Forum OpenACS Q&A: Pointers & Tips for Newbs?

Posted by Jeff McCombs on 05/29/03 07:31 PM

Gang,

I don't suppose there is any documentation, links, FAQs.. ANYTHING, aside from the standard OpenACS Documentation? Maybe something along the lines of a introduction or tutorial on how the "core" OpenACS components (groups & users, templates, etc.) work? Or if one of the sites currently using OACS has any documentation on how they got their site up and running?

As a OACS neophyte, I'm finding it extremely difficult to even know where to begin when it comes to getting from a base-install system to something I want.

I know OACS can do what I want it to, I just don't quite know how to get it there. :)

Thanks,
- Jeff

2: Re: Pointers & Tips for Newbs? (response to 1)

Posted by Jade Rubick on 05/29/03 08:02 PM

Hi Jeff:

I have some documentation on my site you might find helpful:

http://rubick.com/openacs/

especially these articles:

A Quick Intro to OpenACS Templating - http://rubick.com/openacs/templating - describes how to use the OpenACS templating system.

Namespaces - http://rubick.com/openacs/namespaces - describes how to use Tcl namespaces.

Pascal's CVS article for OpenACS developers: http://rubick.com/openacs/contributing - note that I've asked Pascal for permission to put this up, but he hasn't responded either way. I will take it down if he asks me to do so. I've added some things to it as well.

Joel is in the process of improving our documentation (believe it or not, it used to be even less documented).

I also recommend that you document things as you learn about them. That's pretty much what I'm doing. That way, you pave the road for those that come along later. Using edit-this-page, it's easy to do.

You'll see my documents change a lot in the next few months. I'll be adding more to the document on the content repository, on adding workflow to a package, etc...

3: Re: Pointers & Tips for Newbs? (response to 1)

Posted by Jamie Rasmussen on 05/29/03 08:22 PM

There's so much documentation that I'm not sure where the best place to point you is. In additional to personal sites like Jade's, there are a ton of useful community-contributed documents in http://sdm.openacs.org/new-file-storage/ - I'm not sure if they have been brought over to the new OpenACS site somewhere? Also:

General OpenACS articles
http://openacs.org/features/

Excellent books on TCL, SQL, general web app development, ...
http://openacs.org/faq/one-faq?faq_id=43840

The problem sets might help
http://openacs.org/education/psets/

If you are comfortable with all of the above already, and the package documentation isn't helping you, try your api-doc installation or http://openacs.org/api-doc/ as many procs are well documented at the source level.

Some WimpyPoint presentations are useful:
http://sdm.openacs.org/wp/index.tcl?&show_age=

These forums are of course one of the best sources for information. If you have AOLserver questions, there is also an AOLserver mailing list, WIKI, weekly chat on AIM, etc. OpenACS'ers are often available on IRC.

4: Re: Pointers & Tips for Newbs? (response to 1)

Posted by Matt O'Toole on 06/07/03 11:53 PM

Jeff, the best basic tutorials for me have been the Reuven Lerner articles in Linux Journal:

5: Re: Pointers & Tips for Newbs? (response to 1)

Posted by Jarkko Laine on 06/09/03 09:47 PM

All Reuven's At the Forge articles can be found here: http://www.lerner.co.il/atf/

6: Re: Pointers & Tips for Newbs? (response to 1)

Posted by Brad Ford on 06/11/03 06:24 PM

Hi Jeff,

I've been setting up an oacs server myself on my dsl line at home. I too have had difficulty finding good docs on jumping from the congratulations page to a basic system. I'm taking it upon myself to document as I go along and I should end up with an idiot-proof guide to setting up a basic system hosted from home including a custom home page and non-customized packages installed.