Product Reviews

Octane8 4.0

• By Mike Gunderloy
• 09/04/2002

Octane8 is a web-based content management and site building system, suitable for either Internet or intranet sites. In brief, this "webtop" application combines two pieces of functionality. First, there's an HTML editor that runs directly within your copy of Internet Explorer. In addition to editing, there is also support for other functionality, notably check-in/check-out to allow multiple designers to work on a site without trampling each others' work. It also has little touches that make you more productive, like automatic menu recreation as you shift pages around. You can also drag and drop graphics from the content management library to any page, edit your site from any web browser around the world (of course there is a security mechanism to protect this), or manage page permissions so that selected users can see selected parts of your intranet.

Second, there are Octane8 applications. An application is a set of pages and code already pre-built for a specific purpose. Some of the dozens of available applications include an auction site, classified ads, an employee directory, discussion forums, a survey manager, and a press release application. These are for the most part database-backed, and you can either work with them directly as a user or (if you're more the developer type) tweak their code. The code is well-commented ASP pages using VBScript, so it's easy for many developers to work with.

Many of the applications (for example, the policy manual) are targeted at the intranet, but others will serve for full Internet sites. For example, there's a shopping cart available to handle your e-business needs. I found the Octane8 environment easy to work in, though a bit slow over my ISDN-speed link to Octigon's demo server; you'll definitely want to be on a fast LAN link for most work on your Web site. I didn't have any problems editing pages or working with the code, and the structure of the webtop is well thought-out and reasonably intuitive.

Octane8 starts around $20,000, which may sound high but is actually quite reasonable for the level of content management that it offers, without even counting the applications. If you'd like to learn more, you can sign up for a Web seminar at the Octigon site and see it in action yourself.

[This review originally appeared in Developer Central 1.12.—Editor]