I am very new to Matrix, just started building my first pages. Here are my questions. I am the webmaster of a pretty large College's website. Right now all of our pages are static, and I manage them through dreamweaver. Which is nice in the sense that I have easy control over the content, the source code, ect. But it is a pain when it comes to people wanting to do updates themselves, and a ton of other things that a great CMS like Matrix can do…
What I am wondering about Matrix is, can I easily manage my content, as an administrator, and let users manage their content. Can it be as easy as dreamweaver to edit the code? Or do have to use simple edit for all of my admin changes? Could someone who has a large site with Matrix, or even the Squiz staff, give me a run through on how you work with your pages and build new content? A CMS seems great, but sometimes it seems that it could be more difficult in situations also.
[quote]A CMS seems great, but sometimes it seems that it could be more difficult in situations also.
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Yes, indeed. In my first deployment of Matrix, we actually told the users we were implementing a CMS to make their lives more difficult (and that wasn’t a lie either). 
You have to balance the quick and dirty responsiveness of being able to live edit with Dreamweaver against the logged, tracked and dynamic nature of a CMS.
If you have a small number of web authors who are already capable of using Dreamweaver, I believe you can ignore the Simple Edit interface completely and train them all to use the Administration Interface. The Simple Edit interface needs to be specifically configured to work well and can take a long time to get right. We really only recommend it when you have a distributed author based of non-technical authors.
Workflow can also be configured to be as simple or complex as you like. Starting out, why not try a single-step workflow with just yourself in that step? This way, anything you do is automatically approved (Matrix knows you can do it!), but anything someone else does needs to get approved by you first.
Thanks for the reply. Can you explain how it works for others to make changes, but I have to approve it? I have not yet found that funtion.
[quote]Thanks for the reply. Can you explain how it works for others to make changes, but I have to approve it? I have not yet found that funtion.
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You need to create a workflow schema that has only you as the approver. Then, you apply that workflow schema to the site itself. Check the System Administration manual for more information about workflows.