Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Master explanation
even submitting a patch via bugtracker might be premature, there are FAR too many things happening simultaneously - and none of you really know what we are up to and why.
just aheads up to everyone wondering, here is what i hired iuri to help me with in terms of proposing a redesign of the openacs website:
1. LESS FUCKING TALK MORE FUCKING CODE. i'm one of the biggest culprits of this, i talk a whole truckload but i've not managed to accomplish dick. i'm just putting my foot down and getting a redesigned website up and running for my own amusement. talk is cheap, code talks.
2. JUST GET A WEBSITE UP AS FAST AS POSSIBLE USING STANDARD OACS PACKAGES. actually, thanks to gustafs amazing work, xowiki really pulls oacs together in a whole new way. we have been able to replicate the entire website with practically stock packages. of course a few minor "TWEAKS" are required to actually get stuff to work, these "TWEAKS" are catalogued and will be made available to everyone in the oacs community and for oct and core devs to consider for inclusion into oacs. maybe we are redoing stuff that already exists, maybe we are patching in good ideas, i don't fucking know but i also don't fucking care. i want something up that is functional and that works and something we can all poke a stick at. you guys will then turn around and tell us what to fix, what to change, how to change it, what we did wrong, etc.
3. SUBMIT THE SAMPLE DESIGN + CHANGES FOR CONSIDERATION TO OCT, CORE DEVS AND THE ENTIRE OPENACS COMMUNITY. we are almost done, i just have a FUGLY placeholder for the home page. once i'm done the graphics on the home page we will submit the site for everyone to see and critique. its 1/2 redesign (that is its not a full redesign just a cleanup) and 1/2 polishing up some rough edges to get an out of the box setup running. you guys will comment on the look and feel (1/2 design) and the technical changes we had to make to actually make it happen (1/2 polishing up). while it is our hope you will like our work and our ideas, we will change whatever you want and align with whatever is happeningin oacs core to get it done.
4. OUR GOAL IS TO HAVE THE OACS PROJECT EAT ITS OWN DOG FOOD. WHAT WE HAVE AS OUR WEBSITE IS WHAT A NEW USER SHOULD BE ABLE TO INSTALL IN A FEW MINUTES WITH STOCK PACKAGES, ABSOLUTELY NO CODING AT ALL. at least that is our hope. the rest of the oacs community might have other ideas but this is ours and we just putting it up for critique. it will be up to you guys to decide if its a good idea, bad idea and whether any of it is absorbed into the project. at least now i know what it takes to get an oacs website up and running, how fast and how much effort.
so, lets hold the ship nice and straight. i just haveto finish my end of the bargain and thats actually completing the main home page graphics as iuri has completed most of the work (nice job dude).
the last thing that will be needed is to mount project manager, but that isn't quite ready yet. malte, you and i need to chat about that a bit, you fixed up everything i requested but i would like to revisit a couple of ideas, namely the initialization of the first project and the main pm view. once we have a decent pm up and running, we can hook up xowiki to it and use that to document a roadmap if one doesn't exit (i don't know, haven't looked) maybe? i know i will use it for the documentation project and to start a bit of a marketing hype thing in the community.
so feel free to visit iuris link, ignore the fugly gfx i'm working on that, but we will have a presentable sample ready for everyone shortly.
