I just want someone to walk me through this. I'm sitting in front of my word processor. I want to edit data for my website. What is the process. Imagine I have, instead of AOLserver/OpenACS, I have IIS/SQL Server. How would I edit some field in that? Remember, I'm just a content writer, no programming. Is there some ms document somewhere that describes the way this is done? Is anyone doing this?
What scares me is that vendors are free to add protocol on top of WebDAV to add "value" to their product. That probably means their product doesn't work very well with just any other software, you need to get server/client from the same vendor. Considering ms is involved, what else should we expect?
From the WebDAV.org FAQ:
Now, with that said: it is possible for a company to state compliance with the DAV protocol. On top of that protocol, at the application level, they can do things that are special between their client and server. That is where application vendors will add value, and it is a standard part of doing business. If a server provides better application-level support, then you may end up tied to that particular server if you want that functionality. You are free to choose your DAV server, but recognize that you may lose functionality. Your choice, though.
I would love to have this concept, as described, work. Everyone would, I'm sure. Getting a better editor to work with OpenACS would be a selling point.
So for now I'll just ask if we can brainstorm for a bit:
- What do we want WebDAV to do for us?
- Where is WebDAV doing this right now in a similar setup, i.e. a real database?
- What do we need to do to get there?
- Is the effort worth the payoff?
