on more and more smaller things like cellphones, watches, and those html terminal landline phones. These usually can't be upgraded without throwing away the hardware, unlike IE4 which is very easy to throw away. I did go though a phase of using older browsers but now use the latest and greatest and run something like K-Meleon on older machines (and by older I mean something that struggles to execute a billion instructions per second). What I find "dangerous" about this web standards movement is that it is trying to kill off older standards, which were and still are standard. Advertising broader support for all devices "oh except old browsers". There seems to be a 'blind' assumption that disabled or blind users want to read their web pages stripped of all layout, or that mobile devices will work better without any layout, or that there's no need to save a page because everyone's online all the time - when for many sites the layout conveys a lot of meaning and context. I guess that all comes down to the difference between good and bad design (but that's not within the web standardists control).

CSS efficiency: I hadn't really thought about caching CSS, that's got to help, and HTML was always rather inefficient. But the browser still needs to hit the CSS file(s) each time, and the CSS files I've seen recently look like C source code, complete with bulky comments. Might as well just write it all in C and have the browser render that. Kind of a neat idea in principle, but even a MS Word document doesn't require half the Windows OS to be downloaded along with every file to view it.

If CMSMS could optimise the CSS a bit (maybe it already does?) then it would be good. If it could have backup templates for non-CSS browsers (or a "CSS emulator"?) that would also be good, and would go one better than CSS itself can. In fact I'll go out on a limb and say (although I kind of did before) that CSS is what holds back acceptance of CMS: At the server end there's not much diffrence between a static and a dynamic site (both are a server responding to browser requests and getting data from some form of database). But there's a world of difference at the user end when these "new fangled" CMS things won't work with their old laptop that usually sits under the desk, or their html editor, or their friend with an old browser can't see their new site. I only had a vague idea of what CSS was until I played with CMSMS and asked "what's the catch". (Now I know it's neither the fault of CMSMS nor CSS, but just the way it "is" if I want to use those fancy CSS menus.)

Anyway, rant off. The issue that started this all was looking at the "CSSMenu left + 1 column" template in Netscape 4. There's images and text off the left hand side of the screen and everything is pretty much unreadable. I suspect it would work on NS3 but I can't dig up a runnable version. Old browsers are rather yukky I must admit.

Also, there's a theme called Greenery that crashes Apache2/php5 running on Win2k every time (not related, but it's why I decided to set up that staging server, yet to see if that crashes).


2. Cool. Rudimentary version control is one of the reasons I'm looking at CMS. Dreamweaver probably has some sort of version control thing, but I'm not a web designer, I just want to update my site every few months (years?) and keep a note of what changed when, without having to resort to pieces of paper. Ideally I'd keep versions of the content as well, but a small note does the job just as well. The relatives thing seemed to be more about content (but I could be wrong).

3. More to the point, it doesn't get much simpler than clicking the image button and uploading an image! There's a lot of semi-technical users like me who lurk around the demos trying to quickly see if it will suit them. Without any images in the default install (or whatever it's called) it kind of hides how well CMSMS works with images. An animated GIF with a flashing "buy now" button would be best.

[Vin]

1. CSS
I seem to have stepped into a minefield, I can't help jumping back on the soapbox and expanding on my "CSS bashing" (even though I think CSS is a good idea on the whole and is not really the cause of the problems).

Stepped into a minefield? Browsers maybe...

Backwards compatibility is my main gripe, that skidoo site addresses it better than I can...
"Don't just rely on CSS to make an object bold, or to underline a piece of text. Use HTML elements to do some of this for you. It allows these older browsers to still render at least some of the meaning you want to convey with such effects."

Sure. (But underlining is generally bad idea, as the text looks like links).

As the web grows, it grows smaller as well as bigger. It finds itself on more and more smaller things like cellphones, watches, and those html terminal landline phones. These usually can't be upgraded without throwing away the hardware, unlike IE4 which is very easy to throw away. I did go though a phase of using older browsers but now use the latest and greatest and run something like K-Meleon on older machines (and by older I mean something that struggles to execute a billion instructions per second). What I find "dangerous" about this web standards movement is that it is trying to kill off older standards, which were and still are standard. Advertising broader support for all devices "oh except old browsers". There seems to be a 'blind' assumption that disabled or blind users want to read their web pages stripped of all layout, or that mobile devices will work better without any layout, or that there's no need to save a page because everyone's online all the time - when for many sites the layout conveys a lot of meaning and context. I guess that all comes down to the difference between good and bad design (but that's not within the web standardists control).

The content should be always accessible. This is IMHO more important than code validation (which is not always reliable). The content with disabled styles should be functional, and CMSMS layouts are very advanced in accessibility. I don't understand how a blind man can judge a layout, but he definetely can judge the accessibility.

CSS efficiency: I hadn't really thought about caching CSS, that's got to help, and HTML was always rather inefficient. But the browser still needs to hit the CSS file(s) each time, and the CSS files I've seen recently look like C source code, complete with bulky comments. Might as well just write it all in C and have the browser render that. Kind of a neat idea in principle, but even a MS Word document doesn't require half the Windows OS to be downloaded along with every file to view it.

See this link - http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 630.0.html
C and CSS is a lot different .

If CMSMS could optimise the CSS a bit (maybe it already does?) then it would be good. If it could have backup templates for non-CSS browsers (or a "CSS emulator"?) that would also be good, and would go one better than CSS itself can. In fact I'll go out on a limb and say (although I kind of did before) that CSS is what holds back acceptance of CMS: At the server end there's not much diffrence between a static and a dynamic site (both are a server responding to browser requests and getting data from some form of database). But there's a world of difference at the user end when these "new fangled" CMS things won't work with their old laptop that usually sits under the desk, or their html editor, or their friend with an old browser can't see their new site. I only had a vague idea of what CSS was until I played with CMSMS and asked "what's the catch". (Now I know it's neither the fault of CMSMS nor CSS, but just the way it "is" if I want to use those fancy CSS menus.)

Uhhh...I can imagine converting text formatting, but layout would be certainly hard to achieve (wouldn't it? ). Not a bad idea though.
CSS menus are in fact replacements for Javascript menus. Internet Explorer still has to rely on little Javascript, but modern browsers don't have to -> faster content rendering.

Anyway, rant off. The issue that started this all was looking at the "CSSMenu left + 1 column" template in Netscape 4. There's images and text off the left hand side of the screen and everything is pretty much unreadable. I suspect it would work on NS3 but I can't dig up a runnable version. Old browsers are rather yukky I must admit.

I've read once - "Netscape Navigator 4 is a browser used by a(n evil) web designer who wants to show that your site doesn't show properly in it." NN4 is (AFAIK) almost extinct, and I wonder if its users aren't just webdesigners testing sites in it .
But the fact it's not displayed properly is bad. I think it'd be a nice feature request to disable stylesheets for old browsers.

2. Cool. Rudimentary version control is one of the reasons I'm looking at CMS. Dreamweaver probably has some sort of version control thing, but I'm not a web designer, I just want to update my site every few months (years?) and keep a note of what changed when, without having to resort to pieces of paper. Ideally I'd keep versions of the content as well, but a small note does the job just as well. The relatives thing seemed to be more about content (but I could be wrong).

http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/archiver/

3. More to the point, it doesn't get much simpler than clicking the image button and uploading an image! There's a lot of semi-technical users like me who lurk around the demos trying to quickly see if it will suit them. Without any images in the default install (or whatever it's called) it kind of hides how well CMSMS works with images. An animated GIF with a flashing "buy now" button would be best.

Hmm. I haven't seen an animated image in demos of cmses [edit]Except the ads themselves [/edit], and in fact I don't see any reason why to use an animated gif "buy now". Looks like annoying ad, to be honest...  .

[adx]

1. CSS
I seem to have stepped into a minefield, I can't help jumping back on the soapbox and expanding on my "CSS bashing" (even though I think CSS is a good idea on the whole and is not really the cause of the problems).

Stepped into a minefield? Browsers maybe...

Ah yes, that must be it. I missed most of it, having got a new computer and started using a new browser from then on. But the whole web standards browser campaign seemed misguided and self-serving in a M$esque way. It's my choice what browser I want to run, and if I'm happy with an old one which doesn't support all the latest features, then it's "customers' choice".

BTW I downloaded NS 3.04 which is what I used for a long time, and it's good actually (apart from all the script errors). It displays the CMSMS templates well (as in, without styles at all, so is quite readable unlike NS4). It also displays my website perfectly, no surprise there.

The content should be always accessible. This is IMHO more important than code validation (which is not always reliable). The content with disabled styles should be functional, and CMSMS layouts are very advanced in accessibility. I don't understand how a blind man can judge a layout, but he definetely can judge the accessibility.

There are various tools which convert images into sound, this allows a blind person to get an idea of the look of a whole page, and where things are, which is often important ("to the left there is..." for a basic example). Also in html table based days I imagine they could tab from one cell to another. With a poor CSS layout, the "cells" can be all over the place, and in any order. A question of good vs bad design of course, but my gripe is many hack designers obviously just treat CSS as "a way to do proper layouts these days", missing the whole point.

See this link - http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 630.0.html
C and CSS is a lot different .

Excellent! I had a bit of a hunt around and found a few related mods which do things like rewrite the stylesheet into the html of each page, which allows the page to be saved (and edited) as one file. That's along the same lines as that CSS emulator idea I was thinking of, it should be possible to emulate most of the important CSS static layout features in good old html, even if roughly. Better to just come up with a design which renders acceptably in all browsers (like that skidoo page), or (like you say) disable stylesheets for older browsers (but only those that are known to be incompatible, rather than presumed of course).

CMS solves a lot of problems potentially. Once you make the decsion that you're not going to publish your source files exact (which a CMS forces onto you), it opens up more options. What about rewriting css and html to remove comments? Or defining a special comment tag which is always stripped from the output? This would allow me to pop a secure comment or version history into the content (or template, or CSS, or metadata - wherever it belongs) with certainty that it would never end up going out to the world. The existing CMSMS templates are full of comments and formatting and probably all sorts of other things that have nothing to do with what the browsers render.

C and CSS - anything with curly braces and semicolons on the end of lines is C to me 
Same way as Python and BASIC is the same

http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/archiver/

Thankyou! That's pretty much exactly what I wanted. Except I noticed:
-it still doesn't let you actually make a note of what your change was
-it doesn't display the archive history in IE6 (it does in FF2, but fck doesn't work properly)

Very promising though, especially for business users who must keep copies of old advertising for proof of claims made etc.

Hmm. I haven't seen an animated image in demos of cmses [edit]Except the ads themselves [/edit], and in fact I don't see any reason why to use an animated gif "buy now". Looks like annoying ad, to be honest...  .

I was kinda joking about the buynow button  But it's the mindset CMSMS probably needs to target. It's a sad fact that a flashing "install NOW" button would probably see downloads jump. Actually that's probably a bit harsh, but the expectation of seeing something flashing or moving on a modern website is quite normal, even though it looks horrible and annoying. I was actually thinking more along the lines of an animated CSS flyout menu, which is something that can't be shown in a still image, let alone a wordy description.

Anyway, CMSMS remains the only non-skilled usable CMS I've found.

Oh BTW I tried that "Greenery" theme under XAMPP rather than Sokkit and it didn't crash anything.

[Vin]

Stepped into a minefield? Browsers maybe...

Ah yes, that must be it. I missed most of it, having got a new computer and started using a new browser from then on. But the whole web standards browser campaign seemed misguided and self-serving in a M$esque way. It's my choice what browser I want to run, and if I'm happy with an old one which doesn't support all the latest features, then it's "customers' choice".

BTW I downloaded NS 3.04 which is what I used for a long time, and it's good actually (apart from all the script errors). It displays the CMSMS templates well (as in, without styles at all, so is quite readable unlike NS4). It also displays my website perfectly, no surprise there.

Old browsers - fine, I do my best I can. But I really don't recommend using it - because of security holes (or is it just a problem of IE?). M$esque way - umm, maybe...actually, web standards may be pretty misguided. But now it seems the guys at W3C are beginning to realise this (what WHATWG (http://www.whatwg.org/) already realised  )

To hide the stylesheet from NN4, the media property of stylesheet link ought to be set to 'all' rather than 'screen'. But maybe you'll run into problems with your WYSIWYG editor and stylesheet formatting - then you should make an internal stylesheet just with text formatting and media 'screen' set and not showing in the template.

There are various tools which convert images into sound, this allows a blind person to get an idea of the look of a whole page, and where things are, which is often important ("to the left there is..." for a basic example). Also in html table based days I imagine they could tab from one cell to another. With a poor CSS layout, the "cells" can be all over the place, and in any order. A question of good vs bad design of course, but my gripe is many hack designers obviously just treat CSS as "a way to do proper layouts these days", missing the whole point.

Maybe. But tables are IMHO more restrictive - you made the navigation to the right side, have a fluid layout, but you've forgotten to specify the tabindexes or hidden links - and if you've got a lot of cells, it becomes a frustration (doesn't it?). I suppose nested tables are a problem as well...

See this link - http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 630.0.html
C and CSS is a lot different .

Excellent! I had a bit of a hunt around and found a few related mods which do things like rewrite the stylesheet into the html of each page, which allows the page to be saved (and edited) as one file. That's along the same lines as that CSS emulator idea I was thinking of, it should be possible to emulate most of the important CSS static layout features in good old html, even if roughly. Better to just come up with a design which renders acceptably in all browsers (like that skidoo page), or (like you say) disable stylesheets for older browsers (but only those that are known to be incompatible, rather than presumed of course).

CMS solves a lot of problems potentially. Once you make the decsion that you're not going to publish your source files exact (which a CMS forces onto you), it opens up more options. What about rewriting css and html to remove comments? Or defining a special comment tag which is always stripped from the output? This would allow me to pop a secure comment or version history into the content (or template, or CSS, or metadata - wherever it belongs) with certainty that it would never end up going out to the world. The existing CMSMS templates are full of comments and formatting and probably all sorts of other things that have nothing to do with what the browsers render.

C and CSS - anything with curly braces and semicolons on the end of lines is C to me 
Same way as Python and BASIC is the same

Smarty template engine suits these needs ! (Why I haven't thought of it earlier ) If you don't want the comments to show up in the source, just wrap the comment text in the {*smarty comments' braces*}. You can use them in templates and pages as well (tested under TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor). This may solve the notes - however, editors can edit them.

CSS x C - Uh-oh...Smarty templates does have the curly braces... . Oh, come on. CSS is just an advanced list of attributes for HTML to me - very powerful, though.

http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/archiver/

Thankyou! That's pretty much exactly what I wanted. Except I noticed:
-it still doesn't let you actually make a note of what your change was
-it doesn't display the archive history in IE6 (it does in FF2, but fck doesn't work properly)

Very promising though, especially for business users who must keep copies of old advertising for proof of claims made etc.

fck doesn't work properly in Fx2? Try other WYSIWYGS integrated, such as TinyMCE...(works for me)

[adx]

Smarty template engine suits these needs ! (Why I haven't thought of it earlier ) If you don't want the comments to show up in the source, just wrap the comment text in the {*smarty comments' braces*}. You can use them in templates and pages as well (tested under TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor). This may solve the notes - however, editors can edit them.

I managed to get overloaded with "everything else", but I did try this and it works brilliantly! You can put comments in whatever you want, whether it's a template or content, it gets stripped out of the data served to the public, and is editable by the people who need access. I did find that in some places you need to put it in html comments (if I remember right) or Fck would add a in the output, having no idea about smarty comments. Best place seems to be in the content meta comments tab, visible with a click.