Forum OpenACS Q&A: Packages? What packages?

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1: Packages? What packages?
Posted by G. Armour Van Horn on 07/06/02 10:44 PM
As a relative newcomer to the product, I wish I knew what all the packages available are. Their names, their purposes, what they can and can't do. Like Ticket Tracker and Ticket Tracker Lite, why would I want one of them vs the other? And, before I download and install it, what credit card gateways are supported by the current e-commerce module? There are some packages where the name is clear enough, but what are the limitations of the standard package?

If that information is available somewhere, I'll feel properly admonished and sheepishly do the reading recommended if it is. If it isn't somewhere, I volunteer to collate any information provided and compile it into the document I need. I somehow don't think I'm alone, so I would certainly make the result available.

Van

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2: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 07/07/02 12:59 AM
It would be great to get some information collated and a document produced, many folks will thank you if you take this task on ...

Documentation is still one of our achilles heels in this project.

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3: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by Roberto Mello on 07/07/02 01:10 AM
Wouldn't it be better to just get the package repository going on openacs.org? Any static list of packages that we create is almost certainly going to get outdated.
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4: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by Cynthia Kiser on 07/07/02 01:15 AM
The package repository is important - but won't solve the original problem of how to figure out what modules do without having to install them. For that we need the package documentation accessible from openacs.org (whether or not the package is installed in use there).
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5: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by Roberto Mello on 07/07/02 01:27 AM
Well, I thought the package repository showed a description of the package along with all its dependencies (if the user clicked on the link).

To be honest it's been so long since I last looked at the package repository pages that used to be at arsdigita.com that I don't remember for sure, but it'd be simple to have it show the description if doesn't.

My point is that the package description information and almost everything a user would like to know about a pacakge is already described in the package itself. It'd be a duplication of effort to have someone manually create pages with the package descriptions and keep that updated.

One thing that I think would be useful is if the package repository would let users comment on a package. That would be really nice and would allow for collaboration.

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6: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 07/07/02 12:33 PM
Why not start here:
https://openacs.org/sdm/one-package.tcl?package_id=9
A sentence or two per package would be a big help for newcomers.
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7: Response to Packages? What packages? (response to 1)
Posted by G. Armour Van Horn on 07/08/02 12:00 AM
Yes, even two sentences would help. What I would really like to see is that minimal description, current version, author, dependencies, known conflicts, and comments from the real world edited into a longer description.

In other words, when I come up with a scheme I'd like to be able to quickly learn if a package will actually help me accomplish it.