Forum OpenACS Development: Task list for new OpenACS.org

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1: Task list for new OpenACS.org
Posted by Talli Somekh on 02/28/02 10:16 PM
Hey guys,

Here is at least a high level task list of the items that need to be finished in order for the new OpenACS.org to launch. When a volunteer crew steps forward and we start mucking in the code a little more, than we can post something more complete.

  • Home Page
    • Features box - The features area on the home page should rotate the articles presented. Only a summary of each article, or the first paragraph ought to be presented.
    • News & Events box - The box on the home page for News should be made News & Events. It should present the latest, unarchived news and the latest, unarchived events.
  • News & Events secion
    • OpenACS News - Currently, the News section is implemented using the ETP news application. Since there won't be global admin privileges for OACS news, the standard news package is more appropriate here. So we need to implement it.
    • Special Events - Similar to News, we need to implement something with a admin workflow. I'm not qualified to say whether it's just a modified news package. But from a user perspective, I think that's what we need.
  • Forums & Community - Like the News & Events section, there are some items here that would be best implemented with a news package-like interface for user contributions and admin approval.
    • OpenACS forums - Migrate the content! I don't know if this includes the web/db stuff or not. Also, given Don's post of earlier today in which he talked about some of the issues in the bboard code, is the stuff in good enough shape? And risking a premature suggestion, might we consider some of Gilbert's approaches? (I know Gilbert is far from ready to release his code, but it is a cool package)
    • Job postings - This can go eitehr way. Either it's open to anyone to post job listings or there should be admin privileges. Suggestions?
    • OpenACS sites - Again, same as before. Admin or open?
    • OpenACS companies - Since there is a small requirement that somewhere on a company's website they mention or link to openacs.org, it may be best to implement a news-like interface here.
    • Features section - Should this be in the Forums & Community section?
  • Software
    • Download - This should be set up like aD's old repository.
    • SDM - For the time being, until either SDM is ported or something new is built, a link to the current SDM should be made.
  • Documentation
    • Docs for OACS - I'm not sure whether there ought to be any special organization for the section with the OACS docs. Since the OACS4 docs are in DocBook, we should provide either the ability to view docs as HTML or to download the docs as a PDF. If anyone can suggest a particular way to organize the docs other than the obvious, that would be great.
      • OACS 3.X - Links to old docs
      • OACS 4.X - Links to new docs
    • FAQs - A box with a list of the FAQs available. The FAQs will be implemented with the ETP FAQ app.
    • Features Section (?) - Would it be better to list it here?
    • OACS Systems Journal (?) - Do we want to do this?
  • Miscellaneous
    • Implement OpenFTS - I think that Neophytos has agreed to do this. Neophytos, is that right? Do you have any time? If not, then is there anyone that wants the experience or has done it already?
    • Where should the features section go? - It could just be reached via the link on the home page
    • Any other ideas?
I already have the names of a number of people that have volunteered. Whoever else is interested in working on this stuff, please either contact me directly at talli@museatech.net or post a response in this forum.

Thanks.

talli

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2: Response to Task list for new OpenACS.org (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 03/01/02 03:43 PM
Open Force will have an improved version of the bboard package before too long (Ben?).  They need to do this for dotLRN.  It will include some fixes of the worst features of the datamodel, in particular the "context_id" abuse I uncovered when I took my own tour through the code speeding things up.

Between my first whack at it and OF's coming whacks at it the bboard software will be very usable.  I personally don't mind the UI at all and still, personally, prefer non-tree vs. tree forums ("threaded" is a misnomer, where the heck did that come from?).

So ... the UI is OK, the alert system at some point will have to parallel that provided by ACES (which is pretty nice) and OF will do that as part of dotLRN.

The only problem is that "under the hood" the clean-up and improvement efforts will be incomplete.  That's OK, though, as long as it's fast and works well we can live with a datamodel that's not worthy of the Louvre.

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3: Response to Task list for new OpenACS.org (response to 1)
Posted by Tom Jackson on 03/04/02 10:21 AM

Talli,

Put me down for helping with moving the data. I've done this on a relatively large set of data before. I also like Gilbert's package; is he releasing it?

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4: Response to Task list for new OpenACS.org (response to 1)
Posted by Gilbert Wong on 03/05/02 02:52 AM
Yes, I will release the code after I clean it up.  I also want to write up some documentation for the package(s).  I want to discuss the overall architecture and cite the reasons for my design decisions.  I provided sufficient documentation in the code and data models so that a seasoned OpenACS developer should be able to understand it and modify it easily.
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5: Response to Task list for new OpenACS.org (response to 1)
Posted by Jun Yamog on 03/05/02 05:12 AM
Hi Talli,

Although I am bit swapped right now I can not commit.  I maybe able to help regarding the home page and news section.  On the homepage you can can look at www.infiniteinfo.com and they have the same functions that you are looking for.  I am pretty familiar with news packages and I believe that the news section the news modules should be used.  I may help but I can not commit right now.

Jun

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6: Response to Task list for new OpenACS.org (response to 1)
Posted by Tilmann Singer on 03/25/02 12:03 AM
I just wanted to ask (respectively suggest) if the new site is going to be managed in CVS, with a vendor import of the toolkit sources like described e.g. in this ASJ article at Arsdigita?

Possibly with an openacs_org-production tag that could be used to activate changes? (I don't think we would need staging.)