Forum OpenACS Q&A: update user experience acs chat and more.
ACS chat offers the same functionality as chatspace, but the major assets are not clearly visibile after you convince people this chat will realy works. The available documentation, and the general sentiments on this board are also negative, however in my mind a few simple adjustments can help to bring it up to the same professional level as chatspace. Wouldn't that be a nice challenge. it'all a matter of perception.
Just a thought for the esteemded programmers. ... Here are my suggestions... chat redesigntcl . some may be difficult and time consuming, some may be a piece of cake. I am not a programmer and can't judge. But. If take the chatmodule as core communiction tool, and enhance it with other pure communication tools - bboard - news - e-mail ticket and todo, all somehow interfaced, you would end up with a sub module, just like in e-commerce. This simple string of communication can easily be turned into a ready to use package that would help newcommers to get started without fuss and the need to understand tcl programming language. ( We are using acs 3.2.5, ready for upgrade once release 4 is available in a production stage. Right now I have not been able to see a reason to migrate, although we did manage to get ACS 4 up and running. We do have a number of realy good corporate contacts that might be interested, once it goes in production.
I have also talked to my secretaries about giving you (designers) some feedback regarding user experience. What about organizing a user / designer chat to give you folks some feedback? The girls have been looking at my ACS exploits for 8 months, so may have some great questions for you. Likewise, you may be able to shed some light in the inner workings of acs, better than I can do as a dumbo. One general remark. It has been said there is little ACS documentation. I would like to add one comment. The documentation is there, it's a matter of personal experiecne to figure out what it all means. I agree the presentation is miserable at most, but re-editing the information into a usable format is not realy difficult, but it takes time, I am willing to put into the efforts you guys have invested in creating this wonderfull piece of software. I think I will have a complete dumbo ACS (3.25) enduser guide available within 14 days. This will also include a number of easily implemented adjustments to the core distribution, an a number of end user implemenation scenario's, just like in Groove. Incase anybody else is working on a similar set-up, please let m know, so we can combine efforts. If you need betatesters, again, I am available, aswell as some of my secretaries. I Look forward to your reply
