Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide

Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) may be relatively new on the Web-publishing scene, but it's very closely integrated with the Windows infrastructure and therefore an attractive option for many organizations. Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide is both a tutorial and a reference in which the authors strive to explain the Microsoft Way of rising to the Web publishing challenge. You'll want this one close at hand if you're involved in setting up or maintaining a MCMS site. Preferably, you'll have read the chapters that deal with architecture and design--which collectively make up about half of this large paperback document--well in advance of installing the first MCMS component. Better yet, you'll have had the various members of your Web publishing team (network people, Windows administrators, database experts, and so on) read, ahead of time, the chapters that concern them.

This team-authored book uses a variety of strategies in communicating information to the reader. These include discussion of design issues (generally quite effective in making the reader think about the situation on his own site), narrative elucidation of procedures with frequent screen shots, and code listings (generally under-commented and therefore less useful than other elements). In any case, this is from-the-source documentation of an expensive software package. You'll benefit by having it around. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to install, configure, and use Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. Sections deal with the general architecture of MCMS, and its particular ways of facilitating page design, user interaction, and workflows. Integration with Visual Studio--the chief advancement in the 2002 version--gets lots of attention, as do security and user rights managements. The Publishing API (PAPI) is covered in greater depth here than anywhere else.