The trouble with editors, it seems to me, is that they inherently
allow the user to change the way the html appears on a page by
page basis. When manipulated by inexperienced users (as the original
poster suggested) the results are bound to be chaotic.
Another approach (particularly well suited for inexperienced users)
would be to write a program that generates static pages from recursive
readdir output, where the program is expected to encounter (for the
most part anyway) only images, image caption files and simple text
files, where those files can be uploaded or deleted as needed, from a
form.
If a user creates a hierarchical directory structure, where the various
directories have descriptive names, and if those directories are
populated with images and text files (also with descriptive names)
you can imagine a program that generates pages automatically,
complete with navigation links generated from the 'descriptive'
filenames.
Most of the
http://montana-riverboats.com website was generated that
way.
The program I use (site_bot, at phpclasses.org) actually recognizes
a rich set of allowed file types, that have, for instance, the ability
to generate
remote navigation links, table-enclosed text blocks, html fragments,
framesets, inline frames, etc. Unsophisticated end users can learn
about
those hotrod enhancements gradually. But with simple images, image
caption files and text files they can get started
quickly, by uploading files and then pressing a "generate static html"
button.
Because the pages are generated from code, they tend to end up
with a coherent look and feel.
Site_bot also has a (somewhat primitive) dynamic stylesheet editor, so
they
can change font and background colors, table widths, etc...on the fly,
fiddling with colors until they get what they want.
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/1463.html